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. 

Rain Gutter Cleaning by Maintenance Worker

With all the water damage that happens to our buildings, resulting in high refurbishment bills to unit owners, it is apparent that a cost-effective and important maintenance item is keeping our rain gutters fully functional. Yet, in all the years that I've lived here I have never seen our maintenance staff clean out a rain gutter. 

I was happy to get these pictures from the Property Management of a maintenance worker engaged in the arduous and important work of cleaning out the gutters on building 47.  Now, only 46 buildings left to do!

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.

Incomplete Rain Gutters Erode Our Property

In the pictures above you can see the effects of incomplete downspouts. Water running down from the two-story-high rooftop erodes the soil away. Many of the newly installed gutters were left not completely finished, and consequently there are holes developing near the foundations of our buildings in many different sites.

The solutions (pictured below) are simple enough and not very expensive. Someone has to follow-up and make sure that it gets done either by the gutter company or by our maintenance staff. I personally spent money out of my own pocket to provide solutions to some of the gutter/ground problems around my unit. I do not think the Association can expect all (or even many) other unit owners to do likewise, however. The problem needs to be addressed by a representative of the Association: the Board of Directors, a Property Manager, or maybe even the maintenance staff. Somebody please make sure that the rain-gutter jobs get completely completed.

Building 27 Construction Progress

Hardi panel with a wood-grain finish is in place over most of the back of the building (pictured above). To be at this phase of construction means that stucco siding had been stripped, hurricane straps installed or replaced, plywood inspected and replaced as necessary (see September 21 post), and water-proof tar paper put over the plywood and underneath the hardi-panel.
Working on the front of building 27, JM workers in the above picture can be seen to be pulling up the roofing from the sundeck (left) and replacing plywood sheathing (right).

In the picture above can be seen evidence of water damage to wooden studs and joists. This is typical damage where the water drains down the wall and intrudes through small cracks in the stucco exterior. To prevent this same damage from recurring, gutters are being installed on all buildings being renovated and hardi-panel is being used rather than stucco (providing a superior water barrier).

A building 27 unit owner reported being very pleased with JM Construction for the following reasons:

• They do a thorough job in cleaning up after themselves each day
• Each week they get a written report from the contractor delivered to their door
• The work seems to be proceeding ahead-of-schedule and under-budget
• The work that is completed is visually pleasing
  

Construction Committee: Gutters need leaf guards

The heavy rains that have been happening lately have provided an opportunity to evaluate the performance of our gutters. It is apparent that the gutters under trees need leaf guards, even those gutters just recently installed. Pictured are the rain-gutters over-flowing and sending water down the back walls of buildings 33 and 35. Building 40 has the same issues, with leaves and twigs blocking the downspout of the gutters. There are probably other buildings having this same system malfunction, but these are the ones that I can see easily from my window when it is raining outside.