Resources

REGULATION 126: CERTIFICATE OF COMPLIANCE - DESIGN

A Certificate of Compliance is a document that is regulated by the Victorian Building Authority and is referred to as “Regulation 126: Certificate of Compliance – Design”. The Victorian Building Authority administers Victoria’s building legislation system. The document is a statement made by the engineer (us) to the Building Surveyor that all structural design works have been carried out in accordance with the Building Act 1993, the Building Regulations 2018, the National Construction Code and the relevant Australian Standards.

In order to complete your Building Permit application, your Building Surveyor may request a Certificate of Compliance from us pertaining to your proposed development. This document gives you and your Building Surveyor confidence that all design work has been completed by us to the required standards as set by the Victorian Building Authority.

Together with the Certificate of Compliance, three sets of all design and drawing documentation must be provided to the Building Surveyor. Each and every document must be certified with a structural adequacy approval and signed and dated by a Registered Building Practitioner of the category and class ‘Civil Engineer’ (us). These documents may be issued in hard copy or digital format.

Once the Building Surveyor approves the Building Permit application, one complete set of the certified documentation is forwarded to each of the applicant (person applying for the building permit) and the local Council. The third set is retained by the Building Surveyor.

You will be charged a “Certificate of Compliance” fee when a request has been made by your Building Surveyor to produce this document.

We need to know the name and address of your Building Surveyor before a Certificate of Compliance can be issued. The time that elapses between us completing design works and you or your builder applying for a Building Permit can vary considerably from project to project. In view of this, please understand that we may issue you a separate account for the Certificate of Compliance many weeks or months after we have completed our design works – depending on when the certification is actually requested.

OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY POLICY

Commitment

The CSE Group recognizes its moral and legal responsibility, in particular to the Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) Act 2004, to provide a safe and healthy work environment for employees, customers, visitors and contractors. This commitment extends to ensuring the organizations operations do not place the local community at risk of injury or illness.

Goals and Objectives

The CSE Group will:

provide safe equipment and systems of work,
provide written procedures and instructions where required to ensure safe systems of work,
ensure compliance with legislative requirements and current industry standards,
provide information, instructions, training and supervision to employees, customers, visitors and contractors to ensure their safety, and
provide support and assistance to employees and opportunities to be involved in consultation on safety issues

Responsibilities

The CSE Group recognizes that management has the overall responsibility to provide a safe workplace. Each management representative will be held accountable for implementing this policy.

Management’s responsibilities include:

providing and maintaining the workplace in a safe condition,
ensuring all OHS policies and procedures are implemented,
actively promoting and being involved in those policies and procedures,
providing the resources to meet their OHS commitment.

Employees will ensure that they:

follow all OHS policies and procedures,
report all hazards to management,
carry out work in a manner so as not to create a health and safety hazard to yourself or others,
use correct equipment for the task at hand.

Consultation

The organization has total commitment to encouraging consultation and cooperation between management and employees. It will formally involve all personnel in any workplace change that will affect the health and safety of employees in the workplace.

SITE CLASSIFICATION or SOIL TEST

Soil testing takes place in the early stages of a new building or an extension project, where a series of soil samples are taken from the proposed building site. The soil profile of each site varies from location to location, so it is very important to have a soil investigation report conducted by a competent geo-technical engineer before any foundation design can be performed and before construction commences on the site.

The soil investigation report is required to indicate the site classification, soil reactivity, bearing capacity of the founding soils, recommended founding depths for building footings and indicate any abnormal site conditions.

The site classification is a grading system for each site based on soil reactivity and any abnormal site conditions and typically refers to well established criteria in AS2870: Residential slabs and footings.

Soil reactivity refers to responsive the soil on the site is to changes in soil moisture and is an indicator of predicted movement of the soils (shrink and swell) when soil moisture levels change. This movement will have an impact on the proposed building and how it is designed to minimize the effects of soil reactivity.

Bearing capacity is the measurement of strength of the soil to support imposed loads from structures placed upon it. This is required to be able to design for structural footings economically.

The recommended founding depth is required to enable accurate design and costing for the structural footings before works can commence.

Abnormal site conditions are typically issues that are present on the proposed site or nearby that may give rise to adverse effects on the building in a way that is highly variable or less predictable. Examples of abnormal site conditions include but are not limited to trees, leaking pipes, previous disturbances to the soils, filled sites and highly variable water infiltration. It is important to note that abnormal effects can be caused by conditions beyond the subject site and a fence line is not a barrier to abnormal effects.

Soil investigation reports conducted by the CSE Group will contain all the above information comprehensively to enable the most efficient design for the proposed structure based on the site conditions.

STRUCTURAL REPORTS

Structural engineering reports are requested for a variety of reasons, usually with the aim of assessing the structural integrity of an existing building that has undergone some form of dilapidation or sustained damage. Common forms of damage include footing movement, structural cracking, water entry, fire damage, insect or fungal attack and accidental damage from impact. Buildings also deteriorate over time due to external effects from the environment, UV exposure, lack of maintenance, industry effects and pollutants,

Investigations and structural reports are usually performed by a qualified engineer with many years experience, and the investigation should identify, evaluate and provide recommendations to the needs of the structure or foundation repair based on inspection of the property at the particular point in time. Such investigations may be brief or extensive, depending on the situation as every building has it's own unique set of circumstances that effect the structure.

The CSE Group has competent and highly qualified engineers with extensive experience and provide numerous investigations and reports annually to private clients, insurance companies and local authorities in order to formulate a path forward for economical remedial works, future maintenance and construction.