Authority warns rotting balconies may collapse

By ANDREW LAXON

People could be killed or seriously injured by the collapse of rotten balconies and balustrades in many new homes, warns the Building Industry Authority.

The authority says that homeowners worried about the safety of balconies should not use them until experts have checked them.

"It is a real risk and we advise a cautious approach," the authority said.

The greatest danger lies in wooden framed, self-supporting balconies, which often sit two or three storeys up in new blocks of apartments and terraced houses.

According to some estimates, as many as 10,000 apartment units built over the last five years could be affected.

The authority delivered its unprecedented public warning to homeowners yesterday, after receiving urgent advice from an independent inquiry into the leaky building crisis.

Chief executive Bill Porteous said the three-man inquiry team was concerned after seeing dangerously rotten balconies in apartments and houses built over the past decade.

"They've seen places where the connection between timber frame balconies and timber frame walls have decayed to the point where it's obvious that collapse would eventually occur if they weren't repaired."

He said the team realised this was probably typical of many other buildings and decided the public should be told.

The public warning says balconies and decks that rely on timber beams for structural support are at risk of collapsing.

Particularly at risk are balconies on buildings with lightweight claddings that imitate concrete or masonry and are supported by untreated kiln-dried timber. Also at risk are balconies that collect pools of water after rain.

Balustrades, barriers built around the edges of balconies or decks to stop people from falling, are most at risk when covered by concrete or masonry-style claddings.

Water can leak inside this cladding and rot the timber framing, without a homeowner knowing.

Mr Porteous said the authority, a Government-appointed body responsible for overseeing the Building Code, was telling people with these types of balconies or balustrades to get advice from an expert, with the help of their council if necessary.

Building repair specialist Philip O'Sullivan, who raised the leaky building problem three years ago, said more than half of the balconies on buildings under 10 years old leaked to some extent.

A survey by his firm Prendos of 250 problem units at 50 sites, had found leaks on all of the 39 sites with balconies.

Mr O'Sullivan said leaks were most dangerous in cantilevered balconies, which project out from a building with no other means of support and were common in new apartments.

He said homeowners could find it hard to get reliable advice on their balconies, as there was only a handful of experts qualified to carry out the demanding checks required by the authority.

The chairman of the Building Industry Federation, Richard Carver, said rotting balconies were a very real problem, especially in new two- or three-storey apartments in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch.

He estimated that with about 200 apartment units being built each month (in Auckland 500 apartment units can be built in a busy month and last month consents were issued for a record 686 units nationally), thousands of homeowners who had bought in the last five years could be affected.

"It could be 10,000 [apartments] - it's a big number."

Mr Carver said he was unhappy at the lack of "positive news" coming out over the leaky building problem and was worried that the warning could scare homeowners unnecessarily.

He said the 95 per cent of people who lived in houses with iron or concrete tile roofs, brick or weatherboard cladding and recessed windows with mechanical flashings had very safe homes.

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Feature: Leaky buildings