Housing in Southern Africa October-November 2016

IBT s

Measures Act is checking for an Agré- ment Certificate or rational design as- sessment. The Agrément Certificate is generally accepted as the best known way of ensuring relevant attributes have been complied with due to its broad assessment. Certification implies that attri- butes of performance (in terms of the National Building Regulation), habit- ability and the Quality Management System have been assessed. The performance parameters in- clude fitness for purpose of materials, behaviour in fire, structural perfor- mance, water penetration and rising damp, thermal performance and en- ergy usage, condensation, acoustics durability and quality management. In this study the results of the inspec- tions of IBT as-built houses and com- pared to the theoretical expectations of the Agrément certification. The Department of Human Settle- ments is still sceptical on the imple- mentation of IBT houses as they have to date not been well-accepted by relevant beneficiaries. The issues raised by Human Set- tlement’s department are due to structural problems, possible high construction costs, poor accessibility to the supplier, lack of proper main- tenance plans, and lack of inspection skills. Besides these factors, it needs to be highlighted that innovation is slower in housing than in other industries. Two measures commonly used to support this argument are the industry’s small investments in research and development and the long adoption/diffusion times for new technologies. Other challenges to innovation frequently cited by the industry include the industry’s complex and fragmented structure; its highly competitive and risky nature; the dif- ficulty in accessing and sharing infor- mation; local variation in regulatory innovative building systems produced locally to contain costs.’ ʻHuman Settlements aims to encourage the use of

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