The construction industry is a mysterious place sometimes and can seem impenetrably complex and inaccessible to those looking at it from outside. Those who exist within the bubble are familiar with the natural order of things and lines of responsibility are usually pretty straight.

This whimsical introduction may be a bit frivolous, but I think its relatable and accurate as far as it goes. Well it held true until we started thinking about the progression of responsibilities inside the Ground Gas Protection industry. Ground gas investigations and conceptual site modelling is the domain of the geotechnical engineers, and systems are delivered by competent contractors using highly effective products that are then inspected by an independent verifier.

We undertook an anonymised poll to find out more

But. Who is the designer? At what point is a final detail design established and who takes responsibility for it? These were two questions that came to mind when trying to understand all the possible links in the chain of ground gas protection delivery.

To get under the skin of some of these apparently simple questions, we undertook an anonymised poll of the members of the PCAs Ground Gas Protection Group. The poll included responses from product suppliers, contractors, verifiers and consultants in the sector and asked asked a small number of very simple questions.

Q1: What service do you or your company provide in relation to ground gas protection?

Specification, detail design and installation were the primary responses. This may reflect the fact that there are more contractors answering the survey than verifiers, suppliers, or geotechnical engineers, but significantly product specification and the provision of detail design ranked higher than installation.

Q2: To whom do you consider you owe a ‘Duty of Care’ for the service you or your company provide?

Respondents identified their primary duties are owed to the main contractor and the end user of the building. The developer came next with the gas protection installer, the verifier and the site risk assessor trailing some way behind these. When we look closer at the responses it was clear that everyone in the process understands that they owe duties of care to several partners in what can be a multi-linked chain.

Q3: What responsibilities/liabilities do you believe remain with you (or your company) after the construction phase has been completed and the building is in use?

These were written answers and though no statistical patterns can be drawn from the responses, what is clear is that almost every respondent understood that they had a responsibility to produce a service that was “effective” and “fit for purpose”. Many respondents were keen to note that they could only be responsible for what they had done, and one respondent suggested that they had no liability once materials had been delivered to site.

Q4: Do you carry Professional Indemnity Insurance?

85% of respondents confirmed that they do indeed carry professional indemnity (PI) insurance. As PI insurance is primarily purchased to indemnify people against giving negligent advice, these results seem to clearly indicate that respondents understand that their liabilities go further than the products they leave on site.

What were the conclusions?

The questions were simple and the pool of respondents very small, so we have to take what we found from this very unscientific poll with a good dose of pragmatism. That said, one thing seems clear. Despite some public reluctance to acknowledge liability for design and detail design almost every respondent when polled acknowledges that they do it and that the work carries liability. What’s more, they insure themselves against the risk of negligent advice.

One detail in the poll showed that a greater number of respondents considered that they specify product rather than design systems. Perhaps we should go on to explore the difference between these two activities, and ask how the designer sets a plan without knowing the products that are to be used and, follow on with trying to examine how a specifier knows what to recommend without a detailed design?

PCA members are firmly in control

I have to admit that I have been hung up on this issue of detail design liability in ground gas protection for months. It seems that I needn’t have sweated this quite so hard – it appears that the high quality of the service providers we are attracting into membership of the PCAs Ground Gas Protection Group are managing and discharging a multitude of liabilities very effectively, and insuring themselves appropriately.

Remember to keep in the loop…

Find out the latest news instantly by following the PCA via our social media channels: