Firm offers probes to test house damp risk

Thousands of Auckland homes are to be studied by a new leaky homes monitoring business in an effort to find the worst leaks, how they can be fixed and if the repairs work.

Ian Holyoake, the managing director of cladding system manufacturer and installer Hitex Plastering, has joined business partner Clint Jones to launch the Moisture Detection venture.

The business has moisture probes embedded in the walls of 120 homes and is building a database for government and industry officials. Moisture Detection aims to monitor 10,000 houses by August next year, creating the first extensive database of the leaky building syndrome.

But a rival consultant and sector expert is questioning the start-up business and warning consumers about trusting the results and the inventors. Greg O'Sullivan, of leaky building consultants Prendos, said moisture reading was just one aspect of leaky building detection work and would not tell people all they needed to know.

He said rotten wood hidden behind walls could give a low moisture reading once water had evaporated and the wood had shrunk. Yet decay could be rampant and the house structure and its occupants in danger.

"Inserting random probes in isolated spots is never the full story," O'Sullivan said.

Just before Christmas, Jones and Holyoake met officials from the Department of Building and Housing to explain their business, present data from the study and discuss leaky building issues.

At the end of November, the department subsumed the defunct Building Industry Authority, the Government body blamed for not publicly disclosing the leaky building issue for six years.

But Holyoake said his business could help the department by collecting data on the problem which would show the extent of problems and the success or failure of attempts to repair homes.

Home owners with leaks, buyers carrying out pre-inspection checks and owners who feared problems within their walls were contacting the firm.

"We have a process here where we can show people how buildings are performing in a quick, easy and cheap way," Holyoake said.

Home owners pay about $1000 to have 18 probes fitted into skirting boards and through floor plates. Holyoake said this was a big saving on the $20,000 to $30,000 charged by other leaky building inspection services to do destructive testing of homes by ripping off interior and exterior walls.

But O'Sullivan challenged the figure, saying consultants such his firm never charged that amount on initial inspections of leaks in houses. .

Jones said studies in Canada showed some leaky homes were repaired up to three times but still had water ingress problems.

The Auckland study has found nearly half the homes probed had moisture levels 44 per cent above the limit set down in the Building Code.

The business partners are organising a leaky building symposium at Auckland University on July 6 and 7. Keynote speakers are Canadians Dr John Straube, professor and faculty member of the department of civil engineering and school of architecture at the University of Waterloo, and Dr Joseph Lstiburek, a forensic engineer and author who investigates building failures.

The wall moisture engineering meeting will examine the causes, solutions and preventative measures of the leaky and rotting homes syndrome.

John Harper, a departmental senior technical adviser, said he thought the system had some value but was not the complete answer to the problem. The moisture detection probe system was a good tool but might not go far enough as a measuring tool.

"It probably has a role but one couldn't rely on it," he said. "The probes are not calibrated so they don't tell you how much moisture is in that wall, only that it's wetter compared with other parts of the house.

"Many variables impact on moisture levels within different types of buildings and parts of buildings and once a substantial database of information on a range of buildings is collected, moisture trends and safe levels will be better understood."

Dr Lisa Ferguson, national manager of the Weathertight Homes Resolution Service, said that by this month the service had received 2009 claims. Assessment reports had been sent to 1654 homeowners. The service had finished 241 resolutions - 159 using mediation, 12 through adjudication and 70 resolved by other means. Mediation and adjudication was under way for another 438 homeowners.

HOW IT WORKS

* Moisture detection probes are inserted permanently into an average 20 points inside a house.

* The probes are inserted right through the wood to ensure a reading is taken throughout the timber.

* They are read every six months - when leaks are identified, during and after repairs.

* But others doubt the system and are sceptical about whether it is of any use.

* They believe the probes are just one system among several that can be used.