…As a property manager or association board member you have experienced one or more of the following water damage related issues:
residential unit
residential unit
I’m sure you can think of additional sources of water leaks and certainly specific causes with which you have dealt. Well, for every visible leak there is not one single cause. Once the cause of a leak is determined, the repair tends to be generally straightforward; although, the cost for repairs can vary greatly. So how do we go about determining the source of a leak?
Let’s look at the following hypothetical scenario:
The owner of unit 301 in a multi-story condominium building calls the property manager and says, “I have a water leak in my ceiling near the outside wall above my balcony door”. The property manager wants to be effective and timely in addressing this issue of course. Assuming there is no on-site management and no on-site maintenance staff, what often happens is the property manager may reach out to one of their preferred construction contractor vendors that perform building repairs. The apparent benefit of this action is that it’s the contractor’s business to know how to make building repairs and most likely the contractor will not charge a fee for the initial site visit to look at the issue. The reason the contractor does not charge for the evaluation is the cost of the contractor’s visit is ultimately built into the cost to make the repair. Let’s assume the first person the manager calls is a window installer who then visits the property at the manager’s request. The window installer looks at the balcony door and nearby windows. He or she may find some sealant (caulk) around the balcony door which has cracked or separated and gets a work order approval to replace the sealant. The leak may or may not have been resolved. If the leak does stop is it possible it is a coincidence? We can agree that the sealant was at the end of its useful life and needed to be replaced but did it solve the water leak issue? Assuming
this repair did not address the source issue of the leak it may commence leaking immediately, or after several days or weeks. Maybe it leaks only slightly and the unit owner is busy and does not follow up with the property manager for several weeks until greater damage has occurred to the interior ceiling finish.
A bigger concern is what damage has been occurring that is concealed above the ceiling or within other parts of the building structure? With the next call to the property manager the unit owner may be more agitated. It is possible that the property manager decides if it wasn’t an issue with the windows then maybe it’s the masonry cladding or the roofing. You can see how the request for visits by construction related vendors can repeat itself, possibly multiple times until the issue is hopefully corrected.
Property managers
have many decisions to make each day on behalf of their associations.
In the above scenario the property manager was doing what he or she thought was best for the unit owner and for the association. Each contractor that comes to the property is also doing what they think is best as it relates to their specific expertise. The sealant may have been fixed, a roof seam may have been patched, etc… but it is not the property manager’s or the contractor’s responsibility to determine the source of the leak. A professional firm that has a history of solving leak issues should be retained to perform a thorough evaluation of the leak. The on- site evaluation should be performed by an architect, engineer or other professional consultant with significant knowledge of building design and construction. The service professional is going to charge a fee for the evaluation. Why is this? It is because they are performing an evaluation that may be used to hire the appropriate contractor(s) to perform the necessary repairs. When the service professional is included early in the evaluation process this may often lead to a quicker corrective action which often results in less total cost to the association, less aggravation and cost to the unit owner, less time spent on the issue by the property manager, and
appropriate specifications for the contractor to perform their work.
Let’s take another look at the issue with the leak at unit 301 when a qualified professional consultant is hired at the beginning. First the consultant should request any historical data such as repair contracts or other issues related to the specific leak or related to similar issues in other areas of the building(s). The consultant should also request a complete copy of the construction documents which includes drawings and specifications from when the building was built. Many associations do not have
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