CQA Involvement in Water-shedding Community of Practice

For the last few years, the CQA has been an active participant in the "Water-shedding Community of Practice" which is being spear-headed by Ross Taylor.

The term "Water-shedding" has been introduced into the Building and Construction industry to describe a holistic approach to waterproofing that does not rely solely on the "thin black line" drawn by Architects. The water-shedding principal is that all parts of a building contribute to control water. Indeed, the thin black line should only be a secondary measure not, as is now, the only measure to stop water going to inappropriate locations.

The "brief" of the Water-shedding Community of Practice is to:

• Produce a guidance document that will give industry easy to understand details and examples of what good looks like; and to

• Facilitate regulatory change by assisting the Australian Building Codes Board to rewrite the performance requirements of the National Construction Code (NCC) - formerly known as the Building Code of Australia (BCA) - to enshrine the water-shedding principals.

The committee is well on the way to achieving both goals.

The guide has been assembled into an initial draft and is going through some fine tuning.

The Water-shedding Community of Practice has been well received by the Australian Building Codes Board and has representative on the committee that is writing changes for BCA 2025. We are confident that water-shedding will become enshrined in BCA 2025.