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BUILDING CONNECTION
SUMMER 2016
THE CASE FOR SCIENCE V CONFLICT
N
ext year my colleagues and I will inspect our
100,000th building. We have seen millions of
surprisingly stupid mistakes and defects. And, in so
many cases, the cost of doing the work properly in the first
place was minimal and any stuff up was unintentional. Many
times the contractor wanted to fix the problem properly but
wasn’t able to because he didn’t know how to or suppliers and
manufacturers were the real villains or just didn’t help him. So
the client and every eventual owner and manager have had to
maintain or put up with something that was made badly and
continued to cause problems, cost or inconvenience.
And it still goes on. For four decades I have watched
governments let the same problems reoccur and there is
little or no strategy from the many industry associations
and professional institutes about how to prevent faults
and defects, except for engineers of course. Errors create
problems. Little problems easily escalate into a complaint
and conflict fans a complaint into a dispute. Conflict doesn’t
work. It is unproductive, negative and costing Australia a
fortune. Consumers and contractors rarely recover from a
minor, let alone major building dispute.
JERRY TYRRELL
EXPLAINS HOW THE FUNDAMENTALS OF SCIENCE CAN BE APPLIED TO THE BUILDING INDUSTRY
WHEN IT COMES TO CONFLICT PREVENTION AND SOLUTION.
GUNS FOR HIRE
Peter Ellis, my best mate in building, has seen just about everything.
Pete is a very wise person who could have been a University
Professor if his teachers realised how competent and clear thinking
he was, even though he read slowly. I’m not alone in admiring this
wonderful carpenter trained builder. In a recent Supreme Court case
the Judge wrote “Mr Ellis was an impressive and restrained witness.
He was entirely untouched in cross examination.”
Peter’s comment about disputes is simple, “Too often, everyone
loses sight of what both parties want – getting a problem fixed
properly.”
CPD ACADEMY
JERRY TYRRELL