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The trades are occupations that require specialized skills, technical knowledge, and hands on experience such as electricians, plumbers, carpenters, HVAC technicians, etc. In your area, there is a labour pool of certified Tradesmen and another labour pool of uncertified workers. The certified Tradesman are regulated and will be working to the Construction Standards or to industry standard, while the uncertified worker are not regulated and only working to personal standards. These two pools are not limitless and the good Tradesmen will work for builders that offer the best financial remuneration. Your home was built by a collection of trades and workers all employed by the builder. The Builder can choose to hire Tradesmen and augment his workforce with the cheaper option of uncertified workers. During the construction of your home, it was up to the builder to verify that everyone working are meeting the required standards. This role is usually the site supervisor and he would have to be knowledgeable in all activities of the trades. The County or City understand that the need of the builder was to construct a home on a timeline, and that quality may not be a high priority. This is why we have Municipal building inspectors, they check the work being done and verify that your home was built to the building standards. It has only been recently that the Municipal Inspector can be held liable for missing deficiencies or allowing subpar workmanship. In the past, most building inspectors would spend 15 minutes inspecting your home at each stage of the construction process. In some situations, they would spend time inspecting one house in a new subdivision and assume that the same quality of work was being done on all the houses. This is changing so that any modifications to your house require a building permit to be obtained.
Recent litigation against Municipality for not enforcing the Building Code -
.https://www.tslawyers.ca/blog/blog/ontario-court-finds-township-liable-in-construction-law-feud/
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Standard are documents written by a committee of people in the industry to present a common practice or “standard of operation”. Only when the standard is adopted by the government can it be called a Code (equal to a Law). The Government may also appoint an organization to oversee the industry, such as TSSA and ESA.
The Ontario Building Code covers Construction and Plumbing Practices, the Ontario Electrical Code covers electrical construction practices and Ontario Gas Codes cover gas installation and venting. All three codes above are actually created by committee of the Provinces and adopted into "law” with addendums or modification particular to each province by the sitting provincial government. This means that anyone working in the gas industry or as an electrician likely only knows the Codes for their particular province. To make things even more complicated there can be a delay in implementing the codes. In particular, the newest Building Code is developed by the committee of the provinces as the Canadian Building Code 2020, then each Province will adopt the Building Code version 2020 with modifications particular to that Province and call it Building Code 2022 because it takes them 2 years to agree on modification. However, this is not the code that builders use as each Corporation (County or City) will adopt a Building Code after the province makes modifications, and they’ve added their own modifications, allowances or more restrictions. With each level of government the time implement the Building Code used by a Builder is like an older version. For example the building code adopted for your house being built in 2025 will be built to the 2015 or older version of the Ontario Building Code which is actually the 2013 or older version of the Canadian Building Code.
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In Ontario, the Home Inspection Industry is not regulated. Legislation has been drafted but has never been made into a law. The draft would make the Ontario Association of Home Inspectors (OAHI) the only association allowed to operate in Ontario and the organization regulating the industry. Currently there are a variety of Associations working in Ontario, each with their own Standard of Practices and (Standard) Code of Ethics. Being a home owner or buyer, you should understand what documents are used to regulate the home inspector.
Options are:
Canadian Association of Home & Property Inspector - National Standards of Practice
American Society of Home Inspectors
CanNACHI (Code of Ethics and Standards of Practice)
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I took the Carson Dunlop Home Inspection courses. There were 704 lessons in 330 hours of training, 30 hours of seminars, and 18 examinations in 10 areas of study:
Air Conditioning and heat pumps;
Heating systems;
Interior systems;
Insulation and vapor barriers;
Plumbing systems;
Exterior Systems;
Structural Systems;
Electrical Systems;
Roofing Systems; and
Professional Practices.
Each area of study consisted of assessments; cases studies, a midterm examination, and a final exam. I was required to have a 70% minimum in each of the assessment areas. My average for the 10 area was 85.5% with a standard deviation of 2.6%. Even though I received high marks, this does not make me an expert on everything but rather a generalist or a jack of all trades.