After the building collapse in Surfside, Florida, forensic architect Frank Gonzales shares how you can check on your own building’s safety. RELATED:
Three years ago, Florida lawyer Eric Glazer offered a dire warning: The state's condo buildings faced an "absolutely avoidable" crisis stemming from years of willfully neglected maintenance combined with lax government oversight.
Writing on his blog "Condo Craze and HOAs," Glazer warned that building after building lacked the savings to fund increasingly common repairs. He understood, he wrote, why it's hard to get condo and homeowners associations to set aside money for maintenance, especially for retirees on limited incomes.
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The cracks started in the pool deck in 1996…when the building was just 16 years old. That had to mean that there was something wrong with the initial construction.
Instead of putting a bandaid on a shotgun wound by calking the cracks, the pool deck should have been replaced at that time and the whole structure itself should have been inspected for other flaws.