“If the customer wants it…”: who should choose the materials?
A phrase that I heard repeated on several occasions by my colleagues, when, under pressure, they had to express themselves on whether or not they were interested in a renewable insulating material – unknown to them compared to another well-known petrochemical – was always the same: “if the customer wants it, we take it into consideration“, which sounded a bit like saying: “if the customer forces me to use it, then, against my will, I am forced to include it in the project and, perhaps, in the supply”.
I calculated that over the course of a decade I have met just under 3000 technicians and I believe I have received the same response from at least 30-35% of them, that is, from almost a thousand technicians. With a critical sense, I realized that the technician adopted that phrase as a defense weapon, which helped him to free himself from the incumbent responsibility of having to explain to his customer the characteristics of that particular product, unknown to him, and which required him time and study to defend the higher cost compared to another, well-known and widely echoed in price lists and on construction sites, but less expensive.
Once upon a time, finding a customer who was knowledgeable and informed about the characteristics of building materials, and in particular thermo-acoustic insulation, was like looking for a needle in a haystack; today more and more people are much more informed, but not to the point of knowing the technical characteristics and advantages and disadvantages of materials, information which should be the basis of knowledge for any building technician or consultant.
Unfortunately, the majority of technicians today do not know the materials with which they design and if they have learned something, they owe it to two figures: the heating technician who draws up Law 10/91 and the sales agent, with all the limitations of the case, but certainly not from university studies or from technical-cultural readings following the diploma or degree. Obviously this statement is completely generic and does not presuppose an absolute fact; fortunately there are still astute technicians who read, train and obtain information from multiple sources and do not take at face value what the trade offers them, maintaining a healthy critical attitude.
Inform the customer to make him aware
Today, evaluating a material solely for its technical performance characteristics and lower cost is no longer sufficient. The construction market is becoming more and more specialized and requires to also respond to environmental values and biocompatibility characteristics, without necessarily sectorizing the products into categories, such as green building ones and those that are not.
Therefore, delegating a technical decision to a client, who is not a technician by trade, means passing on a responsibility, not carrying out one’s task correctly, deceiving one’s client, or worse, putting at risk the durability and integrity of the building over time, especially if the best performing, least expensive, but absolutely wrong material is adopted.
In reality, involving your client in the choice of materials is an excellent thing, especially if the involvement becomes a reason for cultural growth and assumption of responsibility, as well as a normal evolutionary comparison between designer and client.
The future inhabitant should know the component materials of the building in which he will live, and not just the organization of the spaces. Just as there are high-performance materials that decorate, there are just as many that hide problems of an environmental nature or of interaction with the health of users.
From personal experience, I can state, as a concrete example, that it frequently happens that the customer wishes to furnish the bathroom with expensive equipment and surfaces made of fine stone, such as granite, but at the same time prefers to save on the insulating system, switching from the use of an insulator of vegetal origin to another of petrochemical origin, considered technically more performing and less expensive. In this case, it is best for that customer to be informed of the pros and cons before making his choices. All granites, no matter how beautiful they are, hide a radioactive component that can affect the health of the inhabitant. In the same world, there are insulating materials that are apparently stable under normal conditions of use, but which become at risk of toxic emissions when the thermo-hygrometric conditions in the home change. Furthermore, it is not certain that the same technical-performance characteristics will exist over time between an insulating material of chemical origin and another of a vegetal nature.
The designer must inform his client of these aspects, making him responsible for the choice. Only in this way will it be possible to spread culture, making it aware of the value of choices.
