Control of Finished Work – Final Quality Inspection in a Social Housing Project

Abstract

Social housing is often associated to buildings of low quality level; however it is important to have objective elements to verify this question so the control of thefinished work constitutes a good quality measure. This study presents and evaluates the problems found in a typical social housing project funded under the Brazilianhousing program Minha Casa, Minha Vida, built in São Leopoldo, a city on southern Brazil. The work was monitored during the last six months of its final phase ofexecution. The inspection reports of the completed work were analyzed and observations were proposed directly at the construction site. The first owner’s inspectionreached about 64% failure. In some cases, it took four attempts to finally obtain the owner’s acceptance. Analyzing data collected we concluded that windows,doors and ceramic coverings were a major source of complaints, reaching more than 77% of the problems pointed out in the inspections. The failures detected in thisproject were caused by problems related to workmanship, lack of quality of materials and the components used, as well as insufficient quality checks of the servicesperformed. We observed the need to improve quality controls although the building firm had a certification by PBQP-H (a Brazilian certify similar to the ISO 9000).The correct procedures were defined on quality documentation but they were not followed.