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Home Maintenance and Repairs Waffle Pod Slabs

Slab Heave Hits Melbourne – and now Sydney

Slab Heave in Melbourne

A recent article by Simon Yohanson in The Age, Melbourne has highlighted the ongoing problem faced by homeowners as slab heave hits Melbourne.

“Thousands of suburban homeowners facing financial ruin.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/thousands-of-suburban-home-owners-facing-financial-ruin-20140607-39q4z.html#ixzz345UdtsEg

Yet, if you’re a Melbournite affected by slab heave, it is of little comfort to know that you are not alone.

Slab Heave in Sydney

There’s been a spike in users from Sydney hitting our website looking for information about slab heave. Welcome – and don’t panic! There’s plenty of information on the web about slab heave and how you can minimise its effect. I hope we can help provide some of that information for you.

What is Slab Heave?

See our post: What is slab heave?

Who is Responsible?

Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane homeowners – if your house is within the builder’s warranty period, the builder and the developer are responsible for fixing slab heave – but they will try to re-assign the blame. For your best chance of having your house fixed, you MUST be prepared to eliminate conditions that could be considered to contribute to the problem.

Water sitting near a waffle slab
Control site drainage from the start until the end of construction

If your home is outside the builder warranty period, it is your responsibility to fix slab heave. There’s plenty of information on this site on how to improve conditions around your house.

If you need more help or a recommendation for an engineer please ask. I’ll try to find an experienced residential engineer that can help you.

The Claim Process

If you are within the builder’s warranty period, this is the claim and fixing process:

  1. Monitor the damage. See my post about how to add some science to youhttps://www.cornellengineers.com.au/how-to-fix-cracks-in-your-house/r monitoring and writing a ‘crack diary’. This will improve your chances of getting a good outcome.
  2. Improve the drainage conditions around your house. This is your responsibility as a homeowner and you can not get out of this responsibility. Read this post and follow the recommendations in “Do this First”.
  3. Make yourself aware of the insurance claim process for your state. Knowledge is your best weapon against slab heave.
  4. Make a written complaint to the builder outlining the damage, when it occurred and that you want the builder to fix it. Do not mention legal action. At this stage, you want to work with the builder – not against the builder. Your complaint MUST be in writing and you MUST keep a copy as evidence. Send it by email and request a read receipt; or send it by registered post, or send it by facsimile. Include a history of the damage (including photos you took and a copy of your crack diary).
  5. Allow the builder fair access your property to assess the damage. A clever builder will engage a residential structural engineer almost immediately. Have your crack diary available for inspection or for copying but do not give your crack diary away.
  6. The builder should, but doesn’t have to, give you a copy of the engineer’s report. If any aspect of the engineer’s report is unclear, ask the builder if you can speak to the engineer directly. If you disagree with any aspect of the engineer’s report, consider getting an independent interpretation of the report, or better still, an independent engineer’s inspection. Read here about what to ask any engineer that enters your property.
  7. Follow the recommendations of the engineer’s report to the letter.
  8. Allow the builder access to the property to make any repairs required in accordance with the engineer’s report.
  9. Continue to monitor the cracks and keep your crack diary up to date.

Warnings!

Warning 1: Fixing slab heave is a slow process. You will not see improvements in crack width or floor slope occur very quickly. It takes a long time for heavy clay soils covered by a building to stabilise.

Warning 2: Bumping this problem up to litigation will slow the resolution process down infinitely. Most builders take the hands-off approach when lawyers get involved.

Warning 3: If you haven’t built your house yet – and your builder is using a waffle slab, carefully read and implement the builder’s and engineer’s advice on foundation maintenance (management of soil moisture around and under your house).

Articles on Our Website that might Help

Have a look at some of these articles. They might help you understand the issues:

The Forums Might Help

We contribute to the HomeOne forum from time to time. Check out this long discussion on slab heave.

Summary

As slab heave hits Melbourne and Sydney, just be aware that you are not alone. This is a stressful time but there is help at hand.

Sometime the issues can be avoided and slab heave can be fixed. You have to be patient and you have to improve the site conditions around your property.

If you’re from Sydney or Melbourne and your house is suffering slab heave, I know your pain. I wish you all the luck in the world.

By Matt Cornell
A Structural Engineering Blog