Free tools, and why they are free
Working tools that answer a question you would otherwise have to pay someone to answer. No email address, no sign-up, nothing stored.
Victoria onlyThese tools are built from Victorian instruments and apply to Victorian builds. Other states set their own rules, and we are building those next.
Most of what decides a building dispute is arithmetic against a published document: how long a period runs, which edition of a standard governs your build, what a clause actually says. That work is not difficult. It is just buried, and the documents are long.
So we have put the arithmetic on the page, with the clause and the page number beside every number, and left the whole rule set visible whether you use the calculator or not. If you only want the table, take the table.
The tools
Defect tolerance checker
How long after completion is a defect still outside tolerance? Twenty defect types, both editions of the Guide side by side, with the clause and page for each. Tells you which edition governs your build, which is the question most people get wrong.
Check a builder
Search the Victorian register of building practitioners live by name, company or registration number, and see any disciplinary action or prosecution recorded against that registration. Explains what a suspension actually means, which the register itself does not.
Warranty and limitation clocks
When your insurance period ends, when the ten-year long stop runs out, and the notification deadlines that close much sooner than either. Built from the Act, the Regulations and the policy wording.
How these are built
- Every number carries its source. A period, a threshold or a tolerance appears with the clause and page it came from, or it does not appear. Where a document is silent, the tool says the document is silent rather than filling the gap.
- The rules are on the page, not only in the calculator. The full table is readable without touching a single input, and it is the same data the calculator uses. Nothing is hidden behind a form.
- A tolerance is not a finding. Being inside a period tells you the document treats something as outside tolerance. It does not decide who pays — the Guide says so itself, and we quote it saying so.
- Where the documents disagree, we show the disagreement rather than picking the tidier answer. The 2015 Guide argues with itself about when its own clocks start, and pretending otherwise would be more comfortable and less useful.
What a tool cannot do
Every one of these works out dates and thresholds from published rules. None of them measures your building, and that is the half that decides most disputes. A period tells you whether a clause is open. Whether the work is actually outside the tolerance is a measurement, taken with an instrument, recorded with a datum and a date.
If you have got an answer here that matters to you, the next step is a record, not another calculation.
Get the defect documented while the clause is still open
We don't just do inspections. We investigate.
Request a defects report →Every job is quoted. Or contact us to talk it through first.