The Specificity of National Building-2

Peculiarities of the national construction today are characterized not only by mentality. One of several problems is the legal vacuum, where the construction industry is now. At time when it is updating SNiPs and are currently undergoing discussions to how we will relate to the Eurocodes and correspond with them; we are in the midst of a complete change in the regulatory framework; and also determining the direction what the construction industry in Russia is going to be; the time when Institutions involved in the development of normative documents in construction, de facto ceased to exist – once again I would like to raise the question of the responsibility of decision-makers who is in fact, directly or indirectly responsible for the safety and longevity of constructed buildings.

Before we start talking about very specific element of building construction – Curtain Wall Facades (CWF), let me recall another truth: the builders (including major builders – architects) have always been a separate caste. I’m not saying that the builder – the oldest profession, but one of the oldest, it certainly is. And all the principles affirmed in some way, by the experience of thousands of years, always, at all times, are reflected in the performance of the real construction.

With Russia joining the WTO our laws must have a legal adjustment with Western standards. Analyzing foreign experience, we understand that security requirements and responsibilities in the newly adopted documents will be much tighter than the old standards. Introduction of financial liability in addition to criminal will become the main difference. The major role is to play the insurance companies.

Thus, in the laws regulating construction activities in Russia, everything seems very clear – responsible persons for all technical decisions made at the construction site, are the General Planner and technical customer. Accordingly, the choice of construction CWF (remember – an important building construction, the collapse of which may cause human victims) is to be ruthless monitored and verified.

But in life we are often faced with a completely different approach: the choice of the CW is not depended on General Planner, but based on the desire of the customerinvestor, interested in minimization of financial costs, or it is given to the General Contractor to select the “company that will produce the work”.

The choice of such a company is often done when the building is almost built. And this approach leads to the financing of such finishing operations as a façade cladding, a residual, since all the general contractor has already spent all the money allocated to it by contract, for the additional works, arisen during the construction process.

In this case it’s a good luck , if the design of the facade makes a system company, which has on it the appropriate admission SRO (which happens quite rarely) and experience, and the very engineering design of it is performed by competent professionals using research data (which happens even less often). As a rule, projects are made on the basis of model schemes developed without reference to a specific of building, by people attracted by the regular employment contract.

In this case, the design is making “for free”, that means its alleged value is to be included in the substructure total price). This leads to the fact that they start to tighten the purse strings on the projecting. Low level of the project, issued in such a way “in production”, is obvious. This almost always leads to a number of serious problems that could result in a breach of security. Too often, we facade-makers, face in contracting for work with the phrase: “Will your facade stand for 5 years?” Excellent! Then we just would finish the guarantee of the building. And why not, if all happens at your own risk!

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TEXT BY EUGENIE TSYIKANOVSKY,
CAND. TECH. SC., DIAT GROUP’S CHAIRMAN OF BOARD,
PHOTOS BY DIAT