Types of Housing Defects that Appear in Malaysia Using Defect Index (DI) Method

Malaysia is among the developing countries and many projects are be implemented.
Currently, some of these projects include the construction buildings. The
construction industry contributes to generating the economy and such as the
provision of services to construction companies but some of these listed companies
lack of professionalism by getting involved in projects that are not in the standard,
especially Housing Development. There are many defects in the Purchased homes of
the house Buyers, particularly in terms of material and processing. This study is
conducted to identify the defect level based on common types of housing defect that
appear in Malaysia by using Defect Index (DI) Method based on 15 building
elements proposed by Pedro (2008) to be a framework of tropical housing and the
result from this study can assist the contractors and developers to concern more on
particular building elements that have medium high level of defects. The
methodology adopted is through literature review and a questionnaire survey are
used as data collection mechanism and it is prepared, distributed and collected within
a short period of time to the respondents involve in Malaysia Property Exposition
20 II (MAP EX 2011) in Perak and Klang Valley. The result shows that the terrace
houses that were built in Kuala Lumpur for less than 5 years, there are severe defects
on Electricity Installation and Water service but there is a medium defect on
Drainage.Otherwise, the apartments and terrace houses that were built in Perak for
more than 5 years but less than 15 years, there is a medium defect on Electricity
Installation but there are severe defect on Water service and Drainage. In order to
minimize the defect level, the contractors and developers should do the improvement
on the elements that have severe defects which are water service and drainage system
and also for the elements that have medium defect which is electricity installation.
This improvement is for the better quality of the houses and will decrease the hous~
users' complaint.