Desk audit leading to revoking of Cert

sydthebeat

Had a desk audit recently which resulted in the auditor revoking the Cert.
Audit severity 1 so no penalty points appropriated.

This doesnt sit well with me.

i have my own way of doing a survey... I record vents, stats, LELs etc all on the survey drawinsg page.... as i think the room by room page is a complete mess and a nighmare to use along side the diagram survey page.
I always them write the totals on the survey sheet (ie 12 of 24 LELs = 50% etc)

yet the audits says vents, LELs etc not recorded ... and theres a change inputted by the auditor.. referreing to default values in the methodology.

others small things like "over shading on rooflight inputted as little or none, but no overshading recorded"... and a change inputted by the auditor.

i will admit, i didnt bother questioning any of these as my time is not worth the hassle.... but im surprised that a cert would be revoked based on a second hand assessment of my survey, by an auditor who hasnt seen the premises....


doesnt sit well with me at all.....

Gumbo

Is there a recourse or appeal of some sort?

sydthebeat

kceire wrote: »

Is there a recourse or appeal of some sort?

Yeah I could have appealled but to be honest with no Penally points applied I didn't think it worth the hassle.

I guess I'm just surprised that a cert can be revoked basically by proxy

descol

Syd - Did the rating change ?

sydthebeat

descol wrote: »

Syd - Did the rating change ?

yes it did, thus the cert is revoked.

sydthebeat

The second page of the survey form
was not provided. Details of the number
of intermittent fans and passive vents
were not provided. Default intermittent
fans and passive vents= 3 (wet rooms)
versus 2 entered in DEAP by the
Assessor. Please refer to Section 2 and
Appendix S of the DEAP manual and
the Survey Guide.

this is typical of what i mean.

i recorded the vents on my survey..... i can read it no problem.

are all surveys supposed to be taken in a homogeneous manner??
because thats not how i was taught it when i did the course. I was taught that i should be able to pick up a survey form 10 years later an still be able to read it, which i can.....

ive seen auditors surveys which are very much unique to them as well....

its a strange one.

Metric Tensor

Late to this one.

That's complete bullsh1te of the highest order syd. Harks back to the days of assessors getting penalty points because they didn't write their name and assessor number of the top of each of the their own survey pages!

It would SERIOUSLY annoy me to get this but having said that it would not be worth my time or hassle following it up if no penalty points arose.

I could be corrected on this but I don't think it is mandatory to use the SEAI's survey form - and if it is it shows how little of clue they have of the real world. If you have the data recorded and readable the format should be irrelevant.

The auditors themselves are tendering for these audits on a tight margin and are overseen by the same bureaucratic nonsense that pervades the entire BER scheme so they may feel under pressure to identify a certain number of "non-compliances"

sydthebeat

yeah, i was trained that once the assessor can pick up their survey years after and read it, than thats what was required.

SEAIs current survey form doesnt even have a page to do your survey plans on !!!
https://www.seai.ie/resources/forms/DEAP_Survey_Form.pdf

i had to make a mash up of their earliest survey form, which was good.... with their more recent ones.

its not worth the hassle to be honest.

on the audits.... theyve gone from giving me site audits last year, to desk audits this year... 3 desk audits in the last 4 months.

the next audit i have (got word last week) is an early ICF house with HP and MHRV... should be fun !!!

caesarthechimp

Presumably the cert was near the borderline between one rating and another, but then a lot of them are.
I agree their survey form is a mess, and its better to use your own. But then the onus is on you to explain your own survey form to the auditor, as if you are dealing with a small child. That's what I do anyway, and it has worked so far.
Only problem is, it means the audit responses take a long time to complete.

Metric Tensor

caesarthechimp wrote: »

Only problem is, it means the audit responses take a long time to complete.

This is my problem - the time investment for an audit vs the miniscule profit margin for doing a BER in the first place is disproportionate. I'm trying to "price it in" of late which means I'm not cheap - but that doesn't bother me hugely.

sydthebeat

Metric Tensor wrote: »

This is my problem - the time investment for an audit vs the miniscule profit margin for doing a BER in the first place is disproportionate. I'm trying to "price it in" of late which means I'm not cheap - but that doesn't bother me hugely.

completely agreed.

Any "unsolicitoed" requested that come in for BERs I quote high and its really no loss if i dont get it.

The BER im being audited on at the moment i quoted €450 for, and with the audit included ill barely break even (existing house, 370 sq m, 3 storey, ICF build, HP, MHRV, basement etc)

Mostly the BERs im doing are add-ons to certs of compliance etc where they can be done on the day as well.