If You're Worried About Defective Apartments, Why Not Rely on the 'Gyeonggi Province Apartment Quality Inspection Team'?

[Suwon Ilbo=Park Nohun] Gyeonggi Province is operating the 'Gyeonggi Province Apartment Quality Inspection Team' year-round, where private experts conduct quality inspections from the structural construction phase through completion.

According to the province on the 25th, the entities subject to mandatory quality inspections under the Housing Act are multi-unit dwellings with 300 or more households, which must undergo inspections before occupancy certification. However, the province has expanded the scope of inspection through amendments to its ordinances and added three additional inspection rounds, implementing a total of 4 quality inspections (during structural work, upon structural completion, before occupancy certification, and post-occupancy inspection).

From 2007 through the end of June 2023, a total of 2,466 complexes (1.71 million households) underwent field inspections, resulting in corrective measures for 121,255 items.

The province is consistently developing substantive improvement measures reflecting recent construction site conditions through joint training workshops and other initiatives for the quality inspection team.

In particular, to prevent defective construction due to recent supply instability of raw materials and labor union strikes, supervisors' submitted work delay mitigation plans are reviewed and consulted by the quality inspection team to promote defect prevention and construction site safety, while preemptively preventing complaints about delayed occupancies.

Starting in July, inspections will be strengthened in construction and quality fields at sites applying flat plate structures, the primary cause of recent defective construction accidents at apartment construction sites. Structural field experts will be additionally deployed to verify the appropriateness of major structural measurements and concrete strength confirmation, and to actively prevent recurrence of similar accidents through dissemination of best practices in shear reinforcement.

Additionally, to reduce floor impact noise, a major cause of disputes in multi-unit dwellings, the 'Floor Impact Noise Reduction Guideline' has been established, and field inspections on the use of high-performance floor structures and construction management have been strengthened.

The 'Apartment Quality Inspection Team' is a system first established by Gyeonggi Province in 2007 nationwide to eliminate defective construction in multi-unit dwellings.

The quality inspection team, composed of private experts, conducts comprehensive construction inspections to prevent quality-related disputes and promote sound apartment construction.

Since January 2021, it has been expanded and implemented nationwide through amendments to the Housing Act.