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I am planning to purchase a house from some builder and I have finalized some properties. All are newly constructed houses. In one of it, I can see some water leakage in walls due to rain.
Is this fixable, if yes, can I ask the builder to fix it and proceed to buy it OR can I ignore this?
I need suggestions please.
The leakage images are below (click to enlarge):
Apparently this is a flat roof, maybe a terrace roof.
Since the roof is flat, there is no slope to let gravity get rid of the water for you. So it really needs to be done properly, with an EPDM membrane or something of the sort.
If this is not done properly it will leak. From the pics this one is leaking everywhere along the edge.
If the membrane (or whatever else is supposed to make it water tight) is hidden below something, like tile, gravel, earth, etc, then you'll need to get rid of that to access the leaky membrane.
Then, well, it's difficult to find the leaks from above. So given it's leaking pretty much everywhere, you'll probably end up having to redo the whole thing.
I'd recommend finding a contractor who can do that, and asking them how much that will cost. Don't expect it to be cheap, because it's a lot of work.
Do not ignore this problem
You could ask the builder to fix it, but since it'll be expensive, will they really do it?... They'll probably just wait for summer so it dries and sell it as-is instead.
Also there are other tell-tale signs that this building is pretty low quality, so beware. I wouldn't be surprised if all the paint on the exterior walls falls off way sooner than it should ; the little wall in front has wet spots on the bottom which hints that the drainage on the terrace is not working (or there is none), etc.
Ouch! This is really, really incompetent work...this house is likely to develop serious mold problems in the future. I would look for another builder.
I would assume that water is pooling on the roof during a rain. The symptoms you describe could happen due to the following reasons:
Your rain gutters might be blocked. Flat roofs have gutters / holes in the side walls / pipework etc. which drains rain water - spilling it on the ground or taking it into the sewage. Make sure that your gutters are not obstructed.
Rain gutter might be damaged or not properly sealed, providing an ingress for water into the walls. Depending on the type of gutter it can be trivial or hard to replace.
Cracks might have developed between the walls and the roof, forming pockets where water can enter your walls. This sometimes happens due to settling. Inspect the floor of your roof, especially close to the edges, and see if there are any crevices or cracks. Have these repaired or caulked.
The roof might not be properly sloped. Even flat roofs have a slight slope which guides water to the rain gutters, similar to how the floor is sloped in washrooms etc. This could potentially be fixed, but you would need to have the tiles reinstalled.
The roof membrane / tar might be damaged. This can be redone, but again you would need to have the tiles reinstalled at a minimum.
I've seen similar issues, but only in very old homes or ones which have been renovated (walls moved). I would be concerned if this was the state of a new building.
