UNDERSTANDING

HOUSING DEFECTS

SECOND EDITION

Duncan Marshall
BSc, MCIOB, MIMBM Senior Lecturer

Derek Worthing
BSc, MPhil, MRICS Principal Lecturer

Roger Heath
FRICS Senior Lecturer

Faculty of the Built Environment,

UWE, Bristol

2 0 0 3

A division of Reed Business Information

The Estates Gazette,

151 Wardour Street, London W1F 8BN
First published 1998
Second Edition 2003
Reprinted 2006, 2007 (twice), Jan 2008

© Duncan Marshall, Derek Worthing and Roger Heath 1998, 2003

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We would like to thank the following organisations and

individuals who have contributed to this text:

Nancy Carlton, Sally Gilbert, lan Constantinides, Dr Brian Dury,

Azadour Guzelain, Dr Susan Marriott, David McLaughlin,
lan Stokes, British Gypsum, Peter Cox Preservation, Protimeter,
Rentokil, The Brick Development Association, The Building
Research Establishment, The Expanded Metal Company,
The Timber Research and Development Association,
Wardell Armstrong, Graeme Todd, Peter Smith,
Robert Shadbolt (Hall & Ensom Chartered Building Surveyors)

Design and typesetting by Ted Masters Graphic Design

Printed in Great Britain by Bell & Bain Ltd., Glasgow

CONTENTS
Introduction 1

Chapter 1 Legal Definitions and Implications 3

Chapter 2 Building Movement - Foundations 23

Chapter 3 Building Movement - Walls 47

Chapter 4 Brickwork and Stonework 67

Chapter 5 Ground Floors 93

Chapter 6 Upper Floors 113

Chapter 7 Pitched Roofs 129

Chapter 8 Flat Roofs 157

Chapter 9 External Rendering 183

Chapter 10 Plastering and Plasterboard 197

Chapter 11 Internal Walls 215

Chapter 12 Timber Pests 227

Chapter 13 Condensation 243

Chapter 14 Damp 257

Chapter 15 System Building 281

Chapter 16 Services 307

Chapter 17 Appendix 331

Index 343
 INTRODUCTION

This new edition of Understanding Housing Defects is a revision of our original text first published in
1998. It is also a natural companion to The Construction of Houses (last revised in 2000).
In this new edition, besides revisiting the text, we have:
• Included, where appropriate, a summary of potential defects caused by failure to observe
current good practice
• Revised nearly all the drawings
• Included many more photographs (many of which have kindly been supplied by existing
or recent students)
• Included an appendix examining changes in construction techniques over the last
300 years or so

Our aim in writing the original text was to provide a concise, coherent and comprehensive
introduction to the causes, investigation and diagnosis of housing defects. There are a number of
excellent texts on building failure but these tend to be either highly technical and/or aimed at specialist
professional practitioners. We felt that there was a need for a more general text, aimed at all those
students and practitioners who require a broad understanding of housing defects as part of a wider
sphere of academic or professional activity. This group includes General Practice Surveyors,
Maintenance Inspectors, Estate Agents, Housing Managers, Environmental Health Officers and
Builders. The book will also provide a helpful introduction for those practitioners, eg Building
Surveyors, who require a more detailed knowledge of building defects. The revised text, like the
original, has three specific objects:
• to explain why, and how, defects occur,
• to enable the reader to recognise and identify building defects,
• to provide, where appropriate, guidance on their correct diagnosis.

Additionally we recognise that a broad knowledge of building principles and good building
practice is a prerequisite for a genuine understanding of building defects. To this end we have, where
necessary, introduced each chapter with a concise summary setting out construction principles and
describing the evolution of current practice. The chapter on Ground Floors, for example, commences
with an explanation of how, and why, floors have changed over the last hundred years or so. The text
does not include aspects of building repair and we make no apology for this. Many repairs are obvious,
others require input from specialists. In addition, there is often a very wide range of potential repair

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 methods and materials; to do them all justice would require several volumes. Similarly, we have not
dealt with Building Services in any great detail. This, again is often a specialist area which may be
beyond the expertise of many property managers. We have, nonetheless, included a summary of the
most common defects likely to be encountered. These are based on our accumulated experience and
the advice of a number of specialists who have helped us in this regard.
During the last hundred years, or so, there have been a number of attempts at producing ’non-
traditional’, industrialised housing systems. There are literally hundreds of these systems; some have
proved quite successful, others less so, and many have been swiftly abandoned. With the exception of
timber framed and pre-cast concrete housing, most of these systems are fairly insignificant in terms of
numbers. We have therefore included a general chapter on System Building which describes some of
the more common methods and identifies a number of typical problems. We have also included a
revised opening chapter which examines a number of legal aspects relating to the inspection and
management of houses. We hope this chapter will prove invaluable to both practitioners and
students and we are indebted to our colleague, Nancy Carlton, who produced it. Finally, we have
included a short appendix which lists typical construction techniques and practices from a variety of
historical periods.

Duncan Marshall, Derek Worthing & Roger Heath UWE, Bristol 2003.