Founding Research

A Better Way for Building Knowledge
The Step Up Founding Research
The Step Up Group philosophy is founded on world-leading research from here and around the world. Step Up Group members continue to conduct, review and support research in these fields for continual improvement in on-site approaches, applications and technologies.
Follow a world-leading group
Step Up is the outcome of on-site investigations and laboratory research overseen by members of Project M – a cross-disciplinary team of building surveyors, tradespeople, local authorities, staff and students of the University of Auckland striving for better building investigation and remediation techniques. The Step Up programme and technologies are built on a number of ground-breaking research initiatives. A few examples are:

* Wall Performance Testing
* Building Moisture Thermodynamics Investigation
* Monitoring the performance of 1,000 houses
* Outleak the Leak

Challenge the Status Quo
Our research outcomes have challenged and continue to challenge the status quo and the ‘big players’ in the industry – and are driving change. Here are just a few of our notable successes:

* Our early work at the University of Auckland Physics Department Atmospherics Group was instrumental in having untreated timber banned by some forward-thinking councils in early 2003 despite it still being an acceptable solution backed by the Government.
* Later work in conjunction with the Universty of Auckland School of Engineering has shown that drying and drainage can be introduced into existing face-fixed cladding systems. This is done by re-engineering the wall systems with simple retro-fitted drying skirts at moisture accumulaton points.
* Outleak the Leak showed that treatment could be introduced into structural timber WITHOUT the removal of either gib or cladding using injection and natural dispersion. Treatment levels tested over 3m from the injection point showed >1.5\% Boron (BAE) content.
* Mdu PROBE System results continue to show buildings’ true overall performance and condition to individual owners when other inspection methodologies are either skewed, misleading or just plain wrong.

We continue to pursue greater understanding through in-house testing and continued research with the School of Engineering at the University of Auckland, a relationship that dates back to 2003.
Documents

* Project M Phase I Outcomes

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