Botany: Great Tang Brothers ordered to fix defects at Jasmine St unit block

A building inspector’s audit of a southeast Sydney unit development uncovered dozens of serious defects – including water overflowing in a carpark.

Building defects were found at 26 Jasmine St Botany. Picture: Google

The state’s building watchdog has identifieda whopping 30 defects at an apartment block in Botany where the problems ranged from fire safety hazards to water leaks.

In January, the NSW Building Commission issued Great Tang Brothers a work rectification order to repair the damage at the unit block at 26 Jasmine St.

The company has between one and six months to complete repairs.

Inadequate waterproofing systems were uncovered across the development including in drains which led to water overflowing in the carpark.

“Water is discharging from perimeter drains into the expansion joints and across the basement level,’’ the NSW Fair Trading report stated.

A failure to instal waterproofing material, called the membrane, on the walls in the basement carpark, ground floor common area and podium courtyard led to water entering the building.

The waterproofing layer to the planter boxes was cracked and damaged and, in some cases, was not installed and had a large gap in a joint, leading to leakage.

The inspection also found the floor surface had an inadequate slope, “causing accumulation of excess water throughout the area’’ in unit 162.

The report identified several fire safety measures.

Worringly, water was accumulating into ponds in the carpark and above balconies on rooftops.

“Large volumes of water ponding and significant water staining to the small roofs above individual SOU (sole-occupancy unit) balconies,’’ the report stated.

No expansion joints led to movement of the floor tiles across the balconies of units 162 and 237.

The report was also littered with breaches in fire safety measures.

There were no portable fire extinguishers in public corridors and missing extinguishers in the basement carpark.

No fire hose reels were found in residential floors with non-fire-isolated stairs and no signage had been provided to a hose to indicate its location.

A fire valve was deemed defective because of the slope on which it sat.

Tenants’ storage cages were also obstructing sprinkler heads.

There were also non-compliant fire doors and multiple certification tags were missing or incomplete to fire doors in several spots.

Fire door frames were found to be hollow instead of solid.

There was also a failure to properly instal handrails in stairwells, with unprotected

openings in the balustrade presenting “a fall hazard”.

Structural problems were also raised with cavities found in a concrete slab installation.

Insufficient ventilation in the basement carpark’s rooms was also exposed during the inspection, which also found ventilation grilles in fire doors in those rooms were inadequate.

Originally published as Botany: Great Tang Brothers ordered to fix defects at Jasmine St unit block