Prefabricated Panel Houses in Jiaxing, Zhejiang

Prefabricated panel houses in Jiaxing, Zhejiang, have specific issues in terms of rural housing construction safety management and building leakage.

Rural Housing Construction Safety Management

Jiaxing has implemented a rural housing 'insurance + service' model for key houses and established a hierarchical and classified management system for rural houses. The process for identifying key houses involves initial screening and reporting by professional agencies commissioned by insurance companies, followed by review by township governments. These key houses mainly include commercial houses and prefabricated panel houses built more than 30 years ago. Currently, Nanhu District, Haiyan County, and Haining City have implemented this model, with more than 19,000 insured houses. Pinghu City and the Port Area are also in the tender preparation stage, with the potential to further expand coverage and enhance rural housing safety management levels. This management model helps in the timely identification and handling of potential safety hazards, ensuring the safety of residents' lives and property.

Building Leakage Issues

Many multi-story prefabricated panel residential buildings constructed before 2000 in Jiaxing commonly suffer from aging and breakage of waterproofing in the expansion joints between panels. This is closely related to Jiaxing's unique geographical environment:

• Climatic Factors: Jiaxing experiences an exceptionally long rainy season, with prolonged periods of rainy weather keeping buildings in a damp state for extended periods, accelerating the aging of waterproofing materials. Additionally, frequent typhoons and heavy rainstorms subject buildings to strong water impact, easily causing damage to waterproof layers and allowing water to penetrate indoors.
• Geological Factors: The Taihu Lake Basin features thick layers of river and lake silt soft soil, which is prone to settlement, leading to structural deformation of buildings and the appearance of cracks in the expansion joints between panels, resulting in leakage.
• Other Factors: The coastal areas of Haining and Haiyan experience slight salt spray, with chemical substances in the salt spray corroding waterproofing materials and reducing their waterproofing performance. The shallow hilly areas of Tongxiang and Jiashan have issues with fissure water seepage, which also affects the waterproofing effectiveness of buildings. The combined effects of these factors make problems such as water seepage and mildew on old prefabricated panel roofs, leakage on walls, kitchens, and bathrooms, constant dampness and mildew in basements, and large-scale hollowing and detachment of wall tiles very common. The ground floors, basement levels, and low-rise buildings near lakes and coasts are particularly prone to water accumulation, with slight efflorescence and mildew on walls, bulging and cracking of base layers, and repeated leakage despite multiple ordinary repairs.