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Structural-Audit

Conduct Structural Audit: Save Your Old House

You might be observing signs of aging in your old building. Whenever buildings get old, they develop certain sickness that must be healed in time. Neglecting these issues can bring down the building, especially if the structure is very old. Your neighbourhood might be having several old buildings that are in a state of structural distress. These buildings sooner or later go into coma. Therefore, it is very important to attend the problems on an immediate basis as and when they arise.

Get the Leakage Repaired
Leakage from various places is one of the major sources of the sickness of building. Buildings should be treated with love and affection. So as soon as the leakage happens, one must get it structurally checked instead of waiting for the last minute redressal. Leakage can cause deterioration of the RCC elements including columns, slabs & beams.

Some of the common leakage problems arise from overhead water tanks, terraces and rainwater pipes. Or you might have a choked plumbing line or cracks in the external plaster of your building. One should use dense concrete right at the time of construction. In this dense proportion, the water to cement ratio is less than 0.4. Moreover, one should also get proper waterproofing of membranes for terrace & toilets. The plaster should be done properly with good curing.

Conduct Structural Audit
Conducting a structural audit is another way to find out the root cause of the leakage or other issues faced by the building and address them accordingly. For a 30 year old building, the audit has been made compulsory by the municipal authority. After the audit, the recommendations of the report have to be executed within a given time frame. If the building authorities don’t do it, the municipal authorities can take it up and recover the cost through the taxes of the building.

Apart from that, there are certain construction technologies constantly hitting the market designed towards facilitating safe building practices.

The cost of conducting a structural audit is very reasonable. Experts say that the average costing may work out to Rs 200 – 300 per flat. The repairing work, however, may cost more depending upon the nature of work required to be done. But if the problem is tackled in time, it will need less of both time and money.