We use cookies to enhance your browsing experience, serve personalized ads or content, and analyze our traffic. By clicking "Accept All", you consent to our use of cookies.
Customize Consent Preferences
We use cookies to help you navigate efficiently and perform certain functions. You will find detailed information about all cookies under each consent category below.
The cookies that are categorized as "Necessary" are stored on your browser as they are essential for enabling the basic functionalities of the site. ...
Always Active
Necessary cookies are required to enable the basic features of this site, such as providing secure log-in or adjusting your consent preferences. These cookies do not store any personally identifiable data.
No cookies to display.
Functional cookies help perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collecting feedback, and other third-party features.
No cookies to display.
Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics such as the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.
No cookies to display.
Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.
No cookies to display.
Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with customized advertisements based on the pages you visited previously and to analyze the effectiveness of the ad campaigns.
Selfbuild had asked the Department to clarify a statement that self-builders “presumably” showed signs of “non-compliance with regulations”.
The Department of Housing’s George Hussey told Selfbuild his comments had been made in January when the department was still “early in the process of reconciling data sets” from Building Control Management System commencement notices, planning permissions, ESB connections and Building Energy Rating data.
He said the comments were “speculative” and presented a “tentative conclusion”.
The BER data that is currently published does not go into great detail about one-off houses; Hussey clarified he had gotten access to more detailed statistics, as below:
He used two categories within the BER data as proxies for one-off houses, Detached House (H2) and House (H1) with yearc referring to the year in which the house was built.
Hussey said that considering the number of commencement notices issued, there had not been enough BER certificates produced, indicating that some self-builders may not be getting their BER certificates done up as is required by law.
Building Control Management System (BCMS) data is only available for two full years. One-off housing commencement notices for 2015 stood at 3,111 and at 4,012 in 2016.
There is likely to be a shortfall in that some builds could take longer than a year to build or could have started late in the year, but the difference is significant enough to remind self-builders there is a legal requirement to get a Building Energy Rating done before moving in.
Selfbuild understands there is currently no need to file a BER certificate on BCMS, which could explain why some self-builders may not be aware of this requirement.
Hussey said he no longer believed there to be an issue with the number of commencement notices filed, as he originally implied in his email correspondence to the CSO.