Out of sight, out of mind!

This is a part of the Maintenance feature

By Mark Jones - 1 October 2006, Build 96

The BRANZ 2005 House Condition Survey points to many Kiwis still being overly optimistic about the state of their homes, while ignoring basic maintenance. So, despite an overall improvement in the housing stock, many of the old problems persist.

The BRANZ 2005 House Condition Survey, funded by Building Research, found a large gap between the 80% of owners who perceive their homes to be in good or excellent condition, and the 50% of homes that BRANZ inspectors agreed were actually in that category.

Different expectations and levels of technical expertise probably explain much of this gap, but recent hikes in house prices and valuations may also be a factor. Interestingly, in Christchurch, where average valuations have grown rapidly since 1999, owners were most optimistic about the condition of their houses. In Wellington, the opposite trend was evident.

Another finding was that houses with long-term owner-occupants tended to be in worse condition. This may be a case of the owner’s urge to renovate and improve one’s house wearing off with time. Perhaps defects and problems become normalised over the years of occupancy.

Claddings often ignored

Problems with wall claddings are apparently very much out of mind. 49% of houses were deemed to have poor or seriously inadequate clearance of wall claddings above adjacent ground – with the resulting risks of corrosion, poor ventilation and moisture entry.

Increasingly, priority seems to be given to linking inside and outside at the expense of good building practice, and the newest houses seem to be the biggest offenders.

Lots of moisture down below

One of the common problems in buildings that have a space under the floor is too much moisture underneath the floor. Around 40 litres of water evaporates from the soil under an average house each day. In a number of homes inspected in the survey, water was flowing under the house from driveways, paths and lawns.

Nearly half (43%) of the houses surveyed had poor or seriously inadequate subfloor ventilation. More than a third of these had less than half the ventilation area required by current building standards. This lack of ventilation can lead to corroding fasteners, timber decay, fungal growth, borer attack in untreated timbers, and general dampness.

Foundations

22% of houses’ foundation fasteners (e.g. timber to concrete piles) and 16% of foundations were assessed as being in poor or serious condition (with many houses having no fasteners at all, particularly in the Auckland region).

Deck barriers

78% of deck barriers did not comply with building code requirements, due to missing barriers, barriers being too low, or barriers having openings that were too large. Given that 60% of houses (70% in Auckland) had decks, this is a significant figure.