Dead End

I had a Practice Support Group meeting last night, & stuck around to chat with colleagues after.

It was an interesting presentation by a supplier/manufacturer, talking about their in-house code compliance testing - structure, fire, water-proofing. Learnt some things I didn't know, including that their main products are actually pretty eco, which surprised me. The presenter also told us that the same company & the same product has 3 pages of technical information in Australia, compared to 50 in New Zealand. This likely has something to do with why construction in NZ is more expensive than in Aust.

The conversation after was also interesting. One of the questions I had for colleagues came from a chat I had with a woman the other day, who told me that she'd had trouble finding an architect last year, & when she finally did he required payment for an initial meeting, pre any agreement for services. I was a bit shocked by this, & wanted to know if it was common practice - judging by my PSG, it's not.

That lead on to discussion of fees, & later to liability whereupon I was pleased to find general support for my 2014 stance of no longer offering partial service (i.e. up to building consent documentation only).