Understanding Housing Defects

by Duncan Marshall, Derek Worthing BSc Mphil MRICS, Nigel Dann

Understanding Housing Defects provides a concise, coherent and comprehensive introduction to the causes, investigation and diagnosis of defects in domestic buildings. For this new edition, many of the chapters have been substantially updated and new photographs have been added. There are four new chapters Many of the 21 chapters cover a specific building element and include a brief introduction setting out construction principles and the evolution of current practice. All of the chapters consider the identification, cause and diagnosis of common (and sometimes not so common) defects. This book is a must have for all those students and practitioners who require a broad understanding of housing defects. Building surveyors, general practice surveyors, architects, estate agents, housing officers and anyone involved in the management and maintenance of property as well as its construction will benefit hugely from this highly informative full-colour text. Written by the authors of The Construction of Houses, the book is also the natural companion to this bestselling textbook.

550 pages, Paperback

First published March 29, 2013

Reviews

[Jordanne]

A must-have textbook for those studying - or indeed even work in - this area. It was by far the best text-book assigned for this year of my course. It does have a fair amount of text - unsurprising since its an A4 tomb of a book - but it is all really interesting and concise really with lots of helpful photos and diagrams.

The scope of what's covered is brilliant and one of my colleagues studying her APC bought a copy herself - and all my colleagues claimed it was by far one of the best defect texts they'd seen lately. I have no doubt it's a book I'll keep with me throughout my career as a surveyor.

[Tuomas Hietanen]

Very helpful explaining about vegetation around houses.
But this is already over 10 years old, and I would have been interested also some discussion about modern topics, for example:

- Different heat pump systems and their related defects
- What to consider with high voltage systems like electric car charging stations, home batteries with solar panels, or induction ovens
- Electrical grounding defects and their back-ups

[Adam Hodge]

This book was amazing and really gave an in depth description into different defects and construction of housing in the different periods, pre 1920, 1920-45, 1946-80 and post 1980 properties.