Rain Gutter Repair Complete!

Building 33 finally has a fully functioning rain gutter from top to bottom. 

Good job, new BOD and Maintenance crew!

New Board Better Than Old Board? Let's See.

Building 33 suffered from water intrusion that rotted the back corner, requiring it to be torn off and replaced. For several days they worked on that building to repair the problem that had been created by water intrusion.  After the repair of the stucco was done, I posted an entry about the water continuing to run on the side of the building. The response to that was to create a "temporary fix," pictured below.  

As you can see in this picture, rain gutters are not "fixed" or functional when they have no downspout. Rain gutter maintenance is not a very attractive item, for many reasons. However, it is fundamental to minimizing damage to our buildings that is caused by water. This is not a difficult concept to understand, but somehow it is a VERY difficult maintenance item to get down here at TAJ.

The OLD BOD had over 7 months and did not get it done. Let's see how long it takes the NEW BOD to repair the rain gutter on building 33. 

Recent Repairs, Still Incomplete (Building 33)

Recently, the southwest corner of building 33's upper story was rebuilt. It looks to me like the job was done quite well.  However, they neglected to do anything to repair the rain gutter that was broken in the process. It is the very same issue the caused the problems in the first place. 

Building Maintenance Issue: Rain gutters

You might recognize this picture from an earlier post. It shows the damage that happens to our buildings when we do not adequately protect them from water intrusion. This picture of building 27 shows that the water had leaked through the stucco, rotted through the underlying plywood sheathing, rotted through the insulation, rotted several 2x4s, and had even rotted some of the paper off of the outside of the interior drywall. Damage that extensive is very expensive to repair, and even more so when it is involves replacing supportive trusses that have been rotted. The finding of rotted underlying materials has been a very common theme in our building refurbishments, resulting in very costly change-orders.

To address the problem of water intrusion, our buildings have all been given rain gutters when they are refurbished. Unfortunately, building 35 had one gutter that was perpetually clogged by leaves from the nearby trees. Those same trees clogged the rain gutters of buildings 33 & 40, also. In the pictures below (building 35 on the left, 33 on the right) you can see that clogged gutters do little to protect the walls of a building. When I noticed this problem, I made my first request (August 2007) for the installation of leaf guards.

I was pleased when I noticed that buildings 33 and 40 got the needed leaf guards installed. Their rain gutters now functioned perfectly, moving the water away from the walls and down the downspouts where it cannot rot the buildings' wood. But I was very displeased to find that building 35 did not have the leaf guards installed. I compared the downspout productivity of the two buildings (pictured below, building 35 left, 33 right) and immediately suffered from downspout envy! I wanted my gutters to work as well as my neighbors. So I asked the Property Manager and made my concerns made known to the Board of Directors. My building remained without leaf guards.

The Board of Directors eventually did send out a notice, in September 2008, that they intended to make assessments and install leaf guards on buildings that needed them. The assessment for building 35 would have been $864.00 (6 x $144.00). Unfortunately, that special assessment did not happen, and the leaf guards did not happen.

In all fairness, you may recall that the Board of Directors at that time was involved with mid-term re-election turmoil and associated controversies. They were also in the process of straightening out some very difficult financial and accounting problems. By comparison, leaf guards can seem like a very small issue. Nonetheless, I think that building maintenance is too easily overlooked and dangerously forgotten. So I made another request for leaf guards in March 2009.

The response that I got was that the maintenance men occasionally climbed ladders to the roofs and scooped out the leaves that clogged the gutters. The problem with that is that it did not work. Clogs reoccurred too quickly.

So eventually I bought leaf guards myself. Eight three-foot lengths cost a grand total of less than $16.00 at the local hardware store (pictured left, below). Click on the picture (below, right) to enlarge it and look closely, and you can see the leaf guard installed on the left side of the gutter on the back of building 35.

Now building 35 no longer suffers from downspout envy. The pictures below show the output during a recent daytime downpour. Both buildings 35 (below, left) and 33 (below, right) have leaf guards, fully functioning downspouts, and relatively dry walls during heavy rains. The problem was solved for a small fraction of the proposed price. Building 35 saved $848.00 in the cost of leaf guard installation. More importantly, it will save itself thousands of dollars by protecting itself from the inevitable rot that happens when water intrudes through a building's siding.

One purpose of maintenance is to spend a little money now to avoid spending more money later. Building 40 is a great example of that principle. In the picture below you can see the water streaming down a corner on the back of building 40. The downspout has fallen off and the water is just streaming right down the stucco, searching for any crack or hole. It would cost a little labor and maybe even a few dollars in material to reinstall a downspout. It is the kind of job our maintenance men can perform quite easily. If it is not done, the cost to building 40 will eventually be much higher when the siding and underlying structural materials have to be replaced.