Water leakage in building have long been a problem for residents and arouse grave concerns in the society. To provide some insight for members and public on these issues, the institution organized a press conference with theme of “How to Address Water Leakage at Home” under the series event of “The Building is Sick” in HKIE Headquarters on 5 September 2023.
The hot topic of the press conference attracted representatives from more than ten media organizations. It was also opened for members and received an overwhelming response with over 900 members’ participation through on-line mode. The conference was chaired by President Ir Dr Barry Lee with three professional engineers from Building Services Division (BSD) and Building Division (BD), including BSD Chairman Ir Keith Yue, BSD representative Ir David Chau and BD representative Ir Tony Wong.
The conference began with the review on the trend of reported water leakage cases, which indicated a substantial increase of 68% from 2010 to 2021. Ir Yue analyzed the potential root causes from building services and building structure aspects, and then introduced self-diagnosis method「望、聞、問、切」for building owners to identify water seepage in household by observing the color, odor and intervals of the water seepage occurrence, and conducting some simple self-tests i.e. dye Test. Ir Yue also recommended the adoption of new technologies such as microwave moisture meter, Infrared thermography and exterior wall detection by drone, which were proofed to have a higher success rate of 32% as compared to the traditional methods in identifying the root causes. After that, Ir Yue further elaborated the workflows on handling the water seepage under different scenarios.
For the way forwards, President Ir Dr Barry Lee suggested the government to establish the “case manager” system for close monitoring of the case progress, appoint the leading department for case handling and enhance the power of case investigation through legislation in long run. The conference was concluded in a fruitful discussion between the media representatives and the President’s team.
