Canterbury Earthquakes – Extraordinary Times
After the Canterbury Earthquakes comes extraordinary problems
As a builder I have had to assess buildings that have lifted, fallen, cracked and been completely ripped apart. There was no training for this. I would be surprised if any of Canterbury’s builders had seen anything like it either. So, from the morning of September the 4thth onwards it has been an education in what earthquakes can do to buildings and a multitude of reasons why one building can be fine while another next door is destroyed.
Many people are living with the day to day problems that these earthquakes have visited on them; EQC assessment quality is the one that is starting to affect me almost on a daily basis. With calls from people unsure about what they should do. They look at the EQC scope of work, if they are lucky enough to have one, and try to compare it with the building they know and love. Often it can seem that the assessment has been done on a completely different building and sent to them in error, (certainly not unheard of) but there at the top is their address and the description of the house that matches their house, okay so their house is made of Summer Hill Stone not the Omaru Stone that it has now been re clad in, natural mistake. (Omaru stone being three times the price and looking completely different)
But the damage description seems completely wrong, things like remove, replace and rebrick 0.04sqm (that’s one brick), when it’s clear that whole brick cladding is coming off the building. Inside the lather and plaster ceilings, which are riddled with cracks and clearly loose, are written down for “scrape of stipple, re stipple and paint”. Total madness, it will probably be recracked before the painter has even finished.
And it just goes on, if it wasn’t for the fact that people are relying on this scope and EQC to put their pride and joy back together it would be quite funny. In the winter following the February aftershocks building work was very slim on the ground and when I was rung by EQC offering me a job I took it. I felt that I would do my bit, I was keen. I was soon concerned, one week into the job I was worried and by the end of my three week rotation I was downright horrified. I think nearly all of the people I worked with had good intentions, but there was very little training and over half of them had no building experience at all, Ex policeman, that sort of thing. Many of them were from out of town, in fact in my class of 100 only five came from Christchurch. The training involved one visit to an earthquake damaged house in Mt Pleasant. Those of us that had building experience had next to no experience of earthquake damage.
We were however given fairly good training on how to use the iPad. We became good at measuring houses and entering this information. In fact I wondered why we were going to such effort to do this even on an undamaged house when this information was freely available from the council. I once was told off for not defining every wall of an undamaged Skyline garage. But when it came to damage that was a different story.
The iPad was an excellent data collection tool but a very poor tool for scoping a repair strategy and really I don’t think it would have mattered how much training was given, the simple fact was that the iPad gave you limited options and this would lead to ridiculous repair strategies being given. Not only that, it was impossible to suggest that a structural engineer needed to look at a house unless it had basically fallen over.
What this means for home owners is that many assessments have been done by under qualified, undertrained, well meaning people on a poor performing tool and the result is reflected in the scope of works that both homeowner and Fletchers get. One manager at a Fletchers Hub told me that 19 out of 20 scopes were being sent back to EQC. True or not? I can only attest to the scopes of work what I have dealt with and all of these have had mistakes, many of them quite serious and one that wasn’t even for the right house.
Ultimately the homeowner wants the house repaired to a pre earthquake condition. I always apply this test when assessing a house.
“If this house was put up for sale and a House Check was done on it would any damage be picked up and identified as earthquake damage?” If so, then it needs to be repaired now.
This leads me to my greatest concern and that is “How many people will get their house repaired based on the EQC scope of works only to later find that their house is unsalable due to damage that was unidentified for repair?”
If you have any doubts about your scope of work ask a builder to have a look, and if you’re working with Fletchers already make sure you broach the subject with the project manager. Fletchers do want to do a good job and will address real concerns. They do have engineers available, often there will be quite a wait but worth it. If that fails, get your own report, there are plenty of engineers working for themselves which offer reasonably priced structural assessments.
A lot of this damage is hard to recognize so be proactive now and you should avoid problems later on. I have spoken to several real-estate agents about the potential for problems and they all agree that this is a very likely outcome and although at the moment the focus is on poor finish and of course not many jobs have been completed but already most home sales require an engineer’s report on houses and these will pick up that unscoped, unrepaired damage. Good luck and don’t be afraid to ask for help.
Canterbury Eartquake Assessment Examples
Location: Linwood
House type: 1950 piled house with weatherboard
Current work: Fletchers currently raking out plaster and painting with some pile jacking
Actual Damage: House out of level up to 100mm Significant rips in gib
Action taken: organised independent Geo tech engineer and structural engineers reports
Result: Ground not capable of supporting a house unless new piles taken down more than a meter. New piles required for entire house. Gib bracing has failed completely, new gib required though out house. Currently work has stopped while EQC approves repairs.
Location: Cashmere
House type: 1945 Art deco with 70’s roof alteration
Current work: Been assessed by EQC, assessment obtained, no assessment of roof structure or foundation
Actual Damage: Significant raking to roof framing with the roof rafters turning over also rips in gib.
Action taken: organised independent structural engineers report
Result: roof framing needs rebuilding and gib board needs replacing to re brace the house. Currently a special price needs to be done and approved By EQC to match actual repairs
Location: Redwood
House type: 1980 Brick house
Current work: EQC scope has house down for raking out plaster and painting. Fletcher’s builder about to start
Actual Damage: House has a 45mm fall towards the old, stream now covered over but no outward signs of damage.
Action taken: organised independent Geo tech engineer and structural engineers reports
Result: Land report shows land not capable of bearing down to1.5meters structural report shows house is out of level as thought repair strategy is pending
Location: Kaiapoi
House type: 1950 piled house with Brick
Current work: Fletchers completed work owner was about to sign off but felt a bit uneasy about the house even though works done was as per EQC spec.
Actual Damage: Chimney has sunk significantly dragging the floor and roof structure down with it floor has a 50mm dip in it which is also evident on the roof outside
Action taken: Builder assessed the problem,
Result: currently trying to get Fletchers to agree that there is a problem.
Location: Rangiora
House type: 1990’s brick veneer
Current work: EQC scope has house down for raking out plaster and painting with small amounts of remove and replace brick work with some re pointing.
Actual Damage: Bricks are loose and on most walls the ties are no longer attached to the bricks and the bricks are able to be moved in and out. Significant movement of bricks away from windows
Action taken: Builder assessed the problem,
Result: Separate quote being done to re brick house which will be submitted to EQC hopefully for approval to carry out work.
Failure to spot and remedy any of these would lead to difficulty selling your house.