The phone call comes from a facilities manager. He’s running through the year-end report and he tells us — without irony — that his roof inspections are done by the window cleaners. “They’re up there anyway.”
The roof is six years old. The membrane warranty is forty. The building is residential.
The box has been ticked. The box has not been ticked.
The box does not get ticked
Manufacturer warranties and NHBC-style guarantees require biannual inspections by competent persons. Competent has a specific meaning. A window cleaner does not satisfy it. An inspection by an incompetent person is no inspection at all, and the warranty obligation has not been discharged.
That isn’t a technicality. When a claim is made, the first thing the insurer or the warranty provider asks for is the inspection record. If the record cannot stand up to scrutiny, the cover does not stand up either.
The Building Safety Act has changed the position
Since April 2024 the Building Safety Act 2022 is fully in force. The legal duty is now explicit: anyone working on a building must be competent — knowledge, skills, experience and behaviours. A window cleaner does not meet that bar, and neither does the rope-access technician sent up to clean the gutters.
The duty falls on the duty holder. That is the building owner, the principal designer, the principal contractor. It does not transfer to the inspector by virtue of having sent them up.
What a competent inspector actually looks for
We were called to a residential scheme in Greenwich. The building had a regular inspection report from the previous provider, year after year, all clean. We were asked for a second opinion after a leak appeared on the top floor.
The previous inspector’s photographs — submitted with each report — clearly showed membrane splits at three positions. Those splits had been photographed and not identified. The roof had been failing in plain sight for three years.
We found seven defects in one visit.
What to look for in a competent inspector
- NVQ Level 3 in waterproofing inspection
- A demonstrable track record in roofing and waterproofing
- Membership of RAWTA
- Inspection reports written to a standard that would survive a guarantee claim or a Building Safety Act investigation
What good PPM looks like
The difference between good and bad PPM is not cost. It’s what happens between visits, and what happens after a finding. A small defect caught at the autumn inspection costs hundreds to remedy. The same defect found after a winter of leaks costs tens of thousands.
Sensors change the equation
Permanent sensor monitoring removes the dependency on episodic visits. Between inspections the roof is monitored continuously. The inspection itself becomes a verification of what the data already says, rather than a discovery exercise.
That is what good PPM looks like in 2026.
Talk to Vector about competent inspection, or permanent sensor monitoring.