Browse Forums Building Standards; Getting It Right! 1 Sep 21, 2013 10:22 pm I am currently building a 2-storey house with Carlisle Homes and have now reached lock-up stage. There were several minor problems along the way and I had originally intended to share with everyone my building experience after my house is completed but I could not wait. At this moment, I am UTTERLY DISAPPOINTED AND DISGUSTED that I have to pay for additional waterproofing ($2,000) to bring the wet areas up to the standard specified in AS3740-2004. A wet area includes bathroom, shower, wc and laundries. As specified in AS3740, waterproofing is required for the entire bathroom floor and junctions, so are junctions in toilets and laundries. Walls are to be water resistant and junctions waterproof. Any penetrations such as horizontal surfaces around fixtures (e.g. Sink, Basin, Laundry Tubs) are to be waterproof and adjacent vertical surfaces to be water resistant. Carlisle Homes have used this phrase "alternative waterproofing solutions" for waterproofing the wet areas. In fact, there is no "alternative waterproofing solution" implemented to satisfy this standard. They have only waterproofed the shower. Everything else is missing. One would expect a builder to comply with building standards and codes, and not having the customer pay for it at this stage! Re: Waterproof shock 2Sep 21, 2013 10:47 pm I'm confused. I'm not too well versed in these regulations you are quoting, but are you saying that a house has to meet certain regulations and your house does not? If so, wouldn't it simply be a matter of the builder fixing it? You haven't even paid all the stage payments yet, so easy to get a resolution. Obviously let builder know as soon as possible that your house is not meeting the requirements so that anything that needs to be fixed can be done as soon as possible to avoid extra costs (for builder) + further delays. Re: Waterproof shock 3Sep 22, 2013 3:06 pm Did the person doing the inspections pick up the problem? I'm wondering whats the usual next step when that happens, like when they tell you this is what we found? Don't they liaiase with the builder to get it taken care of? Adding an extra cost to YOU to do something correctly as per the standards is not right. Is the builder doing that to all their customers? How many people are paying for surprise extras over the contract price or living with substandard work????? Btw I can tell you from experience not having the whole wet area floor waterproofed is trouble. I saw it, I looked at it, I didn't know anything about it and I knew we were having inspections so I trusted the inspector to know, so I was just thinking cool, shower looks ready for tiling now. Wish I had of known to kick up a fuss right then, repairs after you move in are no fun. |