Building Commissioner's safety worries at Dunmore owner-builder homes

Building Commissioner David Chandler inspected some homes under construction at Dunmore, near Shellharbour Junction station.

One under construction by an owner-builder left him less than impressed, with "pretty ordinary" brickwork where mortar was not properly applied, a lack of flashing around windows, a missing site toilet and a shortage of handrails on the first floor.

Mr Chandler said the Building Commission didn't have the same powers when it came to owner-builders as they did with professional builders - that authority tended to rest with certifiers.

And he wanted them to make sure they used those powers.

"We've got to be careful that we don't allow them to create two classes of houses," Mr Chandler said.

"One for the mainstream industry and one for owner-builders. Owner-builders are perhaps the least sophisticated builders that there are.

"What they do is they build a house and then ultimately, they sell it on. And the incoming purchaser assumes that it was built by a normal builder, not an owner-builder.

"So it's a bit of an area that we've got to see tidied up."

For owner-builders the more immediate issue is safety; Mr Chandler citing the lack of handrails on the first floor of one owner-builder construction.

"You're up on the first floor, there's no handrails around quite a number of the openings," Mr Chandler said.

"So you can actually just fall straight through. The message here is that owner-builders really need to understand that they're liable. They shouldn't just be cutting corners because they can get away with it."

Also, for Mr Chandler problems with safety are an indicator of much bigger issues.

"The point I want to make here is that where we see unsafe sites, we are guaranteed to see non-compliant building works - absolutely guaranteed," he said.

"On the sites we saw down in Dunmore that were under construction, there were safety issues on all of them and Safe Work had a field day issuing improvement notices and, and I understand they issued one prohibition order."

Aside from delays caused by the need to improve safety problems, there's a more pressing issue owner-builders needed to recognise.

"What they need to understand is that they are the responsible person under the Safe Work Act," Mr Chandler said.

"They need to be very careful because if a serious injury occurs on one of their sites, they're responsible person under the Safe Work legislation."