Upcoming quality assurance law (WKB)

What exactly will be introduced with the Quality Assurance Act?

Under the new Environment Act / Building Quality Assurance Act (Wkb), an independent quality assurance agency will be in charge of evaluating building plans. This quality assurance contractor ensures that upon completion, a structure complies with the prescribed rules(Building Code 2012).

Risk analysis

Prior to construction work, a risk analysis is required that the quality assurance contractor uses for the assurance plan. This analysis should show the risks that the end result will not meet building codes. These regulations are described in Chapters 4 (for new construction) and 5 (for conversions) of the Building Works Decree (Bbl). These rules form the basis for evaluating risks. Extra attention is required for elements that are not visible after completion of construction, such as reinforcement or insulation.

The risk analysis should also include the following points:

• Alternative measures (if any) must be well substantiated
• specific rules in the environmental plan related to sustainability, energy efficiency
• regulations in the environmental plan for extinguishing facilities and accessibility for emergency services, and their coordination with the fire department
• rules in the environmental plan related to aesthetics, monuments or site function
• customization requirements
• specific local conditions

These points are relevant only if they relate to the building regulations in Chapter 4 or 5 of the Bbl.

The quality assurance contractor must identify the construction risks himself. The quality assurance engineer then assesses and determines what measures are needed to avoid or mitigate these risks. Other parties involved in construction, such as contractors or municipalities, can help in this regard by presenting or jointly discussing risks.

Borgingsplan

Before starting construction work, the quality assurance contractor must prepare an assurance plan, as described in Article 3.80 of the Quality of the Living Environment Decree (Bkl). This plan should be based on the risk analysis made earlier.

The assurance plan should state:

what measures are needed to prevent or reduce the identified risks how the design of the building plan and the execution of the work meet the building regulations of the Bbl (in chapters 4 and 5) at what times quality assurance is carried out.

The assurance plan must also describe at least the following:

• how the plan came about
• The nature and extent of quality assurance to be performed
• the persons responsible for quality assurance
• How the various aspects of the building plan will be evaluated coherently
• How integral is the assessment of whether the work meets the requirements of chapters 4 and 5 of the Bbl
• when and in which cases the assurance plan is updated what standards or quality statements are applied in the construction work
• what specific work will at least be assessed by the quality assurance contractor, taking into account local conditions when other quality assurance systems are considered for certain work

Requirements for the quality assurance contractor

A quality assurance professional must have current knowledge, training and experience in:

• Preparing risk analyses according to the requirements of Chapters 4 and 5 of the Building Works Environment Decree (Bbl)
• general coordination of quality assurance
• structural safety
• fire safety building physics installations
• construction control

This is stipulated in Article 3.83 of the Bkl.

A quality assurance contractor must be registered in the government register according to Article 10.26e of the Environment Decree.

Allowed instruments

A quality assurance professional performs checks based on authorized quality assurance tools. An instrument is a system that ensures that structures ready for use meet at least the requirements of the Bbl.An instrument describes how supervision (quality assurance) should be set up and carried out. The tool must meet legal requirements and must be allowed in the system before a quality assurance contractor can use it.

In practice: what next?

For next year, it is limited to the Consequence Class 1 to meet the quality assurance requirement and this will be implemented for new construction first. This does not include retail properties or retail properties. Non-residential buildings up to 2 stories do. And remodeling in time, too. If the preparation of long-running projects that may fall outside Consequence Class 1 is started now, it is smart to prepare now what file will have to be delivered later. NewArmstrong can help with that: we can identify what information belongs in the file and how to document it in such a way that we can also show that it was determined and recorded at the right time.