Heavy Rain is Coming Soon - Time to Prepare is Now

Rain, and lots of it, is on the way. This is a good time to prepare. 

At the very least, TAJ maintenance workers should be making certain that rain gutters are clear of debris and in full working order. Blue-tarped roofs should be checked for integrity. Most of the damage to our buildings is due to water intrusion.

In the past, our maintenance has not done a good job of cleaning rain gutters. I pay attention to the gutters in my own and neighboring buildings, and I know that they are neglected. I have even documented rain gutter problems that persisted for years. Maybe this new BOD is different than the past. Maybe not. We will see. The rain doesn't listen to talk, doesn't wait for promises, and doesn't care about excuses. The rain just falls.

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. 

Building 19 Refurbishment, Thanks to Special Assessment Paid in Full

Pictures and information provided by Property Management, July 29th

These pictures show the effects that water intrusion can have on the sub-structures of our buildings. Quite simply, studs in the exterior walls were rotted underneath moldy and rotted plywood sheathing.  

Although the wall was in terrible shape, the building is in pretty good shape, financially.  It is a four unit building with only one occupant.  That occupant paid their share of the estimated $27,000/unit repair bill. The property manager was able to get the non-occupant owners of the other three units (the bank) to pay their share. That is $81,000 collected from the banks. Because the full amount was collected, the building refurbishment could commence.  

The property manager reports that no other building has fully paid their special assessment. That is to say, even though some unit owners in a building may have paid their portion of a special assessment, others have not, making a full-building refurbishment economically unrealistic.

Rain Gutter Maintenance

One cause of building decay is water intrusion. In fact, it MIGHT be the single biggest problem that our buildings have.  To address that problem, some buildings have over-hanging eaves.  Some of the buildings without eaves have been fitted with rain gutters.  The problem with rain gutters is that they clog and need to be manually cleaned in order to be effective. A clogged rain gutter is no better than no gutter at all.  Even gutters with covers get clogged. The gutters on the back of my own unit need to be cleaned almost monthly or they clog to the point of being ineffective, in spite of having covers on them.

I would think that it would be a fairly simple, if mundane, task for the maintenance crew to clean the gutters from time to time.  They have a cherry picker that could easily reach.  I know there are gutter cleaning services in the community that we could hire to do the job.  I happen to know that there are young men in our TAJ community that are seeking summer employment -- maybe we should pay THEM to clean the gutters. Climbing up and down a 30' ladder and earning some money is good for a young man.

Whatever the case, ignoring the problem now because it is small and inconvenient means huge damage and expenses later.

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 14 Sun-Decks

The work continues to move forward on building 14 as sun-decks are being demolished. The pictures above show some areas where water intrusion has produced rotted wood in the trusses and sun-deck flooring.

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
  

Building 27 construction progress

Although Jim Miles (JM Construction) said that some of the plywood is in good shape, there are places where the plywood has been rotted by water intrusion. The black spots in the photo above are examples of the rotted wood. In the photo below can be seen more rotted wood in an inside corner. That is a common site of water intrusion and resulting wood-rot, said Jim Miles.

Apparently the bidding process has evolved so that the contractor now includes the cost of replacing all the plywood in his bid, and then credits back to the owners the amount that is not replaced. This is a procedure that hopefully will reduce the need for change orders and unanticipated cost over-runs. In the past several construction jobs on buildings there has been multiple special assessments due to cost over-runs that were the result of an imprudent bidding procedure. This building will be a good test to see if that problem has been corrected.