Has the board of directors of a property ever stated they didn’t have the funds to perform a
necessary project? Have you been the 3 rd or 4 th engineer that has been reached out to state their
structurally deficient building is safe.
The board of directors of any given association is tasked with creating and communicating a
vision for the community, for its directions and goals; however, they have a much greater
responsibility than that. The board must protect the interests of the association, especially
financial, but you cannot put a price on a human life. Trying to save money while sacrificing life
safety is doing a disservice to the residents. I wouldn’t want to price put on my life similar to the
early days of construction in the 1930s where the accepted rule of thumb was “1 death for every
$1 million spent on a project”.
I was working with a board in Boynton Beach earlier this year. They had cracks in the 1 st level
cantilever catwalks in which they were concerned. This was when I purchased my Superdroids
GPK-32 inspection robot. I used the robot to inspect the crawl space under the entirety of
cantilevered 1 st level slab. There was significant spalling, exposed rebar, and the problem was
only going to get worse. I developed a highly detailed set of plans to perform full depth repairs at
the locations as determined by inspection robot, even drawing the entire property from scratch
with all elevations, including sketching the precise dimensions of the side mounted rail and other
details that were far from copy/paste. After getting (3) quotes from different contractors that
were within 5% of each other, the response I received was that it was outrageous and why
couldn’t a contractor just use “cement and paint” to fix the issue, whatever that means. In any
case, I respectfully walked away as I could not risk my license I worked so hard for. Once the
slab finally gives, and a poor resident breaks their leg or worse, it will create bigger issues. Mind
you the high bid was roughly $200,000, which included painting the entire building.
As an engineer, I am keen on doing what is right. I will never cut corners, nor will I go overboard
and overdesign or recommend a full replacement of any building component that can be
adequately repaired with sharp engineering and diligently going through the Florida building
codes and all the resources to my disposal. I will never be the engineer to look the other way and
state a building is “fine” when I can see there are structural deficiencies. I feel this is a disservice
as yes, money will be saved, but will need to be paid in a much greater amount in the future.