The BCA is an integrate part of the building process in Western Australia.

The Australian Building Codes Board (ABCB). The BCA prescribes the design and construction of buildings achieve nationally consistent, minimum standards aligned to the performance requirements in the BCA.

The ABCB states, the BCA is ' the technical provision of design and construction to buildings'.

The BCA does not prescribe how a product is made or created.

The BCA does not cover workmanship in the physical construction of a building.

We believe the BCA should be used as intended to create innovative formative design in working drawings with flexibility in the use of materials and forms of construction and approved by a Building Surveyor from the local statutory authority with a building licence.

The BCA does not directly cover a balcony or floor waste on a main bathroom floor, but we all know balconies are constructed and floor wastes are installed in wet-area bathroom/ laundry/ toilet and balcony floors to drain surface water into the designated floor waste to prevent water accumulating in the building and damaging building elements.

The BCA covers the performance requirement of building work and does not cover the workmanship or practised skills that results in the tangible physical building.

We believe a tiled floor could achieve the BCA performance requirement if water flows across the floor surface and into the floor waste without ponding.

The BCA performance requirements does not cover lipping tiles or tiles with chipped edges or fractures in the tiles or crazing in the tile glaze or the grout joints are not straight or grouting is rough untooled and discoloured. None of these defect faults are covered directly in the BCA.

The BCA performance requirements should be identified in the construction drawings and specifications for building approval by the local statutory authority. For example, BCAv2 3.8.1.10 Wet-floors the performance requirement is to ensure surface water flows to the floor waste without ponding. Hence, a statement is included into the construction drawings and/or the attached specifications to this objective.

When the drawings and specifications are approved for construction a major role of the BCA is completed.

Building workers then take the approved construction drawings and specifications and with workmanship skill create in a sequential order of actions the construction of the building. Building work should ensure conformity to the BCA performance requirements in the construction of tangible building elements using relevant AS codes and competent trade (workmanship) skills.

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