Well, the weather outside is frightful..
Defects – On our phase 2 placements we rarely get a chance to get involved with any maintenance or defect periods. This week however I have been lucky enough to be involved with a previous Carillion site that was finished in 2013, it helps that it is next to my current site, see Fig 1. The Library of Birmingham is the most visited tourist attraction outside of London, and it leaks like a sieve.
With the storm rains that we have been having, a defect has been identified where rain water is getting under the curtain walling on 2 floors with a terrace level. This is most likely through the service exclusions (sorry E&Ms but you do like to mess up a good impermeable box). I do not know the contract obligations that exist with this previous project, however Carillion have sent a team to control the ingress of water. The plan included puddle pumps, sandbags and cat litter, seriously, cat litter, enough for a pride of lions.
The issues that have arisen now include:
- What is the plan to stop water ingress during future storms?
- What was the design storm used and how did it compare to the weather experienced?
- Is it a design flaw or is there a construction issue?
- What are Carillion doing using a separate project team to fix the issue?
This immediate reaction has bought some favour with the library (Q4), but there will undoubtedly be a redesign and some work completed in the coming months. Watch this space and I will explain the contract obligations and where liability for the works and defects lie.
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Hi Chris,
I don’t know what’s more depressing; that a library in Birmingham is the most visited tourist attraction outside London or that Carillion can’t build a watertight building. Are your team now tied into visiting the library whenever there’s a heavy downpour to check the potential damage until a solution is found? What do you mean by service exclusions? It’s not a phrase I’ve come across before.
Rich,
As John said the correct terminology is Service Penetrations. On the terraces there are taps for watering the planters and also LV power for lighting etc. All these come from internal to the building to the terrace. I will add a sketch shortly.
A big issue seems to be the penetrations are formed from a 4″ pipe, yet the water pipe inside is only 2″. This leads to a large area for water to flow through the remaining exclusion.
The Paradise Circus team are now essentially responsible for rectifying the issue, the Operations Director is using his power over all projects in the North to redeploy assets as he sees fit. I will report back soon when a potential solution is found.
Chris
Chris, It will be interesting to see where you get to. Many of the main waterproofing specialists such as Sika, Grace, Pudlo, FOSROC, all have impressive warranties. However, these are generally voided by poor preparation and contamination of joints. So unless there is an impressive record of construction with detailed photos, completed surveys, inspection reports and sign offs by company representatives it will be very difficult to prove ‘reasonable skill and care’ was taken by the contractor.
I found that generally contractors were less keen to speak about leaks and the associated costs/where the risk sat because often it was them (the contractor) wishing they had better records. I very much felt that if there were problems later, post fix remedies such as injection grouting, were deemed far better(!) than getting it right first time. I guess this is about playing a risk game. Assuming the issue does not arise until outside the liability period – contractor wins. If not, and the contractor is deemed to be at fault, this can cost a fortune to fix – contractor fails.
Service penetrations?
There will be a few candidates
1 Did the architect detail the cladding ?
2 Was it left to the curtain walling supplier?
3 Was it installed to the detail
4 Did everyone avoid the service penetration detail and leave the service fixing to sort itout in situ ?
Chris, I replied to a totally different issue! I see you were speaking about cladding – perhaps ignore my slightly random (unrelated) response.
Unless they’re an avid concrete-pumper such as yourself (Chris) no-one wants to live in a sealed RC box.
This is highly unlikely to be a design flaw unless the design team decided to come up with detailing from scratch and ignore the usual route of specifying a recognised company’s type of curtain walling and using a manufacturer warranted installation company to fit the stuff. I reckon the reason you have been called to site is that it is the cheapest way for Carillion to keep the Client happy whilst they work out how to get the subby back to site. We had exactly the same issues when we moved back into Denison Block and all the liability fell on the installation company.