Assessment of Defects at Construction and Occupancy Stages
Publication: Journal of Performance of Constructed Facilities
Volume 19, Issue 4
Abstract
Construction inspection can take place only during the construction phase of a project. This imposes limitations on what the building inspector can detect, and thus there is often a gap between perceived construction quality and the defects the occupants suffer from later. This research paper looks into the differences among the defects that occurred during construction and 2 to 6 years after initial occupancy and finds that the defects at both periods were very different. Defects found during the occupancy stage are commonly known as latent defects, most of which were rarely found during the construction stage and are thus rarely accounted for by the designers and building developers. This paper confirms the need to look at defects in another way and to establish more effective methods to reduce latent defects.
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Acknowledgments
The writers would like to thank the property managers and engineers for their participation in the research project and the provision of vital information, both of which were extremely helpful to future defect research. The writers would also like to thank the five surveyors involved in the collection of the defect data over a period of 4 months. Finally, the comments of the three anonymous reviewers were helpful and are hereby gratefully acknowledged.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Performance of Constructed Facilities
Volume 19 • Issue 4 • November 2005
Pages: 283 - 289
Copyright
© 2005 ASCE.
History
Received: Jan 26, 2004
Accepted: Jun 28, 2004
Published online: Nov 1, 2005
Published in print: Nov 2005
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