A Victorian property investor has stumbled upon a terrifying secret lurking within the walls of a seemingly modern home, prompting him to ask pressing questions about the structural integrity of steel-framed buildings and the adequacy of current building inspections across Australia.
Charles Corby, a 31-year-old investor from Geelong, bought a 14-year-old investment property for $430,000 earlier this year, planning to do a simple renovation and remodel.
But what he discovered behind the drywall has left him deeply concerned about other homeowners.
“When we took the plasterboard off we discovered that almost the entire internal steel frame was rusted,” Mr Corby revealed.
“The lower parts in particular were badly corroded, including some load-bearing walls, perimeter walls and important structural points. Some parts were completely rusted through.”
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Charles Corby was shocked to find rusted internal frames in his latest investment property. Image supplied.
The damage was so severe that entire sections of the frame, built by a local volume builder, were beyond repair, necessitating a complete replacement by a registered builder – a huge and unexpected expense.
A hidden defect in a young home
Mr Corby found the age of the property particularly alarming.
The house was built in 2011 and only 14 years old.
“Coated steel in Australia should last up to 50 years,” he stated.
“So finding this level of damage in a 14-year-old house was a big warning sign.”
He emphasized how easily this critical error could have been hidden.
“What’s even scarier is that you would never know unless you opened the walls,” Mr Corby explained.
“We only found it by chance when some of the drywall was removed during the renovation.”
Now that the house is four years older than its 10-year structural warranty, Mr. Corby himself is footing the bill for the extensive repairs, estimated at about $50,000.
![](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 768 1024"%3E%3C/svg%3E)
The find was even more surprising considering the house is only 14 years old. Source: Charles Corby
He warns that such unexpected costs could be financially devastating for the average Australian family.
“It only cost me $50,000 because the walls were already open for renovation,” he noted.
“But replacing it if you’re not renovating can cost more than $100,000.”
Replacing an internal frame is a monumental task.
It involves stripping the house bare: plasterboard, skirting boards, architraves, doors, electrical, plumbing, fixtures and furniture all need to be removed before the walls can be rebuilt and the interior restored.
“An owner-occupier could lose his home for months, on top of the costs,” Corby emphasizes.
Unanswered questions and a call for change
The exact cause of the extensive corrosion remains a mystery to Mr Corby and his builders. “There is no clear cause for the erosion that we can identify, and my builders are also baffled by it,” Mr Corby said.
“We are simply shocked that the erosion occurred at all, as the steel is designed to be coated and marketed with a 50-year warranty.”
He confirmed that the rust originated from scratch, but emphasized that the property is a standard suburban home, not a coastal home, with no unusual circumstances that would normally accelerate such decay.
Mr Corby is an experienced real estate investor.
Mr Corby’s experience has led him to critically examine current standards for pre-purchase building inspections.
“About 10 to 15 percent of homes in Australia are built with steel frames, which makes me wonder how many of them have hidden corrosion that has never been checked?” he thought.
He is now calling for mandatory checks on the integrity of steel frames to be included in standard building and pest reports.
Current building and pest inspections typically focus on visible aesthetic and structural elements, with walls rarely opened due to the reasonable assumption that steel frames will last for decades.
“If we have strict rules around asbestos we should have similar protection for it. The risk to people’s safety could be just as serious,” Corby said.
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