For Property Managers & Body Corporates

All Buildings Leak

This is a fact, but some buildings leak less than others, and some buildings are built to cope with some leaks. Other buildings leak more and are not built with cavities or durable timber.

It’s About How Wet , For How Long and How Well Treated

Even well treated timber will rot if it stays wet for long enough. Badly treated timber can decay very quickly. For maintenance planning, you need to know when the timber is wet, how wet, and how well it is treated.

This is vital information for Property Managers.

Decay is Preventable and Treatable

The sooner that you detect leaks and take action, the less damage and costs. Apartment complexes can have their moisture probes read regularly, so you find the leaks before they cause damage. Existing decay can be treated and managed, safely and effectively without disrupting owners or replacing timber. This is the only approach that works and makes sense.

Maintenance Plans Should Include Moisture Monitoring

If regular painting and washing was all that it took, then how did we get the leaky building crisis? Buildings with monolithic cladding usually have many potential defects letting in the water – windows, flashings, gutter, high ground lines, unsealed penetrations…. How do you know what is actually leaking and how to plan your maintenance.
Moisture probes installed at the potential leak points detect what is defective and what is working.  Minor defects can be fixed immediately. Larger system problems can be prioritised and scheduled into the budget.

• Visual on site risk assessment. One of our experienced weathertightness personnel will visit your properties and meet with you to discuss potential risks, and how they can be identified and managed.
•  Moisture Detection system – permanent Mdu moisture probes. When we install probes we test moisture, treatment and framing condition in the most likely areas of risk around the whole building or area being assessed 
•  Simple maintenance plans or modify your existing one to reflect findings. Where issues are found extra maintenance work may be required to stop leaks. We have policy statements to manage moisture and decay. Not all decay must be removed and recladding is normally a last resort.
•  Auditing work and monitoring – ongoing test of performance. As building or repair work is completed we monitor the probes which show how well the plan is working. 

Many building surveyors will reach straight for the ‘re-clad recommended’ report as soon as they see your building has monolithic cladding and no cavity. One or two bits of decay or high moisture levels and that ‘re-clad option only’ report is on your desk.

How can you justify asking your owners to spend tens, or hundreds of thousands of dollars each on that basis? But knowing that the building leaks and has decay, you have a duty of care to do something. You also have a duty of care to use your client’s or your owners’ money wisely.

Is every apartment affected? Can it be repaired? How far has the decay gone? What don’t we know that is going to come back to bite me?
Since 2005, a system has been available to find out exactly where your building is leaking and where it is performing well.
Mdu Moisture Probes allow direct moisture measurement in the bottom plate near the wood/cladding interface.

Gather accurate real time evidence before making major decisions. If the ultimate decision is to re-clad, the information from the probes helps to define the extent of timber replacement and leakage.  This means that your owners can be provided with far more accurate cost estimates upfront.

A property manager of a building with monolithic cladding should know the treatment level of the framing.

If it’s untreated, or just low level H1 treatment then your maintenance plan must recognise that leaks can cause serious damage relatively quickly.  

If it’s well treated then you can relax a little and schedule in repairs for minimum disruption and cost.

Timber Treatment Testing from MDC will tell you.

• Is the timber untreated or treated
• Is the treatment H1, H1.2, H3, Boron, LOSP Tin, CCA and at what strength
• Timber samples are taken discreetly from places no-one will notice.

Just re-cladding may seem the easy way out – unless you are one of the owners of course. And no-one knows what the final bill will be.  

Moisture Detection Company have a range of solutions for managing leaks and decay on residential and commercial property so that re-cladding isn’t needed.

Leaks and poor building weathertightness design can be resolved in most cases.

Mild to moderate decay conditions can be stopped, and further deterioration prevented with RotStop, our proprietary treat-In-place timber treatment system. Applied from inside or outside (through the cladding), RotStop has saved hundreds of homes from re-cladding.

Maintenance and many basic repairs can be done without needing a building consent.

The first step though, is gathering conclusive evidence on leaks and decay with Mdu Moisture Probes.

Call us today on 09 271 0522 or complete our contact form.