Page 15 - CooperatorNews March 2022

COOPERATORNEWS.COM
COOPERATORNEWS —
MARCH 2022
15
munity Affairs (DCA) has assembled a list
of required inspections that are meant to
ensure the health, safety, and welfare of a
community and its residents. These include
smoke and carbon monoxide detector
checks, looking for tripping hazards in and
around units and in common areas, proper
egress from units and buildings, electrical
panel function, and more depending on the
size and type of the building or community.
She cautions that requirements can vary in
different municipalities and regions, and
advises every manager and board to go to
the DCA website to confirm their specific
checklist.
Warga-Murray says that the DCA re-
quires 100% of unit owners to comply.
This is not only a scheduling challenge, but
can also increase the costs of the inspec-
tions if the DCA inspectors have to make
multiple return trips to the property to
visit every unit, she warns. “People tell you,
‘I’m not available in the morning; well, I’m
not available in the afternoon, and I’m not
available on Mondays; I’m not available on
Tuesdays.’ And then you have to try and get
the inspector so that they’re not coming
back more than three days, or four days, or
a week, because then you’re talking about
six or eight hours a day of paying for your
manager to be there. And that’s going to be
very expensive.”
To mitigate these costs, Warga-Murray
has two strategies: put the time, procedure,
and expense of DCA inspections into the
management contract up front; and estab-
lish a resolution to impose fines on unit
owners or shareholders if they can’t be
available for inspections or refuse or delay
compliance, thus incurring fines and pen-
alties for the community.
Warga-Murray continues, “For the most
part, preparing in advance is technically
one of the most important aspects of this
[type of inspection]. It’s important for the
manager to also conduct pre-inspections
in advance of the DCA visits so they know
specifically what areas are going to be ad-
dressed. What I have found is that if we
know [what the potential violations are]
in advance, and then obtain contracts [to
correct them], when the DCA inspector
comes, there is no penalty; they see that
we’re involved in making the corrections.”
Bringing it All Together
Since building inspections are a fact of
life for property owners, it pays to be aware,
be prepared, and have a plan. At the end of
the day, completing an inspection and get-
ting that sign-off—whether it comes with
a sticker or not—means that the commu-
nity is that much more protected from both
burdensome penalties and potential catas-
trophes. As the pros say: instead of looking
at inspections in terms of their cost, look at
them in terms of their value.
n
Darcey Gerstein is Associate Editor and a
Staff Writer for CooperatorNews.
go either way, depending on the building.
In the case of his own building—a high-
rise constructed in the early 1960s—the ma-
terials used in construction were less than op-
timal, though the builder wasn’t aware of any
potential problem at the time. The structure
was clad in what was then known as ‘light-
weight’ concrete. “Lightweight concrete is a
problem,” says Gaynor. “It continues to cure
over time—which effectively means that it
keeps shrinking. So the original ceilings in the
building were eight feet high, but now they
are seven feet and 11 inches. Also, the brick
around the concrete doesn’t shrink, which
causes the bricks to bulge.
“There are two possible approaches to cor-
recting the problem,” Gaynor continues. “You
can take out two or three levels of brick at re-
lieving angles [to reduce the pressure caused
by concrete shrinkage], put in smaller, softer
brick, and then replace the grout with softer
materials. It’s a very expensive, complicated
job. The other option, which is what we de-
cided to do, is to remove and replace ALL of
the brick. It’s also very expensive—but that’s
what the shareholders decided. Sadly, no reg-
ular maintenance ‘fix’ could have avoided this
problem.”
For owners in more suburban wood-
frame and clapboard-covered townhouse
communities—like the ones that dot the sub-
urban New England landscape, for example—
the situation is different, says Ralph Noblin, a
retired engineer and former owner of Noblin
& Associates, a building engineering firm lo-
cated near Boston.
“Condo owners often complain about the
drab look their communities take on after a
few years,” he says,
“and want to repaint
everything long be-
fore they need to. Of-
ten, the dull, shaded
areas [on their build-
ings] are just the result
of exterior mold and
mildew—the
paint
underneath is fine.
In these situations,
we recommend pres-
sure washing” to re-
move the grime and
restore the siding or
other materials to their former attractiveness.
Noblin notes that many architects—particu-
larly historic preservationists—view pressure
washing as too harsh for many basic building
materials, but says that “the pressure washing
process is much better these days, and gentler
than it used to be. In the hands of the right
contractor, it is very affordable and has little
adverse effect, so more professionals are get-
ting comfortable with it. It’s much less expen-
sive than a new paint job covering an entire
community, or replacing the clapboard with
aluminum siding.”
MAINTAINING...
continued from page 1
Other Façade Types
Much of what may need maintenance, how
often, and at what cost, is determined by what
materials façades are constructed of. “Brick is
pretty hardy stuff,” says Gaynor, “but alumi-
num and glass age, especially if they are fac-
ing the water. Terra-
cotta, limestone, and
cast stone are softer
than brick, but ulti-
mately their needs
rest on the individ-
ual variety of stone.”
Overall, he says there
is little that can be
done to ‘polish’ these
buildings.
“Grime
is tough to remove.
You basically have
to wait for rain to re-
move it,” and in the
end, the effort may not be worth the cost. “If
a building is kept up properly,” says Gaynor,
“the wear and tear of urban grime isn’t enough
to really affect curb appeal.” In other words, it
kind of goes with the territory.
And the territory today also includes the
effects of climate change. Gaynor points out
that just the increase in extreme weather
events alone causes more and faster dete-
rioration of building exteriors. “We even see
dust and soot from the fires in California,” he
points out. The added effects of water damage
continued on page 16
“The original
ceilings in the
building were eight
feet high, but now
they are seven feet
and 11 inches.”
—Alan Gaynor