legends · 4 min read ·
Snagging List
A new-build snagging report finds floors that slope towards the same wall, one storey above another.
**Heron Quay Developments — Snagging Report: Block C, Apartment 3**
**Inspector:** J. Pascoe (independent) · **Date:** 6 October · **Reason:** buyer's pre-completion inspection
- **Item · Location · Defect · Priority**
- 1 · Hall · Paint touch-up, skirting · Low
- 2 · Kitchen · Cupboard door misaligned · Low
- 3 · Bathroom · Silicone gap at bath · Medium
- 4 · Living room · **Floor out of level** · **High**
- 5 · Bedroom · **Floor out of level** · **High**
- 6 · Hall · **Floor out of level** · **High**
· · ·
**Inspector's notes**
I use a laser level and a two-metre spirit level on every inspection. A new floor should be flat to within three millimetres over two metres. In Apartment 3 the floors are not flat. They are not uneven, either. Each one runs in a smooth fall of about eleven millimetres per metre, a slope you can feel when you walk, towards the same point.
I took the readings room by room and marked the direction of fall with chalk arrows.
- Living room: fall towards the north-east corner.
- Bedroom: fall towards the south-east.
- Hall: fall towards the east.
I drew the arrows on the plan. They converge on a spot in the east wall of the hall, behind a coat cupboard, at a height of 1.3 m. The spot has nothing on it. The wall there is plasterboard, painted, flat.
A marble put down in the middle of the living room rolled steadily to the north-east, crossed the threshold into the hall, turned, and rolled on to the east wall, where it stopped against the skirting and stayed.
· · ·
**Developer's reply (Heron Quay, 9 October)**
*Thank you for your report. We have reviewed the structural drawings. The slab is level to within tolerance. We believe the apparent fall is an optical effect of the open-plan layout. We do not propose to remedy items 4, 5 or 6.*
· · ·
**Inspector's second visit (J. Pascoe, 14 October)**
I measured every apartment on the third floor, 1 to 6. All six have the same fall, all towards the east wall, all converging on the same relative point in the hall. I then took the measurements for Block C, floors 1 and 2. Every apartment in the block falls towards its own east wall, and when I projected the lines on the site plan they met at a point under the car park, 14 metres below the building's footprint, on the line of the old canal culvert.
I went down to the car park with a laser. The floor of the car park is perfectly level. The ceiling is not. It falls towards the culvert cover in the north-east corner, an iron plate with a ring handle, painted over.
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**Inspector's note (J. Pascoe, 16 October)**
I asked the site manager about the culvert. He said it had been capped before the build. I asked who capped it. He said the original contractor, in 1962. I asked when it was last opened. He said nobody had a record.
Since the first inspection I have been taking an interest in water. Nothing about the building is wet. But the apartments are on a slope, and a slope is a statement about where things are meant to go. The marble went to the east wall, behind the cupboard, at 1.3 m. If you roll a marble across any floor in Block C, it ends up at the same height on the same wall, one floor above the last.
That is a vertical line. That is a pipe, or a shaft, or a throat.
· · ·
**Final snagging list (J. Pascoe, 27 October)**
Item 4: **Not rectified.** Floor falls to the east.
Item 5: **Not rectified.** Floor falls to the east.
Item 6: **Not rectified.** Floor falls to the east.
Item 7 (new): **Buyer has moved in.** Buyer reports that nothing on a table stays put, that small objects move across the room overnight and collect against the east wall, and that this morning, behind the coat cupboard, the plasterboard has a damp patch the width of a hand.
Recommendation: do not complete.
*Note: the buyer has completed. She says the floor is quite comfortable once you lean into it.*