New Zealand, as has been well documented is facing a legacy of building issues related to “leaky homes” – a legacy for which estimates vary, but seem to be around $11 billion according to a recent PWC survey, with potentially up to 89,000 properties effected. The fact is emerging though that this phenomena is not unique to NZ. The US is appearing to show the same cracks, metaphorically speaking, in their housing stock which equally could cost them many billions of dollars. Nor in fact was NZ the first country to suffer this damaging phenomena as housing in Vancouver was discovered to have suffered from leaky buildings way back in the mid 1990’s
In the US during the 5 years at the start of this millennium around 10 million new homes and apartments were added to the housing stock as reported in the recent headline article in Business Week. This boom in construction was fueled by the easy credit environment which went on to become the catalyst for the sub-prime meltdown and subsequent Global Financial Crisis. The scale of the US issue is not as yet estimated. All that is reported is that defects identified in properties built during this period are running at twice the rate of the prior 5 year period on a per property basis.
The roots of both countries construction issues have commonalities – construction detailing and trade skills.
The NZ leaky home issue may be seen more conspicuously in the monolithic cladding form of construction prevalent during the period, however the route cause is as ever the attention (or rather the lack of it) to detail in design, material specification and installation skills.
The US issue is not as conspicuously visualized through a design style, but is being put down to the hyper demand for new construction which led to poor construction technique as a function of inadequate training and supervision as the industry sucked in thousands of workers to meet the burgeoning demand.
The scale of the problem is strikingly highlighted in the article by reference to a 25 storey apartment tower in Seattle which is being demolished even though it is only 10 years old. The tower pictured below has been found to have been built without adequate corrosion protection on the supporting steel cables in the concrete structure (Seattle Times report).