Matt Cornell is a structural engineer with 30 years experience in residential structural engineering. He lives in Northgate on the northern side of Brisbane, Australia.
Builders are still struggling to understand the rules for head flashings over exposed windows.
And it will be their downfall.
Because these little timber trims, no matter how well they are painted, leak eventually and rot out and then allow water to rot your frame.
Sadly, sometimes the damage isn’t found until the QBCC warranty expires and then it becomes a homeowner cost.
So have a look at the tops of your windows. If they are exposed (there are specific rules) to the rain and sun and they look a bit like photo 1, chances are you might need our help with solving rotten framing at some point in the future.
This is the type of prehistoric joist-to-bearer connection that can lead to sudden and unexpected floor collapse if not rectified immediately.
The joist can pull out of the bearer slowly over the years and if not repaired NOW the depth the joist is secured into the bearer can diminish with catastrophic consequences. The connection can unzip leading to total and sudden collapse of the floor system.
“The general public and the building industry need to be aware of this particular method of construction in older properties, particularly the potential for joists to become disengaged from bearers and collapse in the same manner that occurred in this instance as a result of little or no bearing of the joists into the bearers.”
Builders, building inspectors, engineers and architects should ALWAYS be on the lookout for this type of detail and should always flag it to homeowners as needing repair under their duty of care.
More from the coronial enquiry:
“Mr Duignan said if a joist was pulling right out he would have expected to have seen it. The evidence of all witnesses asked was that in this case to tell how far a joist was engaged in the bearer would have involved pulling up part of the flooring deck which would have been relatively invasive and expensive.”
“The evidence of all witnesses asked was that extra securing for the joists in bearers could have involved a number of processes although the evidence is that most of those would be relatively inexpensive.”
“I formed the impression that Mr Duignan was a competent professional builder experienced in renovating old Queenslanders. He would expect to come across problems from time to time given the vintage of the construction.”
I accept that if he had found a problem that required attention he would have fixed it or brought it to the attention of the owners. If he had seen or witnessed a problem with the balcony support he would have sought to do something about it. I accept he had not.”
Even if you don’t know what you’re taking photos of.
Time and time again, photos taken during the construction of houses, pools, sheds, footings and skyscrapers have helped forensic engineers see through dirt, concrete, plasterboard and masonry.
They have helped electricians, plumbers and carpenters make more succinct alterations to your home (with much less exploratory cutting).
They have proven and disproven memories of what actually happened countless times.
And they have saved (and when used for evil, fried) my bacon more than once.
Take lots of photos. Take photos of the walls, the slab reinforcement, the cables, the pipes, the gravel backfill, the window frames, the roof frames, the air-conditioning ducts and the holes in the ground.
If nothing else, they prove you were there on the day and time you said you were.
Without them, we’re just taking your word for it. And as much as I love you, I just can’t trust you on something as important as building houses and sheds and skyscrapers well.
Those kids who used that excuse in primary school are still at it as adults.
The excuse these days is that the floods destroyed all traces of the paperwork, or it rained, and they were having a bad hair day. Maybe the file got misplaced when they moved office.
Have you heard these excuses lately?
“No. We don’t have a backup in the cloud.”
“No. That person is on holiday.”
“Unfortunately that person has left the company.”
Damn dogs. Always eating homework.
Unfortunately when experienced structural engineers use this excuse you have to wonder if there is more to the story. How does a modern structural engineering office not have bulk backups in the cloud? How do they not have email copies of where they sent the paperwork to the client? How have they managed to destroy all traces of crucial evidence that something hasn’t been done well?
It’s hard to identify these types of lackadaisical engineers. Sometimes the excuses for lost paperwork even sound plausible.
But when your house is not performing, and the builder has done everything that was asked by the engineer and the engineer loses all traces of this paperwork – where does that leave you?
The BPEQ complaints process doesn’t cover lost paperwork. It doesn’t stare hard enough at engineers who are taking shortcuts and then losing stuff. It doesn’t hold poor office practices to account. Homeowners and consumers aren’t nearly as well-protected as I would have hoped.
Fighting leaf litter at your home when it rains? Do your grated drains block up with leaves and grass clippings? Does water overflow everywhere leaving you running in the rain to unclog drains?
Take a hint.
It doesn’t have to be a galvanised steel grate cover like this one, but a fabricated basket over your drain shaped to stop leaves but allow water to flow might be your solution.
More than once we’ve specified a beefed-down version of this council’s leaf litter trap for front and back yards.
Stops leaves clogging your pipes and allows water to flow.
