Digital tools key to ensuring housebuilder quality

A consultation into the draft New Homes Quality Code has been published by the New Homes Quality Board (NHQB).

The Code will sit at the centre of the new arrangements being put in place by the NHQB that includes the appointment of an independent New Homes Ombudsman Service (NHOS). In development for four years, it has had input from a broad range of stakeholders and takes into consideration other emerging policy including on leasehold and building safety, all of which the NHQB is committed to supporting.

The consultation will run for four weeks (from June 9 to July 7) and the NHQB is encouraging as many stakeholders, customers and interested parties as possible to respond. 

Tom Boland, Global Head of Digitalisation at Zutec, said the Code will dramatically increase build standards and involve a hand-in-glove approach linking the physical build and digital worlds. 

"Housebuilders will need to adopt the total capability of digital tools to check quality, have a digital footprint and allow homeowners to fully understand how their house has been built, and easily understand any defects that need rectifying," he said. "Residents will benefit from safer, better constructed homes and housebuilders will benefit from improved productivity and lower costs from fully implementing technology."

Rating the States 2021 edition issued

A strong building code is critical to reducing the damage and destruction caused by hurricanes each year. On the first day of the Atlantic hurricane season, the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS) today released the 2021 edition of Rating the States, its signature report evaluating building codes and the administration of code provisions along the hurricane coastline from Texas to Maine.

Now in its fourth edition, Rating the States is released every three years following the building code update cycle of the International Code Council (ICC).

The report scores the 18 Atlantic and Gulf Coast states vulnerable to hurricanes based on a set of questions related to statewide building code adoption, administration and enforcement and contractor licensing requirements in the adopted building code. It also provides a roadmap each state can follow to improve residential building regulations and reduce the cycle of repeated losses resulting from hurricanes and other severe weather events.

"Building science has advanced significantly over the last decade, providing cost effective strategies to reduce the impact of Mother Nature. Modern building codes are core to addressing the known risks of high winds and heavy rain that invariably come with these systems," says Dr. Anne Cope, chief engineer at IBHS. "Strong adopted and administered codes apply the latest science and engineering knowledge to protect homes and families from the catastrophic damage hurricanes bring and make our coastal communities more resilient for the future."

The Linux Foundation, the non-profit organization enabling mass innovation through open source, will host the Intelligent Supervision Assistant for Construction (ISAC-SIMO) project, which was created by Build Change with a grant from IBM as part of the Call for Code initiative. ISAC-SIMO packages important construction quality assurance checks into a convenient mobile app. 

Turn to page 78 of the current issue to read more from Boland on how field BIM is a "game changer" for the industry