Week 1: Defining Building Pathology And Process Flashcards
Broadly speaking, what is meant by the term building pathology?
Building Pathology occurs where surveyors identify defects (through investigation) with a building and then prescribe the correct treatment and cure for the extending the life of the building.
Why is dating a building useful and how does the age of a building influence the building pathology process and remedial works?
Dating a building is likely to help surveyors:
- Choose the most appropriate form of remedial action (e.g remedial action for a listed building may be limited).
- Materials used in the remedial action will vary dependent on the age of a building.
- Surveyors must weigh up the commercial viability of remedial work based on the age and expected future life of a building.
Defects can come in two forms, what are they and what do they mean?
- Patent defects - are those which can be discovered by reasonable inspection.
- Latent defects - are those which cannot be discovered by reasonable inspection (e.g. foundations)
Defects may occur for a wide variety of reasons, name 5.
- Design defects.
- Material defects.
- Incorrect specification.
- Poor workmanship.
- Deterioration (age).
- Lack of maintenance and repair.
- Improper use.
- Environmental and other external factors.
The severity of defects can be grouped into three main categories. What are they and what do they each involve?
- Fundamental defects: Require demolition, make the building unsafe.
- Functional defects: Affect the clients use of the building.
- Cosmetic defects: Do not affect the clients use of the building.
Building pathology takes a holistic approach to buildings which is to say that buildings do not exist in isolation but instead…
Interact with their occupants and their surroundings.
Broadly speaking, building pathology consists of three primary activities, what are they?
- Identifying, investigation and determine the nature of the defects.
- Recommending the most appropriate course of action (remedial work).
- Design, supervise and monitor the remedial work.
Specifically there are 6 stages to building pathology, what are they?
- Initial survey.
- Evidence.
- Experience.
- Hypothesis.
- Testing.
- Review and Critical Analysis.
Tell me about the first main stage of building pathology, the initial survey.
- Involves a full visual inspection of the site, surrounding area, boundaries etc.
- Look at drainage, roof, door openings, windows, chimneys, roof void, external timber, internal rooms.
- Basic site testing should also occur e.g damp meter, spirit level for wall verticality, endoscope for wall ties etc.
- Findings of the initial survey should be logged via images and diagrams.
Tell me about the second main stage of building pathology, evidence.
- Evidence can take many forms:
- Evidence from stage 1: initial survey.
- Occupier or owner knowledge.
- Downloadable site data and desktop investigation.
Tell me about stage 3 of the building pathology process, Experience.
- Experience (on the surveyors part) is involved in the building pathology process as they should be able to draw on previously observed defects and can consider if these are relevant to the case at hand.
Tell me about stage 4 of the building pathology process, Hypothesis.
- In order to test more extensively for a particular cause a hypothesis must be applied.
- Enough anecdotal evidence (from initial survey, evidence and experience) exists at this stage to apply a hypothesis as to the cause of the defect.
- HOWEVER the surveyor should remain open to the possibility that their phyothesis may only be part of the issue.
Tell me about stage 5 of the building pathology process, testing.
- More substantial testing than was done in stage 1, initial testing.
- Testing should be done for a specific problem (doing so may eliminate some suspected causes.
In stage 5 of the building pathology process, testing, what tests may be conducted?
- Flood test
- Longer levels of moisture monitoring
- Water samples taken of damp areas
- Samples of concrete, timber and masonry (mortar/brick/block)
- Intrusive study of cavity walls and ties
- Monitoring of timber infestation
- Drainage survey
- Trial pits (an excavation of the ground in order to establish structure of subsurface).
Tell me about the last stage of the building pathology process, review and critical analysis.
- Once testing (stage 5) has been completed we should be able to
- have a diagnosis of the defect ;or
- need to start the process again - In either case a review of how we got these results.
- A critical analysis should focuses on how the diagnosis was achieved, what went well, what went wrong, what could have been done better.
- A detailed log containing what we have learnt throughout the whole process should be produced.
