Quality Assessment of Prefabricated Panel Houses

The quality assessment of prefabricated panel houses should focus on inspections in areas such as structural safety, public facilities, and unauthorized modifications, with professional institutions classifying the houses according to standards.

Inspection Content

1. Structural Safety: Professional inspectors will focus on key components such as foundations, walls, floor slabs, and steel bars. For example, they will check for foundation settlement or cracking, wall cracks or deformation, floor slab deflection, and steel bar corrosion. For old prefabricated panel houses in urban areas, it is necessary to inspect for obvious settlement marks around the house, differences in elevation between indoor and outdoor floors, and diagonal cracks at the base of walls; visually assess from a certain distance whether the house as a whole shows visible tilting or "warping/twisting" phenomena. Special inspections of core components will focus on prefabricated floor slabs, including observing whether there are horizontal through-cracks in the ceiling, obvious cracking at the joints between slabs, checking for signs of downward bending or sinking in the middle of the slab, examining the concrete at the positions where the ends of the prefabricated slabs rest on the walls for looseness, crumbling, or exposed and corroded steel bars; checking for vertical or diagonal cracks in load-bearing walls, cracking and downward pressure deformation at the lintels above door and window openings, inspecting the bottom wall roots for severe weathering, spalling, or loosening of bricks or masonry, understanding whether ring beams and structural columns were installed during house construction; paying attention to whether the support of the prefabricated panels on the walls is secure, without signs of looseness, and checking for separation or cracks at the corners and junctions of walls.
2. Public Facilities: Inspect issues such as aging pipelines, ineffective waterproofing, and blocked fire exits. Many prefabricated panel buildings were constructed in the 1980s or even earlier, and the design standards for water and electricity pipelines at that time can no longer keep up with current usage intensity, making problems such as water leaks, circuit trips, and sewer blockages relatively common.
3. Unauthorized Modifications: Check for actions such as unauthorized removal of load-bearing walls, addition of structures on rooftops, or conversion of balconies into kitchens or bathrooms. These actions can alter the original load-bearing structure of the house, making it more vulnerable.

Assessment Grades

After the inspection, a qualified professional assessment institution will issue a report and classify the house into one of four grades according to the "Standard for Dangerous House Assessment" (JGJ 125-2016): Grade A indicates no dangerous components, with the structure able to meet safety requirements for use; Grade B indicates that individual components are dangerous but do not affect the safety of the main structure; Grade C indicates that part of the load-bearing structure cannot meet safety requirements for use, with local areas in a dangerous state; Grade D indicates that the load-bearing structure can no longer meet safety requirements for use, with the entire house in a dangerous state.