The structure while every connection can still be read against the drawing.
Nine frame inspections in Austral sit behind this page, and the findings are unusually blunt. A connection that does not match the engineering, twice, on two different jobs. A bottom plate discontinuous under a loadbearing and bracing wall. Not enough bearing at an external lintel. A tie down bolt missing, another needing more tension, and a metal strap required at spacing. Bracing not bent onto the side and bottom of the member it was meant to wrap, twice. Noggings unsecured, removed and missing. A steel column not installed at all. One job summarised in a single word: defective. Every photograph here was taken in Austral, roughly six kilometres north west of Edmondson Park and in the same growth corridor. We would rather name the suburb than let another job read as local.
Annotated findings from Frame inspections on Edmondson Park builds. Client addresses withheld.
1Bored piersAfter boring and cage placement, before concrete
2Slab pre-pourThe day before the pour, steel and formwork complete
4Lock-up (pre-plaster)After roof, cladding and external doors, before plaster
5FixingAfter mouldings, doors and joinery, before the painter
6WaterproofingAfter the membrane is applied and before any tile is laid
7Pre-handover (PCI)Two to three weeks before your handover dateInstant online pricing, or talk to the booking team on 1300 471 805.
That the drawing specifies one arrangement of members, brackets or fixings and the frame has been built with another. It is not a tolerance argument, it is a comparison, and either the two agree or they do not.
A bracing wall transfers load through its bottom plate into the slab. Break the plate under it and the load has nowhere continuous to go, so the wall braces less than the design assumed.
Roof bracing is wrapped around the member it restrains and fixed on more than one face. Left flat against one face, it is fixed but not restraining, which is a different thing.
It is specified for the member and the load, so it is a number rather than a judgement. Not enough bearing means the contact length is short of that number and it is reported as structural.
Between two and three hours single storey, and more when an upper frame needs safe access.
At lock-up, with each marked complete, part complete or outstanding, so nothing disappears quietly behind a lining.
