The engineer's report

As mentioned in our first post, John The Builder, noticed that there was considerable damage to the outside cladding that looked like it was long term damage and not caused by our flood. He suggested we get an engineers to look at it.

We did this and his news is not good. This is the quote from his Summary Opinion

Summary Opinion

• The construction works both original and repair, have not been carried out in accordance with the New Zealand Standard 3604, the Building Act and its regulations.
• Past remediation works have been carried out without compliance to the Building Code Regulations, and/or competent trade practice.
• Reconstruction shall require compliance with the current Building Code Regulations E2 and B2 which shall mean a complete reconstruction down to the ground floor level slab from the bathroom position to the north east dining room corner.
• The extent of decay viewed including the mould and mould spore deposits within the cavity and to the back sections of kitchen joinery are sufficient to be of a health concern.

He goes on to say:

"As detailed, it is my view that both the original construction and all the remediation work able to be viewed has been quite inappropriate and not at all in accord with either the New Zealand Standards or Building Code requirements or of an appropriate trade standard.

There has been clearly a knowledge that major weathertightness and decay failure has been occurring for some time and the remediation works have neither gone anywhere far enough to appropriately correct and/or remove decayed and damaged timbers. Both the original construction and the subsequent remedial works are in my view well outside the Code and New Zealand standards of the time and I would describe both the original construction and the subsequent remedial works as unbelievable and well outside an appropriate trade standard."

This is very upsetting to us and we are up for considerable cost to fix this. The engineers has advised that we can fix most of this from the inside so the house is liveable but once Spring has come we will need to dig out the path on the east of the house and probably the area outside the kitchen window again to ensure this is fixed correctly.

We have asked for a quote from John Chapman for the completion of this work and we'll let you know when this has arrived. We would also like some information about the remedial work done. If you know, the answers to these questions, please contact us:

• Date of the previous work
• The builder who completed the work
• Any builders consent/permits that were obtained at the time.

We'll let you know when we have more information.