9 CAUSES OF BUILDING COLLAPSE

CAUSES OF BUILDING COLLAPSES

A residential building under construction collapses and leans on an existing adjacent building in Kinoo, Kiambu County, Kenya. (Google)

The following are some of the possible causes of building collapses based on our experience;

1. Incompetent builders;
Selection of builders without assessing and considering the necessary qualifications probably due to being the cheapest or lowest bidder, corruption, nepotism and lack experience or ignorance of the developer.

2. Poor workmanship;
Incompetent builders may result into poor workmanship such as poor vibration of placed concrete leading to honey combing etc.

3. Poor concrete Mixes;
Poor concrete has been the leading cause of building collapses. Incompetent builders may not have qualified personnel that are able to achieve consistent concrete strengths in all mixed batches.

4. Ignoring Engineering Errors;
Incompetent builders may not have qualified personnel that are able to interpret and possibly identify errors that sometimes get spotted during construction. Such errors may include omitted reinforcements in certain critical areas etc.

5. Disregarding specifications and drawing details;
Incompetent builders may disregard the issued details and implement their own perceived details without consulting the designers. Such may include changing floor plans, changing construction materials with inadequate strengths, fixing reinforcements in wrong places, providing insufficient laps and concrete covers to reinforcements etc.

6. Inadequate designs;
Incompetent designers may provide inadequate details that may become disastrous when implemented. Such designs may lead to column failures, punching shear failure on the pad foundations, deferential building settlement etc.

7. Lack of supervision;
Lack of continuous oversight and inspections may lead to non-compliance with the approved designs and specifications thus compromise the quality of construction works.

8. Unauthorized alterations and change of user;
Very common with developers who change the use of a building without consulting the designers. Such include changing a residential to a commercial or storage building that may lead to overloading etc.

9. Poor enforcement of building control regulations;
Government enforcement agents have been laxity in enforcement of building control regulations probably due to corruption from the field agents, lack of institutional capacity and disjointed coordination between the various agencies

Published by Geostruct (July 21, 2023)