The Membrane In Your Walls Is Keeping You Safe From Water, So What Happens When It Fails?

 by Gavin Godfrey

02 Aug 2023

While a small plumbing issue might mean nothing more than a reaching out to your local plumber and a small call-out fee, a larger, more complicated affair is likely to need much more work, and unfortunately, there's no reliable way to tell the two apart until you get a professional to have a look at it. Sadly, this couldn't be better illustrated than by the Greenslopes home that our professional team were called out to investigate.

This lovely home in Greenslopes had an unassuming exterior, and at first, we felt that the building inspection would be nothing more than a range of large ticks on our forms and positive findings across every area of the building. The only thing we could immediately label as being out of place was a small wet patch in the garage, but there was no glaringly obvious explanation as to where it had come from. Once we'd reached the ensuite bathroom, though, we found the root of the problem and a glaring issue in the home's plumbing that the client desperately needed to address before going ahead with their purchase.

Turning on the shower didn't show any immediate signs of damage at first, but when we performed a few checks with the thermal imager and the moisture meter to try and see if the shower was related to the leak in the garage, we found the membrane system in the shower recess had suffered from a major failure. Sure enough, performing those same checks on the bedroom's walk-in wardrobe showed the extent of the damage, and we made it clear to our client that they would need to get this fixed before entering any negotiations for settlement.

Thankfully, that's exactly what happened, with the client now having happily purchased a home that they were entirely confident in. If you would like that same comfort, you can get in touch with our team here at Ironside Building, Pest, & Pool Inspections on 0416 291 179.