Sample Photos from House Inspections:

Rotted: Here is a house that had rotted timber frame on the external corner of a house hidden behind cladding

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 This weeks feature photo:

How water is getting behind the paint on plaster cladding systems

The above image shows how water has penetrated through the external coating of paint on a plaster system. If you are planning to get crack repairs and/or a repaint, it may be in your best interests to take a read of this weeks feature article HERE

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Leaky Building Photo of the month:

(Above Photo) Yes… you are seeing a collapsed floor to the left due to rotted floor joists, and get this, the people are still living in the home! The photo on the right is the untreated framing behind this collapsed flooring on the external wall. Completely rotted timber. The source of the leak that created this issue was a deck over the room leaking down into the external wall.

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Leak of the month

 Should you get a leak test before buying a home in NZ? Absolutely. The above photo shows how water from a leaking butanol internal gutter has gone directly down into the wall below (Large dark area is moisture). There was no visual evidence of this major problem, therefore the thermal imaging camera was a crucial tool to pinpointing this water leak!

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This weeks featured thermal image of a heavy roof leak:

Another skylight leaking which couldn’t be seen with the naked eye! – This leak is due to poor flashing detail on the roof. The water also continued down the angle of the ceiling and into the external wall. Not good.

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This weeks featured deck leak detected using our infrared cameras:

You can see in this infrared photo above where water has penetrated the deck balustrade (Dark areas). There is no run-off for the water to get away, therefore the water is pooling on top and penetrating in through cracks in the plaster. A saddle flashing should have be installed. Too late in this case! Here is another ‘no no’… water pooling around hand rail fixings:

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What does rotted moisture damaged timber look like?

The photo above shows rotted timber hiding behind the gib board across the top of a garage door. There is a leaky deck directly above this area on the opposite side of the wall… and the water ingress has travelled down and absolutely destroyed the timber framework. No lintel either??

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This images shows why ground clearance at the base of cladding is so important…

The dark area to the right shows how water has soaked up the cladding (Capillary reaction). This is caused by the cladding running right down and touching the deck… which further allows rain water to run down the wall, and then soak back up behind the monolithic cladding. The council now requires sufficient ground clearance at the base of cladding to prevent this happening into the future.

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See this innocent little crack around the window frame? 

You should see the amount of water that can penetrate the building envelope through small cracks around aluminium window frames!

If the above photo looks familiar to you, get your window areas tested for moisture ingress, then quickly resealed!

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In New Zealand, leak detection is a very important part of the pre purchase due diligence process when buying a home… just ask a leaky home owner!

Our house inspection system also makes it very hard for sellers to ‘band-aid’ over moisture related problems… we’ll see it anyway!