Building evaluation for property Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Building evaluation for property - Assignment Example After the establishment and development of the housing schemes, then comes a major process of its sustainability and maintenance works. To understand and improve the lifespan of these houses we must look into the defects and their causes which affect the quality of these structures. Consequently we have to resolve these faults using alternative construction methods or usage of substitute materials. The majority of the problems occur in two phases of the constructions of the facilities which are the planning or design phase and the other is faulty construction. 1.2 Common residential building faults and causes According to the research made by Building Research Establishment(BRE) and in its report suggested the major faults which occur in the key building elements. The top five places of faults in the structure are external walls with a fault attribution percentage of 20%, second comes the Roofs with 19%, then windows and doors contributes 13% of the faults, then floors 11% and servic es 9%. Where as Sub-structure, Planning and layout and Internal partitions come down the list. Later according to same BRE Advisory Service (Trotman P) and based on its database of building defects its came to a conclusion that the five major building faults are Rain penetration with a magnitude of 22%, then comes Condensation with 17%, Cracking 16%, Detachment 13% and lastly Entrapped water with 6%. Whereas Flooring, Appearance/discolouration/surface defects and Rising damp are also included in the list. All the above data is being collected and analyzed by the building research establishment and the ministry of housing of Australian government. 1.3 Solutions to the major issues As mentioned earlier that the issues arise by certain processes and at particular points in the structure, mentioned as the â€Å"key building elements†. Now any approach to remedy these issues would be directly in accordance with the working and durability of these key building elements. As mentione d before the worst process that damages the building is the water or rain penetration, now the source can be any place where water gathers these areas mainly includes Roof, buried/concealed pipes, external walls, windows, bathrooms, kitchens and many other places( common drains, underground drains, etc). This discussion will also cover the entrapment of water as well, which is also considered to be a defect of large impact. The next target is the solution of the problem, which can be done by mainly two activities prevention from water leakage and effective drainage system. The first element we will cover is the roof, where firstly drainage is of vital importance which must be acquired by good workman ship in which a suitable gradient must be provided, appropriate type and adequate thickness of waterproofing material, overlapping of material at joints, upturn from boundary walls and downturn towards the drains. Then comes the next key element the external wall where the source of def ect are at sleeves, deep cracks, honey comb, holes due to sub standard concrete and faulty construction. Where as the solutions are filling the cracks with chemical injections and replacing with new water proofing mortar where unavoidable. Whereas the special paints and weather proofing