Project M
(House Monitoring Programme initiative)
Protecting your Investment and Promoting Peace-of-Mind through healthy, dry and durable homes
 

For most New Zealanders, their house is their biggest single investment. Therefore it is important that our homes, as well as offices and schools, are not only durable but also healthy environments to live in. Recent reported surveys have found New Zealand buildings are not up to international standards; this problem has arisen from changes in building design and materials, a shortage of training and expertise, a lack of maintenance, and changes in the roles and responsibilities of people involved and also in the way we construct our houses.
 
Project M - Brief
 

Project M is a research initiative to collect information about buildings and to build a database that can be interpreted by experts to assess trends and determine possible solutions to the current weathertightness problems in New Zealand houses.

The data collection will be via monitoring equipment (the Mdu System) installed into the participating buildings supplemented by questionnaires and visual inspections. The project objective was to include up to 1000 buildings of all types and ages.
 
Benefits to Owners
  Involvement by Participants will have the advantages of:
becoming part of the ongoing data collection and monitoring programme with direct knowledge about the weathertightness of their own building.
Warning of any problems that might arise in those areas monitored.
Access to the building’s data through the password-protected website.
Establishing a long-term track record of performance that can prove valuable when it comes time to sell your house.
 
Results and Outcomes
 

Project M Phase I Outcomes

 

Project M successfully concluded in 2009 with a number of exciting new insights into how moisture-affected buildings could be remediated for significantly less disruption and cost and more assurance as current conventional fixes. These solutions have now been commercialised under the Step Up Group banner, and participating companies following the Step Up Philosophy have been able to dramatically and robustly improve the performance and durability of clients' houses for a fraction of the cost of recladding. The preminary outcomes of the study was presented at the Building Officials and Inspectors' of New Zealand (BOINZ) annual conference. A copy of those notes are available here and a summary of the presented findings are below:

 

Conclusions

 
Non-invasive moisture scanning, thermoimaging cameras and point-in-time assessments DO NOT give an accurate picture of a building's overall condition
A thorough and highly accurate weathertightness and structural analysis can be performed WITHOUT DAMAGE to either internal lining or external cladding
Using monitoring technologies derived from Project M, owners can easily find and fix leaks before damage is caused even if there are no visible signs of moisture ingress
Structural timber can be post-treated without the removal of either internal lining or external cladding
WHRS investigations and DBH determination processes use and benefit from technologies and approaches derived from Project M
The average building has only isolated and localised structural and moisture problems
20mm battened cavity houses, supposedly 'safe' cladding types and reclad buildings are still leaking
Building remediation is best done in stages over a number of months or years, not all at once or as quickly as possible
It is simple and easy to determine the structural integrity or buidlings without removing the majority of the cladding
Once adequately post-treated, most fungi affected structural timber members have retained adequate structural integrity and can stay in the building
The strength of structural timber can usually be restored insitu, and not need replacement
It is simple and easy to retro-fit deflection, drainage and drying aspects to most existing cladding systems without the need for re-cladding
All building stakeholders can better manage weathertightness risk with Project M-derived Quality Management Systems (QMS) run and paid for by building owners
 
 
 
 
 
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