by Gold Coast Bulletin columnist and host of Lifestyle Channel's Selling Houses Australia Andrew Winter
HELP ... my house isn't very well.
How many people have had that annoying random defect with their home?
Usually it is a leak somewhere obscure, a damp patch on a ceiling or wall or perhaps a crack, mould or decaying timber.
Or worse, signs that those dreaded tiny wood-eating creatures are treating your home like the a la carte menu of the finest restaurant.
Perhaps you live in a unit or townhouse and you are positive the home of a dear neighbour is the cause of that wet patch that appears every time it rains from the east, but you cannot prove it.
This is not uncommon.
Houses, like humans, can suffer ailments but they are not the easiest to diagnose.
These are more akin to the severely sore back or aches and pains that have no real obvious cause yet cause so much pain -- so it is with a sick house.
The unwell house looks fine, until you look very closely at certain places.
The moment the rain starts, your anxiety and stress levels increase as much as the damp grows in size.
I recently spoke to a building inspector who had been asked to investigate the source of water ingress that simply could not be traced and eventually discovered the guttering in one point had a tiny hole where a rivet should be.
Consequently, in heavy rain this allowed water to soak into the top of a wall through a minute hairline surface crack, soak in and stay there.
In lengthy rain periods water would build up and disperse into the cavity staying there for months and, courtesy of gravity, travel as far as it could to totally confuse any investigation.
The evidence of moisture damage in the home was about 18m from the source -- that is two levels up and nearly the length of the whole house across.
These tiny issues can grow without treatment into very costly and generally uninsured repairs.
This happens in new homes, old homes, renovators and the show home. Many homes at some point will suffer a little illness.
In most cases we see something we either ignore or start the very tiresome, confusing and downright annoying process of investigation, or -- should I say -- diagnosis.
But there is help at hand, certainly for any water or damp-related issue, or even sourcing the entry point of those hungry little insects.
This is not the latest new gadget. The technology has been around for quite a few years, but the quality and availability of this specialist equipment is constantly improving and these gadgets and their operators, providing they know what they are doing, can be invaluable in sourcing any issues, as the equipment undertakes the searching without stripping all the walls back to the frame.
Remember, if you could literally peel any wall or floor back you could easily see what was happening, but that is a) impractical and b) you may as well knock down and start again.
Infrared cameras, really called Thermal Imaging Equipment, have a vast array of capabilities now from sourcing moisture, insect infestation, electrical circuits' performance, even pinpointing holes or where air has been getting into a cavity.
This technology can give you images, printouts, everything you need to source a problem and a serious hint on how to solve the issue.
But as amazing as it is, the operators still need to know what they are doing.
Although it is a point-and-shoot piece of technology, the readings can be heavily influenced by ambient temperatures and the surface material.
So it is vital that the operator has both the skills and the training to interpret correctly what he, or she is discovering behind the sheeting.
So the good news is there is help out there, but like all contractors, please check out the background of operators and check references, as well as getting proper quotes and comparisons.
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