Crumbling Homes: Mica in Concrete Scandal

JupiterKid

First there was the Priory Hall debacle, where an entire apartment complex in North suburban Dublin had to be evacuated due to incredibly shoddy building work and a lack of fire safety measures.

Then the iron pyrite saga came to light. Concrete with iron pyrite content was expanding on contact with moisture, causing foundations, walls to buckle and crack and floors to buckle. Those unlucky enough to have the pyrite problems have had a redress scheme to repair those houses that can be repaired, although a few will have to be completely demolished and rebuilt.

And now the latest one: mica in concrete blocks from quarries in Donegal and Mayo causing walls and floors to literally crumble away and nearly all of these houses will have to be demolished and rebuilt. Up to 7,000 homes could be affected. The cost of addressing this tragedy could amount to €1 billion. Heartbroken families watching their homes literally crumbling away to dust. Another scandal...

When will the next scandal of sub-par cowboy construction occur?

Cowboys Ted! They’re a bunch of fecking cowboys!

gctest50

JupiterKid wrote: »

First there was the Priory Hall debacle, where an entire apartment complex in North suburban Dublin had to be evacuated due to incredibly shoddy building work and a lack of fire safety measures.

Then the iron pyrite saga came to light. Concrete with iron pyrite content was expanding on contact with moisture, causing foundations, walls to buckle and crack and floors to buckle. Those unlucky enough to have the pyrite problems have had a redress scheme to repair those houses that can be repaired, although a few will have to be completely demolished and rebuilt.

And now the latest one: mica in concrete blocks from quarries in Donegal and Mayo causing walls and floors to literally crumble away and nearly all of these houses will have to be demolished and rebuilt. Up to 7,000 homes could be affected. The cost of addressing this tragedy could amount to €1 billion. Heartbroken families watching their homes literally crumbling away to dust. Another scandal...

When will the next scandal of sub-par cowboy construction occur?

JupiterKid wrote: »

...................

When will the next scandal of sub-par cowboy construction occur?

Right there from that video series :


https://imgur.com/a/m1zNooX


Where's the eye protection ?

Who put up that scaffold ?

Where's the kickboards n handrails ?

theteal

The bigger scandal is how that camera was held, I just fell off my chair trying to watch that

Metric Tensor

Trying not to be a pedant, but failing spectacularly ...

Just to point out that the pyrite that has been causing problems is predominantly in the fill material beneath the concrete slabs and foundations rather than in the concrete itself. It doesn't sound like a huge difference to the lay person but it is from an engineering and remediation point of view.

Totally agree it's indefensible. Standards have been updated and changed in recent years but whether the faulty products were completely compliant with the standards that were in place at the time is hotly debated/contested.

Franz Von Peppercorn

It was all self certification.

m5ex9oqjawdg2i

Why should the houses be demolished? Are the blocks in the supporting walls contaminated too?

JupiterKid

Elsie Scruffy Armband wrote: »

Why should the houses be demolished? Are the blocks in the supporting walls contaminated too?

Yes, in nearly all cases yes they are. This is heartbreaking for the families involved. Imagine your own dwelling literally crumbling away and having to vacate as it's structurally unsafe.

Self-certification of building work has been an unmitigated disaster. This would not happen in other EU countries where there is usually a strict inspection regime and for good reason.

stoneill

Elsie Scruffy Armband wrote: »

Why should the houses be demolished? Are the blocks in the supporting walls contaminated too?

Imagine if your house was made entirely of spray foam.

Penn

Elsie Scruffy Armband wrote: »

Why should the houses be demolished? Are the blocks in the supporting walls contaminated too?

Yes, as the inner and outer leaf of blockwork are both built at the same time, meaning they'd be using the same delivery of blocks (likely contaminated). The outer leaf of blocks would show signs of damage first as they're subjected more to moisture and weather conditions, but the underlying issue (mica or pyrite) in the blockwork is still present and would also have to be removed. Same goes for the internal walls and the rising walls. Just because they may not have shown signs of damage from mica, there would still be a strong chance defective blockwork was used in the construction as the blocks were all coming from the same source and built up together in stages. The work required to test random blocks throughout, particularly in the rising walls, would mean the best course of action would just be to demolish and rebuild.

MrMusician18

While I have every sympathy for the householders, I don't understand why the state has to step in here.

The responsibility for paying for this lies squarely with the building companies and suppliers involved and their insurers. Not anyone else.

pxdf9i5cmoavkz

Badly built houses in Ireland? Never....

engiweirdo

MrMusician18 wrote: »

While I have every sympathy for the householders, I don't understand why the state has to step in here.

The responsibility for paying for this lies squarely with the building companies and suppliers involved and their insurers. Not anyone else.

State negligence via non enforcement of building regs? This country is like the wild west for this kind of crap. From the Romania of Western Europe to the China of Western Europe.

Effects

There was a good episode of Prime Time that covered this in the past couple of years.
Heartbreaking for the home owners involved.

tigerboon

Site "management" is an issue. Some sites have an engineer who's doing everything while others have a QS who is only interested in lowest price and hasn't a clue about materials. If anyone ever looked at a house drawing it certainly used to say "stone fill" under the floors. No spec or properties in the description. That was license to use the cheapest product available as long as it looked like clean stone. Builders probably saved a couple of euro a tonne on stone. Maybe 2 loads under the floor of a house so around 100 euro of a saving. I heard it was costing in excess of €50k to fix pyrite affected houses. The savings on blocks wouldn't be much bigger.
But you probably get a kitchen worth €20k!