Sinking Meriton apartment complex in Ashfield re-levelled and stabilised
- Ashfield, Sydney, NSW
The Brief
Inside a Major Sydney Apartment Saga Built by Meriton
This Meriton apartment complex foundation repair case involved a 40-year-old building in Ashfield, Sydney, suffering from long-standing structural issues.
Residents of the defective apartments had been living with uneven concrete floors, kitchens and bathrooms that sloped, and sliding doors that jammed from the shifting structure. These persistent problems had led to frustration among homeowners and tenants alike.
Strata had deferred structural repair for years due to the high cost of quotes from local contractors. With no resolution in sight and growing concern over building defects, the owners finally turned to Buildfix for help.
The Challenge
When Some Apartments Sink and Others Don’t
At the beginning of our inspection, we discovered some apartments in the Meriton-built complex had structural problems, while others didn’t.
We found that the Meriton apartments not sinking were sitting above an underground car park. Having been built perfectly to commercial standards of 40 years ago, the car park hadn’t budged. Its bearers and solid concrete piers continued to comfortably support the load of the structure, leaving the apartments above them unaffected.
Investigating further, we identified a total of 12 apartments sinking at their centres. These areas showed signs of subsidence, a common problem in ageing property developments across Australia. Although the footings were at the correct depth and the walls remained in superb condition, the ground beneath had contracted over decades. There we found almost eight brick piers to each apartment, heavily sunken.
The centre of each apartment had dropped with the shifting soil, dragging down internal floors and creating noticeable unevenness. Issues like these reflect the broader challenges in the building industry when dealing with older apartment blocks and long-term structural faults that often remain hidden until they significantly impact homeowners.
Our Solution
Quick, Quiet Services That Didn’t Disrupt Residents
As the ground had sunk so much, re-levelling the soil and stabilising the brick piers became our top priority. With enough headroom under each of the affected apartments, our specialist technicians were able to access the ground without needing to drill through the floors — minimising disruption for residents.
Injecting GeoPoly™ , our proprietary geopolymer resin solution, into the ground saw all brick piers holding up a single apartment lifted and stabilised in less than a day.
We didn’t remove a single brick or cause any damage to the Meriton-built complex — an outcome that reflects why this case study has drawn interest from across Australia’s housing and construction sectors.
Related case study: Brick Veneer of double storey Ballina Home Stabilised and Re-tied
The Outcome
Residents Stayed, Floors Lifted — No Fight Over Littering Here
Before contacting us, our client had been quoted over $300,000 to repair all 12 apartments by builders.
Our client had been informed the floors would need to be pulled out and brick piers would need to be pulled apart and rebuilt. All before floors were put back in. The residents would have needed to move out for months.
The Meriton apartments had been built to the highest standards and did not need alteration or repair. They only needed to be re-levelled and stabilised. With our progressive, simple and cost-effective solutions, we were able to do this in less than a day with zero damage for each of the apartments.
We saved our client hundreds of thousands of dollars and didn’t disrupt the lives of the residents at all. Residents went to work in the morning as usual and by the time they got home, their kitchens and bedrooms were perfectly level by the time they got back.
The ground underneath the Meriton constructed complex has been stable since.