Category: Maintenance

Every five years, the boards of co-ops and condominiums are forced by law to consider how to execute repairs to their exterior facades. Unless there is a known dangerous condition, not too many buildings consider the issue well in advance …

Every year, co-ops and condos in New York City pay millions of dollars in utility expenses, including electric, water/sewer, gas, and steam. Are you certain your building is paying the correct amount? What if it isn't? Without an expert au…

Time was, if a residential building was suffering heat loss, leaks, or other infrastructure problems, it was up to a team of engineers, contractors, and perhaps architects to investigate where the problem lay within the building's walls an…

Effective August 2, 2004, a new lead-based paint regulation will force New York City property owners to change the way they deal with lead based paint in their properties. "Local Law 1 of 2004," overseen by the Department of Housing Prese…

While it may be a cliché, it's entirely true that few things are more important than keeping a solid roof over your head. And like any other aspect of a building's structural composition, your roof has a life span that is dictated by time…

Whether it's cash in hand or borrowed dollars, your properties are constantly faced with competing demands on scarce resources. These financial pressures can keep you from replacing an old, unreliable, repair-intensive, under-performing ch…

Like many questions, the answer is "it depends." Many people think about a 20- or 30-year-old boiler the same way they think about a 10- or 15-year-old car: "It might need to be replaced soon, so I won't spend much money on it. I'll just …

In the legendary musical Anything Goes , the character Reno wants to be taken back to Manhattan or as she calls it "my dear old dirty town." In the last decade, New York has cleaned up its act, but Reno had it right - it's still a d…

From the venerable Dakota on the Upper West Side to the small-but-fashionable antique brownstones in the Village, to the formidable New York Public Library, hundreds of buildings in Manhattan and the outer boroughs have been designated his…

Everyone knows the air in New York isn't the best stuff in the world to breathe. But what most people don't know is that the indoor environment is often more polluted and toxic than the world outdoors. In fact, a recent EPA study found tha…