As the building envelope is probably one of the most important, if not the most costly common condominium asset, it bears careful monitoring. This article will attempt to provide a guide of the typical problems and issues encountered in most condominium buildings with most of these associated with water infiltration.

Starting from the top, most condos use asphalt shingles for sloped roofs and EPDM membranes for flat roofs. Both last a long time with asphalt shingles having lives of 25 to 30 years while EPDM membranes start to fail after 20 years. Most roofs start to show their age with leaks of which the great majority are concentrated in areas where dissimilar material or horizontal and vertical surfaces meet. Defective or poorly installed flashing is usually the culprit.

Caulking or roof tar is often used for repairs but these tend to be only temporary fixes. Watch for curling or lifting shingles as these are good signs of an aging roof. Roof can also fail prematurely from overheated and poorly vented attics. And speaking of attics, the irony is that ice dam leaks are caused by heat rather than ice. Ice dams are formed at the edges of roofs due to heat escaping into the attic from poorly sealed exterior walls or inadequate insulation and melting roof snow setting up a freeze/thaw cycle that eventually works under the shingles. Those issues should be addressed first before bothering with external electrical heat tape or similar measures.

Many of Irvine’s condominiums are sided with wood, vinyl, or cement composite clapboard siding. For the most part these materials do their job to keep most of the moisture out of the building but they are not the only barrier. In fact, one of the most important components of exterior walls is the building wrap beneath the siding. This material’s purpose, going by such names a Tyvek or Typar, is often misunderstood, even by contractors.

When it was first introduced it was called a vapor barrier and is still thought as such by many. In fact, building wrap should be renamed and called building flashing as that is its true purpose. Water gets behind all siding whether it is clapboards, brick, or stucco. The trick in good building envelope design is to insure this water infiltration is stopped by a drainage plain which for most residential structures is building wrap. This is why most exterior wall leaks can be traced back to missing or poorly installed building wrap.

If building wrap were only used for a vapor barrier function, then not taping the seams of the wrap would not be a big deal. But as a building flashing, it is critical that seams (particularly vertical ones) are taped, holes are patched, and the wrap is properly integrated with the flashings around doors and windows. When a unit owner reports a water infiltration problem through the walls it is a good idea to focus on problems with the wrap rather than the siding. To make matters worse, if the wrap is failing it is very possible water damage may also be occurring to the sheathing and insulation behind the wrap.

This brings us to windows. The problem with windows is they belong to the unit owner and are not a common element under most condominium rules. However, the building committee is not off the hook with window leaks as these same condo rules that assign the windows to the unit owners also assign the window frames to the association’s responsibility. In most cases it is not the window that is leaking but the frame’s flashing (or lack of flashing) causing the problem.

Poorly installed windows that did not follow the manufacture’s instructions, that no one read on the job site, are one of the biggest sources of homeowners’ complaints. Often the only solution is to remove the siding around the window, inspect the flashing, and re-flash. Many such problems can be minimized by preventive inspections using either visual methods or instruments such as moisture meters to focus on the specific moisture path to diagnose the issue.

Water infiltration problems are like odd noises in your car. They do not go away they only get worse. By addressing these problems now your dreams of early spring golf may yet be realized.

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When was the last time you thought about your parking lot? The honest answer, probably, is not in recent memory.  It’s not a question of ‘out of sight –out of mind.’ Parking lots and other paved areas are highly visible, but they aren’t all that interesting.  There is nothing sexy about asphalt.

A well-designed, nicely manicured landscape will get your attention; a nicely-paved parking lot – not so much.  As a result, paved areas don’t always get the maintenance attention they need, and that is a potentially serious problem for both the owners of commercial properties (shopping malls, for example) and the homeowner associations that manage residential condominium communities.  A poorly maintained parking lot is not only an eyesore, detracting from a property’s curb appeal; it is also a liability risk:  Customers or residents who trip over cracks or whose cars are damaged by potholes are going to sue the property owner.

Paved areas, if well-constructed and well-maintained, can last between 25 and 30 years or more, depending on where they are located and how they are used.  Unfortunately, parking lots, sidewalks and driveways are often afterthoughts — the final items on a construction checklist, undertaken near the end of the project when funds are low and the developer’s attention is waning.

Doing it Right

Pavement isn’t complicated.  It begins with good soil compacted properly to create a stable base that should be covered by two layers of asphalt ― a base course on bottom and a wearing course on top. There is some disagreement about the desired thickness, but no question that the thicker the asphalt layers, the longer their life.  The industry standard calls for a combined thickness of between 2.5 and 5 inches, with the top layer thicker than the bottom.

Only about half of the parking lots we inspect meet that standard.  Most fall short and many fall well short, with both layers sometimes totaling less than 2 inches.  If the asphalt layers are too thin, if the underlying soil is poor, or if the area isn’t paved uniformly the surface will form holes, crack and split, requiring constant repairs and premature repaving.

Harsh winters and the damage inflicted by the steel blades of snow plows take a toll in New England and other cold climates; extreme heat and exposure to the blazing sun do the damage in the south and southwest.  Pavement in hotter areas may require the application of a sealant (to smooth over holes and cracks) in less than a year after being laid; pavement in colder climates may not need sealant for five years, and possibly not all, but it will benefit from efforts to mitigate the damage inflicted by snow and ice.

You can’t skip the snow plowing or the application of de-icing materials, but some of those materials are harder on asphalt than others. It’s worth asking your snow removal contractor for recommendations.  Proper application of the material is also essential; adding more salt won’t necessarily improve its effectiveness, experts say, but it will increase the cumulative damage to paved areas and reduce their useful life.

Poor drainage can also accelerate deterioration. Even the best-laid surface will be compromised over time if water “ponds” on it instead of draining properly. You can spot evidence of ponding even if it isn’t raining. Areas of discoloration (shadows) and collections of dirt, twigs and other debris are red flags indicating a drainage problem.  A decent slope and catch basins, on the other hand, suggest that the contractor was thinking about proper drainage

Maintenance Guidelines

All pavement, however well or poorly-constructed, requires proper care. The maintenance schedules will vary ─ some paved areas will require attention sooner or later than others — but the protocols will be essentially the same.

A few small cracks here and there will be the first sign of wear. They will usually appear between the three- and five-year marks, and filling them will be the first line of defense. The important thing about cracks is, small ones will quickly become larger, so you don’t want to ignore them. They represent both a safety hazard (people can twist their ankles or trip over them) and a structural concern. Water can seep through the cracks causing damage below the surface of the asphalt. In warm climates, the water will unsettle the soil, pushing the clay up against the asphalt and accelerating the deterioration process. In New England, water will trigger a destructive freeze-thaw-freeze process in the winter, which will also shorten the asphalt’s useful life.

You can deal with small cracks by filling them in. Contractors typically use a melt-in substance that won’t shrink after application. This is the product highway crews use because of its durability and ease of application. It is sold under several retail brand names, all variants of “hot-applied crack sealant.” Experts suggest that you fill cracks every two or three years, as part of a regular maintenance plan. If cracking becomes more widespread, you can take the next step, which is to apply a sealant to the entire paved area.

Resurfacing and Replacing

As asphalt ages, one or more sections may begin to break up or flake, indicating that the surface is beginning to deteriorate. Patching will probably take care of the problem, at least for a while. But you don’t want to just pave over the failed area ― a shortcut some contractors might suggest; you want the contractor to cut out the area, fill in the subsurface and then pave over that. This will give you a sturdier, longer-lasting repair, but it is still a temporary fix ─ a band aid, not a cure.

At some point — and the hope is it will be later rather than sooner in your pavement’s life ― deterioration will accelerate, repairs will become more frequent requiring more aggressive and more expensive responses.

One option is to resurface the area ─ either lay a new surface over the existing one, or remove the old asphalt and pave the area anew. These options make sense if the underlying soil base is stable. But remember Einstein’s definition of insanity (doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different result). If the old surface failed prematurely because the underlying soil wasn’t’ stable, a new surface laid over that unstable soil won’t wear or fare any better.

It’s time to start over. The contractor should remove the old asphalt, scoop out the bad soil, replace it with gravel and stone to create a solid base, and then lay the new pavement over it. That’s the traditional approach. A newer technique calls for pulverizing the old asphalt and using it as a base for the new pavement. In addition to creating what contractors say is a “super-solid” base, pulverizing the old asphalt eliminates the cost of trucking it away and disposing of it at a hazardous waste site. Either technique will give you nice, new pavement that will last another 25 or 30 years or more.

 Volume 26, Number 1 | December 05, 2017 | Copyright © 2017 Zenith Energy Structural and Building Company

The Engineering Advisor is intended to enhance your knowledge of technical issues relating to buildings.  For additional information on any subject, please feel free to call us.  Our commitment is to provide you with timely, accurate information.

The post Paving Isn’t Sexy: But Proper Maintenance is Essential appeared first on Zenith Energy Structural and Building Company.

You’re standing in the basement waiting for a friend, who is following you down the stairs. Missing a step, your friend reaches for the railing, which breaks away from the wall. This will not end well for your friend, who may be seriously injured or worse; and it may not end well for you, because of the law suit and liability claim that will follow, and the friendship that will almost certainly end.

This isn’t an article about the importance of having adequate insurance; it’s about the importance of having secure railings on your stairs. Accidents related to stairs are the second-leading cause of accidental injuries in the United States, according to the National Safety Council, responsible for 12,000 deaths annually and for non-fatal injuries costing $92 billion a year. Only automobile accidents take a higher toll.

There are no statistics indicating how many of the stairway accidents are caused by faulty railings, but as the incident described above illustrates, the stair rail can make the difference between a close call and a disaster.

Recognizing the importance of railings – inside and outside of homes – building codes establish detailed requirements for them. The codes address two major types of railings:

•Handrails or stair railings, which are installed along one or both sides of a stairway, providing a surface to grab to prevent falls down the stairs or over a stairway’s open side.
•Guardrails, providing a safety barrier to keep people from falling off or through stairways, balconies, decks, and porches.
The requirements for railings in both categories focus primarily on their height, location, strength and grip. (See related sidebar.)

Emphasis on Safety
Building codes establish the safety standards structures should meet; they don’t guarantee that any specific structure complies with them. For one thing, building codes change over time, usually in response to incidents that highlight inadequacies in them. (Allowable baluster openings got narrower because children kept falling through them.) Older homes, covered by earlier codes, won’t necessarily incorporate those changes. Newer homes may fall short as well.

Municipal building inspectors who issue occupancy permits, ostensibly certifying code compliance, may not notice every shortcoming nor object to every one they find. They would doubtless notice if a required railing was missing, but they might not notice (or decide to overlook it) if the railing was a little shorter than required.

Your concern is safety, not code compliance. The question you should ask about railings is not just whether they are ‘built to code,’ but whether they provide the safety a particular stairway (or deck) needs, given where it is located and how it is used.

Cool Designs – Uncool Risks
Architects, and homeowners themselves, don’t always put safety first. Architects often make building code compromises to achieve design effects, and homeowners often focus more on the coolness of the design than on the risks it may create.

For example, to ensure an unobstructed view while sitting on a deck, the guardrail may be set lower than the 34-38 inches the building code requires. This protects the view, but it doesn’t protect the people who are standing on the deck. At 38 inches, the rail will hit someone of average height at hip level or higher, which is above their center of gravity. At 32 inches, the railing is now below hip level, which means someone who leans too far over the railing or slips will probably go over the side.

Another common deck-related compromise is to install a bench around the perimeter, expecting it to serve also as a guardrail. It won’t. The bench may be the required distance from the ground (36 inches), but without a guardrail behind it, which both the building code and common sense require, there is nothing to prevent someone sitting on the bench from toppling backwards off the deck.

If you read home decorating magazines, you will notice that using cable in deck railings has become popular. The longer the distance between the cables and their anchor points, the cooler the design. But stretching also makes the cables more flexible and easier to pull apart, creating wide spaces through which small children, or less-than-sober adults, could fall.

These risks aren’t theoretical. According to the National Association of Certified Home Inspectors, more injuries result from the failure of deck railings than from the collapse of decks.

I’m not suggesting that only conventional designs are safe. The problem, in many cases, is not the design but how it is implemented. Glass railings, which you will find in many buildings today, are a good example. Thetempered glass used in these railings is quite strong, so there’s no cause for concern there. But the exposed glass edges must be protected, and the railings must be secured firmly. If they are inserted in a wood frame (a common structure), there has to be enough overlap so the glass won’t be dislodged if it is hit hard, as it could be by someone grabbing the rail for support.

Essential Maintenance
Whatever the design and composition of your railings, maintenance is essential. Aging affects all structures and all materials to varying degrees, but deck railings are particularly vulnerable, because they are exposed to the elements. Rain, heat and freezing temperatures all can take a toll. Wood rots, steel rusts, the connections anchoring railings to the deck weaken over time.

Your spring maintenance checklist should include a thorough inspection of your deck and its railings. Repaint the wood if necessary (the experts suggest at least every five years). Make sure all railing connections are secure. Perform a stress test by pressing on the railing to make sure it doesn’t give at any point.

Railings on inside stairs aren’t exposed to weather, but they are affected by age and wear and tear, so you want to inspect them periodically, too. Grab the top rail on a stairway to make sure it doesn’t wiggle at the touch. Shake the rail slightly and notice if it vibrates; it shouldn’t. Perform the same stress test you used on the deck railing; interior handrails are supposed to withstand the same 200-pound force.

With regular inspections of handrails and guardrails, you can identify and correct problems before they become accidents you could have prevented. Most of us have heard Smokey the Bear intone: “Only you can prevent forest fires.” A mascot for stair safety might issue a similar warning: “Only you can prevent railing failures.” Ensuring that your handrails and guardrails are safe will help to ensure the safety of all who use them.

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The post Stairways and Decks Aren’t Safe Unless their Railings Are Secure appeared first on Zenith Energy Structural and Building Company.

Just as condo units and their buildings come in many shapes and sizes, so does dryer vent systems.  It is not unusual for new Boards not only not understand the exact nature of their condo’s in-unit dryer vent system but they also are not certain who is responsible for its maintenance.  Most dryer vent ducts pass through common space, except for HOA unit owners who are responsible for their own building envelope and everything within.  Some condo dryer vent ducts are dedicated to a given unit while others are shared with other units.  Many dryers vent pass through an exterior wall while mid-rise and high-rise condo buildings share a vertical rooftop vent system.

With these different types of systems and variances often found in the governing condo documents, it is not always well understood by the Board members who is responsible for maintenance and repair of dryer duct systems.  This includes basic routine cleaning even if it is clear maintaining the in-unit dryer is part of the unit owner’s responsibility.  This is an important issue to resolve with the assistance of your legal counsel, as it is the first step in meeting the Board’s responsibility to oversee the safety of the units’ venting system and its occupants.

Once dryer vent system maintenance responsibilities are understood, a policy should be put in place.  This policy should provide authority for unit access and performing maintenance and repairs when owners fail to comply with the dryer policy including assessing charges to the unit owner incurred by the association in providing the required dryer maintenance.  The policy should specify the required maintenance including cleaning of the dryer vents and ducts on a scheduled basis, typically every two years.  Often communities will engage a dryer maintenance contractor at a bulk rate to provide a cost effective and consistent maintenance program.  Should a unit owner opt out of this service they would be required to provide proof of compliance of the required maintenance being conducted by others.

Before the dryer maintenance program can be implemented, the Board must understand their system.  This may require the assistance of a maintenance repair contractor or the association’s building engineer who will need to inspect the present system.  This inspection may reveal common and shared duct systems; long duct runs with booster in-line fans; improper duct materials.  As an example, any vent duct found to be vinyl, PVC, or flexible is a problem.  Most of these types of vent ducts are violations of the local and national building codes, as their interior surfaces collect lint creating a build up of highly flammable material as well as a medium to collect water whose weight can bend duct pipe and create an environment susceptible to mildew and mold.  Improper duct should be removed and replaced with smooth-walled metal ductwork.  If flexible duct is found forming an elbow at the rear of the dryer, it should be replaced with non-flexible metal elbow duct so as not to be crushed when the dryer is pushed against the wall.

The policy may set specifications on the type of dryers to be allowed in units.  Not all dryers are the same.  Beyond the differences between electric and gas-fired dryers, some dryers have significantly different exhaust characteristics.  Building codes recognizes this by allowing the manufacturer to specify the maximum length of straight vent duct to be used.  This typically can range from 15 to 90 feet.  This duct length is further defined by reducing the allowable length by 5 feet for every 90 degree bend and 2 ½ feet for every 45 degree bend in the duct.  For this reason, the policy should provide specific direction to unit owners of the minimum type of dryer performance allowed as well as advising the unit owner of the length of duct the dryer will be connected.  Some associations even place a placard at the duct wall connection with this information for future dryer installations.

In hiring the dryer maintenance contractor the Board should take the normal insurance precautions as when hiring any contractor, including coverage for general liability; automobile liability; workers compensation and umbrella liability coverage with key required endorsements.  These are needed to protect the association from both having to defend itself as well as pay damages as a result  of the contractor’s activities while also including additional insured endorsements; waiver of subrogation endorsement; and primary/non-contributory wording.

The contract with the maintenance contractor should specify the method of cleaning the dryer duct.  Typically the cleaning is a combination of extendable brushes and vacuum cleaning.  The scope of work should include specific clarification of disposal of duct debris both inside and outside the building.  Safety issues should be addressed, particularly regarding movement of gas-fired dryers.

The dryer maintenance policy can include some preventative maintenance guidance to unit owners.  Unit owners should be advised to report unusual dryer performance including longer than normal drying times or the dryer surface or clothes feeling hotter than normal.  The owners should also report their observations of the outside dryer louver vents not opening as much as before.  Excessive humid or burnt smells in the laundry area are all signs of blocked exhaust vent duct.  The recognition of dryer malfunctions and a good preventive maintenance policy will ensure the common safety for all.

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Published in Condo Media, February, 2019

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