A very
common question is: the house is clad with xxxx, will it leak?
In my past
6 years of inspection I never found any leaky house, which leaked purely
because of cladding type itself.
Similar question
is studied in a recent Branz Bulletin – Ventilation drying behind wall
claddings, the question is:
Are some
cladding types more leaky than others?
The
findings are quite surprising for many people:
Low leakage
claddings:
New freshly painted weatherboard walls
Well maintained continuous sheet claddings,
Metal and PVC weatherboards with tight-fitting
overlaps and effective jointers at corners
Average leakage
claddings:
Well maintained painted timber or composite
weatherboards with few obvious defects
Leaky claddings:
Warped and cracked unpainted weatherboards
Non-rendered brick veneers
Two
interesting notes to be made here:
- · Combination of factors such as build quality and maintenance rather than cladding type itself will determine the leakidity (how likely to be leaky) of a cladding.
- · More publicly accepted leaky types of cladding, such as sheet cladding, are not listed under leaky cladding. Well-reputed cedar weatherboards and brick veneer are summed as leaky claddings.
But there
is one fact which is commonly agreed by everybody: Most leaky buildings are monolithic
clad buildings. But can we rephrase it as: monolithic cladding likely to leak? Wanted
or not, majority of public think that way, and that is the main reason why
monolithic clad houses are selling with discounted price.
I have always enjoyed
in challenging public perceptions, here are my questions:
If you
simply replace the cladding of leaky buildings with weatherboards, but without
redesign junctions, joints, ground clearance, balcony details, will you stop
leaks? The answer is No.
Or put the
other way: we build two houses, one with direct fixed weatherboards, another
one with direct fixed fibre cement sheets, all with untreated timber framing,
all with no clearance to ground surface, all with fully enclosed membrane
balcony, all with windows without any flashing, all without eave overhang, all
with poor workmanship to detailing. Will the weatherboard house be survived
when fibre cement house be leaking like shit? The answer is No.
If cladding
type is not the one to blame, what to blame? Design? Workmanship? Then the
whole Country likely has targeted the wrong thing again. Looks like we no longer
building any plaster houses, which itself never been the reason causing leaky
building issues. But we have not improved anything from design and workmanship
point of view. Will that mean another construction disaster in the near future?
We will see.
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