Investigation of damages occured at facade claddings of residential buildings in istanbul: The case of Kadıkoy - Moda

In recent years, it is a general view that people's inclination for building maintenance or renewals have an significant increase to improve the quality of their living area, because of both having a sensitive approach and necessary alterations. It is a fact that, these works of repairs and renewals are taken place at facade cladding of residential buildings, because of the important role of facades on having effective performance during the building life cycle period. It is also known that, there are commonly different defects and damages occured at facade claddings, which cover the external side of facade system, owing to being exposed to environmental effects. In this context, setting up a maintenance programme as a next step of determination of damages and their cause(s), has great importance on decreasing the loss of energy and material sources during the building life period. Residential buildings constitute a big part of the whole building stock in Turkey. Therefore, when dealing with facade claddings of residential buildings, there might be seen a remarkable diversity of failures and their levels of damages depending on types of cladding materials. Repair and renewal scenarios have significant effect in this diversity as well. In the thesis, existing residential areas in Istanbul were investigated; then among these areas, Kadıköy-Moda was determined to be investigated for anomalies, defects and damages occured at cladding materials used on the facades of residential buildings. Additionally, the investigation was expected to finalize with analyses and assessments to present the current situation of facade claddings. This survey aims to provide preparatory knowledge for interventions in terms of maintenance and/or renewals according to the results of diagnosis of releated damages, and also to have a preliminary research to decrease loss of sources through building life cycle period. This research consists of four main parts; and the first part is composed of studies by literature reviews and web resources to define the decay process and methodology of investigation. The second part is based on characteristics of facade claddings affecting the choice of the materials. Moreover, in this phase, damages and their possible causes related to facade claddings used in residential buildings, were described depending on types of materials. These investigations were executed in accordance with the information obtained from academic publications, web-based resources and firms' catalogs and fact-sheets. As a third part; a detailed site-visit to analyse the possible failures of facade claddings was performed. In accordance with informations derived from the previous parts of the research process, an investigation process was specified to give the essentials of a systematic approach for dealing with defects and to prepare faultfinding sheets during investigation. According to the performed on-site investigation; - In the first step of the investigation process, Kadıköy-Moda was selected as an area of detailed site-specific investigation by individual observations, site visits and websites of local authorities. Four main factors based on an examination being appropriate to visual check were taken into account for the selection of the residential area. These factors are; the construction year (age of building), the type of façade cladding material, the number of building floors and having adequate number of damaged building to compose a sample group. - As a second step, randomly selected 60 damaged residential buildings in Kadıköy-Moda were analysed by taking photographs as a record for later stages and filling out check sheets for every building. Additionally, getting in contact with building occupants in possible cases and getting the data about building projects from related departments of local authorities were included as a part of this on-site investigation. - In the last step of the process, the results of the analyses were assessed within the context of environmental agents and explained accordance with observable colour, texture and shape changes in appearance. These deteriorations occur as a result of the direct or in-direct and singular or combined impacts of degradation factors defined as heat and vapor, water and damp, solar radiation, environmental pollutants, micro-organisms and user factors. Other loads affecting the building and deteriorations caused from these loads were excluded from the scope of the thesis. According to the results of the analyses: - About colour changes (such as bleaching, lightening, darkening/soiling and discolouration at facade claddings), the degradations based on solar radiation, environmental pollutants and user factors including user abuse and lack of maintenance within the scope of primary causes were explained in detail. - About textural changes (such as bubbling/blistering, flaking, efflorescence and growing moulds at facade claddings), the degradations based on raining waters and dampness, heat and vapor, user factors including user abuse and lack of maintenance within the scope of primary causes were explained in detail. - About shape changes (such as intense level of erosion, disintegration, cracking, rupture and breaking at facade claddings), it was explained that the primary cause based on cumulative degradations factors related with colour and textural anomalies. The forth and last part of the reserach is based on the general assessments about facade claddings of residential buildings including occured damages, defects and their possible causes, derieved from the building analyses in the Kadıköy-Moda district. In the thesis, the on-site investigation for Kadıköy-Moda district, was formed with specified investigation methodologies within the scope of the research process. It is also known that, investigations and analyses during the on-site investigation were depended on visual controls. The aim of this research is to submit the priliminary information and to provide a detailed guide to the people associated with investigation for any kind of intervention in terms of maintenance and/or renewals. In this content, it is evident that many variations of diagnosis steps could be formed, depending on scope and the details of the investigation concerned. It should not be forgotten that future investigations must be improved with methodological contributions in order to obtain more realistic and generalizable consequences from investigations in terms of diagnosis process. In this respect, it could be evaluated that, one or more different residential areas might be determined for on-site investigation with increased number of damaged buildings to compose a sample group; and also the scope of investigation might be extended increasing the remarkable diversity of failures and possible causes depending on types of cladding materials. From the point of view of analytic approach, more objective desicions could be made by the help of detailed quantitative and/or qualitative analysis methods (such as onsite tests, sample extraction for laboratory analyses, simulation on scaled models etc.). Otherwise, it is a general fact that periodical maintenance works and appropriate applications for claddings depending on facade system and materials have a significant effect to reduce the loss of sources occuring during service life of buildings.