Along with the administrative and financial ramifications of post-Surfside legislation, there also come some major practical questions, among them what exactly are inspecting engineers looking for, and what are the most common issues they find as they’re conducting reserve studies? We sat down with Greg Batista, president of Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.-based G. Batista Engineering and Construction, a nationally recognized expert on funding reserves and the repairs required under these laws.  

COOPERATORNEWS: What are engineering professionals actually finding when completing reserve studies under the new law?

BATISTA: “The Structural Integrity Reserve Study (SIRS) side consistently finds the same thing: reserves that were underfunded, or even waived, for decades. Buildings now have a repair backlog, but no money set aside for repairs.  The overwhelming majority of findings are not structural collapse risks, but rather water-driven deterioration. Things like spalling concrete and corroding rebar on balconies, walkways, and garage slabs, failed waterproofing and expansion joints, and deferred roof and stucco maintenance have let moisture reach the buildings infrastructure for years.”

COOPERATORNEWS: Why does deterioration develop the way it does?

BATISTA: “Concrete protects steel because of its alkaline properties. Salt air, humidity, and rainwater slowly carbonate the concrete, driving chlorides into the steel rebar. Once the steel starts rusting, it expands to several times its volume and cracks the concrete from the inside out. It’s a slow, compounding process that’s invisible for 15 to 25 years. But after that, deterioration accelerates sharply. That is exactly why the damage to a 40-year-old building may seem to have appeared suddenly to the untrained eye.”

COOPERATORNEWS: What do you look for during an inspection, and how does it show up in the field?

BATISTA: “We look for the fingerprints of water and corrosion, such as rust staining, hairline cracks following the rebar pattern, concrete that sounds hollow when it’s tapped, spalls with exposed steel, ponding, and failed sealants. Often these signs are concentrated at balconies, slab edges, garage ceilings, and anywhere the waterproofing has been neglected. Deferred maintenance is easy to spot because it leaves a trail; patched-over patches, painted-over cracks, and repairs that address the surface symptom without ever touching the corroding steel underneath.”

COOPERATORNEWS: What should board members understand about the results of a reserve study? 

BATISTA: “They should understand that a ‘milestone’ or 40-year report is not a pass/fail grade on their building. It’s a prioritized map of where water has infiltrated, how far the damage has progressed, and what has to be fixed right now versus what just needs to be monitored. The real decision for the board is not whether to make a repair, but how the repair will be funded, and how fast. Every year of delay makes the same repair larger, more expensive, harder to explain to the owners paying the assessment, and obviously more dangerous.”