Weathertight design for unusual or non-standard areas of construction. It is common for weathertight detailing on plans and specifications to be missing one or more critical details which relate to weathertight performance or to be drawn and specified incorrectly, even after building consent has been issued and work has started on site. It is far better to engage a competent weathertight designer to provide a detail than leave the design up to the contractor, which often leads to weathertightness failure.
Our knowledge and experience in weathertight assessment and design gives us the ability to assess and design site-specific details for inclusion in a building’s design to ensure building code compliance.
We have 27 years’ combined experience in designing weather-tight cladding systems for single residential and multi-unit residential buildings and commercial buildings.
All buildings are potentially at risk of weather-tightness failure, regardless of the building’s age, structure or cladding type. A typical NZ ‘leaky building’ is generally understood as one where water has penetrated a timber-framed building’s cladding system, leading to elevated moisture levels in the building’s timber framing, promoting the growth of mould and fungus, which can lead to decay of the timber framing and the growth of toxigenic mould.
Many factors influence a building’s weather-tightness risk, including:
Don’t leave building weathertightness to chance, insist on a robust quality assurance process for the design and construction of buildings. Reveal provide robust weathertight designs, or design peer review and ‘close the loop’ with construction observation or ‘clerk of works’ inspections during the building work, to ensure the design intent is delivered on-site, guaranteeing a weathertight and durable outcome.
The evidence of the last fifteen to twenty years of the NZ construction industry’s mistakes leads us to one fundamental conclusion: It is better to try and get it right first time rather than re-visit the mistakes later at considerable cost to building owners, tenants, designers, contractors, sub-contractors, councils, government, insurers and lenders.
We know there is commonly asked questions about the design process and choosing, engaging and working with a building consultancy business.