Waterproofing in wet areas is it done right?

Building inspections can save you from very expensive repairs further down the track if your property inspector carries out a thorough inspection to your wet areas. Besides inspecting the wet areas from inside your home you need to get underneath to really see whats going on.

One of the most common (and expensive) problems with new and old homes and renovations is damage from improperly installed waterproofing in wet areas like kitchens, laundries, shower areas and other parts of bathrooms. Small mistakes or flaws are easy to overlook, and because waterproofing membranes are usually hidden beneath tiles, the damage from badly installed or failed waterproofing may not show up till it’s far too late to avoid serious damage.

As in this photo below where Termite Reports Plus did a building inspection in Banora Point NSW you can see that the shower base dosen't look too bad to the untrained eye.

But once the inspector got under the subfloor to check it out we could see that the waterproofing had failed or in this case probably wasn't applied at all. The owner had this bathroom renovated two years prior. He wasn't too happy to say the least.

Even if it is caught early, repairing damaged or faulty waterproofing can be complicated and invasive, especially in bathrooms where you’ll probably need to remove tiles. Failed waterproofing will often go undetected for a very long time and gradually leaking water into walls, floor cavities and subfloors encouraging the growth of mould, and in some cases rotting to floor timbers and structural members and doing serious damage to the frame of your home. Also having leaks emitting from your bathroom will encourage termites to that area as this makes the perfect conducive environment for termite infestation.