Design faults and poor design

Today I had my scoping for repairs to earthquake damage on my home. I heard quite a bit about "design faults" and "poor design" from the guy from EQC (Earthquake and War Commission, the government insurance for natural disasters in NZ).

For all of that I that I think it went ok. None of the post-quake leaks were resolved today, but there will be further investigations once repairs commence. That means EQC has neither accepted or turned down the leaks above my upstairs dormer windows of the ranch slider (sliding door) downstairs. A well maintained home and my record keeping helped and I think it's both realistic and best to remain positive.

Oddly most of my main issues are focused around the back corner I blipped yesterday.

It's a curious thing to stand and listen to a couple of blokes who have come to Christchurch from the North Island after the main earthquakes. They wave their hands around and say things like "...during the earthquake it would have moved this way, then this moved this way, and then.....".

You have to experience and unbelievable speed and immense forces that occur in a few seconds of a large quake to know categorically saying x, y and z happened is just impossible. Our experience is the land and our homes move up, down, sideways and every other way all at the same time!

Half of my day was taken up with earthquake related leave, the other half I took off as annual leave. We did a few errands and ended up terriorising trying to terriorise trout at Lake Hood near Ashbuton. I practiced my fly fishing technique too.

All of which helped allay my anxiety :-)

I found these images in the old dairy coop factory building in Ashburton. Plenty of poor design and construction here. Makes you wonder how it's still standing ;-)

Lovely large