Concrete defects are "widespread" in Canberra apartment developments, an industry engineer says, as remediation businesses report a rise in demand for their services.
Multiple ACT business owners who repair cracked, shrunken or faulty concrete say the majority of their growing workload is on apartment buildings less than 10 years old.
Canberra structural engineer Mal Wilson blamed developers and builders cutting costs on the design and construction of new buildings over the past 15 years for the increase in concrete defects.
"[Concrete design faults have] been pretty widespread and mostly [have] been concentrated on the apartment building sector, where I think the fees are very, very tight and people just aren't doing the work they need to be doing to get the drawings right," he said.
"The industry hasn't been set up that way, for people to be accountable."
Mr Wilson said there were more risks in buying a new apartment than an older one, particularly if the builder had used cheap waterproofing.
"There are often ... concerns with water penetrating into basements and landing on cars and taking the paint off their cars because the pH is so high, or they're talking about balconies that are often leaking back into the building or just leaking down onto the balcony below," he said.
"People have asked us to do jobs and we just walk away and we just laugh at the fee they're talking about, and then we get paid a fortune later on to fix it all up. It just shouldn't have been happening."
Leanne Foresti, who runs a concrete remediation business with her husband, said they had experienced a massive increase in people inquiring about their services, many of them living in apartments buildings between eight to 10 years old.
"All of our concrete remediation is all on new builds in Canberra ... it hasn't been on established homes or apartment blocks," Ms Foresti said.
"We're talking about defects that aren't identified during sometimes during the engineering and design process, all the way through to construction and after construction."
ACT Concrete Restoration chief executive Andrew Ivers, who has worked in the Canberra industry for 30 years, also said demand for remediation work had increased in the past year, and that he was seeing a lot of defects in waterproofing work on apartment buildings.
"It just seems to be that we're doing a lot more remediation, a lot of our work now is just fixing up apartment buildings," Mr Ivers said.
Another remediation business owner said there was a noticeable pattern of defects emerging in apartment buildings that were reaching the six- to eight-year mark.
The Canberra Times previously reported on one townhouse owner's battle for her strata company to fix a concrete balcony that flooded her living room every time it rained, while developer Geocon recently agreed to fix defects in a Gungahlin complex, which included water ingress in units, basement levels and balconies.
Master Builders Association ACT chief executive Anna Neelagama said the risk of significant, long-term issues in large developments made high-quality concreting and robust quality assurance processes essential.
"We must ensure that workforce planning, training, and capability development are in place for this highly technical area of the construction industry here in Canberra and the greater region," she said.
"The ACT faces significant limitations in this regard. For example, we are not aware of any certificate III in concreting currently offered in the ACT, which poses a challenge to maintaining a strong pipeline of skilled workers and future business owners who are appropriately qualified."
Despite the increase in remediation work, Mr Wilson said he was optimistic amendments to ACT building regulations and the introduction of developer licences would ameliorate issues, with developers carrying more responsibility for construction quality.
"What the legislation is saying is basically, no, it's not the cheapest building that wins anymore because the developer is now going to have to carry the can a little bit ... it really is about producing a quality building," he said.
