KEY POINTS:
Owners of an Auckland townhouse complex which has already been fixed once are now facing a new battle, this time over their decks.
John Gardiner, determinations manager of the Department of Building and Housing, has released a ruling on decks at seven apartments at 39 Garnet Rd, Westmere.
He investigated attempts to fix the decks and reversed Auckland City Council's decision to issue code compliance certificates on remedial deck work, saying the council now needed to ensure the decks complied with the building code.
The three-level townhouse complex was built nine years ago in solid plaster cladding.
But leaky-home problems sparked a major re-build. Mr Gardiner said it was likely the places were originally built in untreated external timber wall farming.
In 2005 and 2006, the townhouse cladding was replaced and treated timber was probably used to fix the places, he said. A drained cavity wall system was also installed.
But further problems have arisen since. As well as level-one decks, each unit has a semi-circular Juliet balcony with a tiled floor and open metal balustrades, cantilevered from the second-floor on the northern side.
Decks at the properties had many faults including inadequate sealant movement joints, lack of sealant joints and tiles that became dislodged. Concerns were raised about the decks'
durability.
In August last year, a heavy downpour caused problems in one of the bedrooms in a townhouse. The area under the decks suffered paint bubbling and the ceiling sagged.
"Water had saturated the plywood deck substrate and was running down the adjoining deck joists and wall framing. Water had pooled on to the plasterboard ceiling lining which had sagged," Mr Gardiner wrote in a report.
Experts told him this was an isolated instance of poor workmanship in one area and not a systemic failure.
A series of repairs had been carried out and he said he was now convinced that the current performance of that work was adequate because it was now preventing water penetration.
But he said expert and engineer reports established that the structural performance of the deck joists "may not be adequate", so the decks did not comply with the Building Code.
He raised questions about structural issues on the deck joists and ceiling sagging and turned the matter back to the townhouse owners, saying it was up to them to propose a plan to fix defects.
