UnitBuddy journal
Repairs & Maintenance guides.
Clear, useful reading for owners corporations and the people who run them.
28 guidesRSS
Repairs & Maintenance
Recurring Blocked Drains in Strata: When to Stop Clearing and Start Relining
Recurring blocked drains in strata? How committees can tell lot pipe from common property, read a CCTV report and decide when relining beats clearing.
12 November 2026 · 9 min read
Repairs & Maintenance
Why Balcony Glass Doors Explode, and Who Pays When Yours Does
Toughened glass can shatter with nobody touching it, sometimes years after it was installed. This guide explains nickel sulphide and the other causes, why the heat-soak rule usually skips balcony doors, and how NSW strata law, insurance and builder warranties split the bill.
4 November 2026 · 12 min read
Repairs & Maintenance
Opal Tower: The Full Story From Christmas Eve Cracks to Defect-Free, and What Committees Can Learn
On Christmas Eve 2018, cracks in Opal Tower at Sydney Olympic Park emptied a 392-apartment building. On 10 October 2026 the owners declared it defect-free. Here is the complete history: the failure, the investigation, the repairs, the class action, the 500 extra defects, the settlement, the law reforms, and the lessons for every strata committee facing serious defects.
20 October 2026 · 17 min read
Repairs & Maintenance
Efflorescence Explained: What the White Powder on Your Building Means and When to Worry
Efflorescence is the white, salty deposit that appears on brickwork, concrete, render and tile grout. It is rarely harmful on its own, but it only forms where water is moving through the building. Here is what it is, where it comes from, how to tell it apart from look-alikes, how to remove it properly, and when an owners corporation should treat it as a defect.
19 October 2026 · 14 min read
Repairs & Maintenance
Roof Leaks in Strata Buildings: What Owners Corporations Need to Know Before Storm Season
A roof leak in a strata building rarely stays one owner's problem. A Sydney roofer explains who is responsible, the five faults behind most strata roof leaks, what the committee should do when one is reported, and the storm season routine that stops most of them.
12 October 2026 · 7 min read
Repairs & Maintenance
How to Keep an Agreed Defect Repair From Stalling
Builder agreement is the beginning of a defect project. NSW's 2025 data shows how often work remains unstarted, unfinished or uncertified, and what committees need to control next.
27 August 2026 · 13 min read
Repairs & Maintenance
Why a Clean First Year Proves Very Little About a New Apartment Building
NSW's 2025 defects research found that reported problems rise sharply as apartment buildings age. A quiet first year is the time to build evidence, not assume the building is clear.
27 August 2026 · 12 min read
Repairs & Maintenance
Repainting a strata building: what the scaffold finds, who approves it, and who pays
A repaint is when someone gets close enough to every square metre of the facade to price what they find. This article uses verified tribunal cases, quoted project figures, and the rules in New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland on who approves the work, who pays, and why a building within a kilometre of surf sits on a shorter coating cycle.
30 July 2026 · 19 min read
Repairs & Maintenance
Condensation, Mould and the $3,000 Deep Clean: Is It the Building, or the Way It's Being Lived In?
Mould appears through the apartment, condensation runs down the closed balcony doors, and someone quotes $3,000 for a deep clean. Before anyone pays, one question needs answering: is the moisture coming from the building, or from how the apartment is being lived in? The answer decides who is responsible, and whether the clean will last a month or a decade.
29 July 2026 · 16 min read
Repairs & Maintenance
Fire Inspections: Why NSW Strata AFSS Reports Don’t Always Match
Conflicting fire inspection reports are common in NSW strata buildings. This explains why AFSS results change, what AS 1851 means, and how committees can keep better records.
24 June 2026 · 13 min read
Repairs & Maintenance
Stormwater Pits and Roof Drainage: The Silent Capital Risk Lurking Below
A blocked driveway grate, a leaf-choked roof outlet, or a dead sump pump can turn a routine storm into a $30,000 to $200,000 basement-flood claim in an apartment building. The drainage system in a mid-rise strata scheme is out of sight, under-budgeted, and rarely tested. This is the pre-winter program, the capital items missing from most 10-year plans, and the maintenance evidence that turns a contested insurance claim into a paid one.
24 May 2026 · 12 min read
Repairs & Maintenance
Garage Doors and Boom Gates: The Small-Component Failure That Quietly Costs Strata Buildings the Most After Flexi Hoses
After flexi hoses, the second-largest small-component cost line in Australian apartment buildings is the garage door, boom gate and access-gate system at the entry. Each component costs under $10,000 to replace, but the consequences of failure (vehicle strikes, after-hours lockouts, snapped boom arms, dead readers) routinely produce five-figure annual spend. This is the failure-mode breakdown, the cost bands, and the six-component maintenance program that gets the cost down.
22 May 2026 · 11 min read