THE PROBLEM
Severe water penetration problems caused many of the residential units in the Crown apartment building in Mackay, far North Queensland, to become uninhabitable.
Poor construction practices and inadequate materials choices combined with the high rainfall, tropical temperatures and exposed location caused almost complete failure of the building envelope from a waterproofing and weather proofing view point.
Additionally, the passive fire systems within the building were found to be non-compliant. The Owners were also keen to ‘re-launch’ the building in the local property market and so upgraded it’s appearance.
THE PROCESS
Given that many units were unoccupied, we were able to accommodate a large crew from interstate within the building. Additionally, low occupancy simplified access issues, and enabled them to commence internal works quickly once external weather proofing was completed.
A large scaffold structure was utilised to complete the cladding and glazing works, providing good and safe access to the large crew needed to complete such a major over-cladding and re-glazing exercise.
THE SOLUTION
The widespread and generic nature of the defects found, determined that nothing short of a complete refurbishment of the buildings façade would suffice to restore the building to a premier position in the Mackay residential unit market.
We entered into a design and construct contract with the owners to construct a new rain screen cladding and glazing system for the building. The cladding consisted of the Hardies Exotec system coupled with new cyclone rated aluminium windows by G James.
