Posts
Chips Off the Old Block
and other ruminations about masonry, by
Larry D. Jenks
This blog is about masonry -- design and construction. I plan to use this forum to share some of the lessons I have learned as a forensic architect about the dos and don’ts of masonry construction. The major lessons I have learned are related to masonry walls -- veneer walls; cavity walls; and single-wythe walls. I have discovered many things that don't make it into the classroom, and often don't make it into the learning experiences offered in an architectural office. So I am very excited to be getting to those lessons soon. But I have decided to begin with what might seem like the end… with the Ongoing Care and Maintenance of Masonry Walls. Why?
Well, here’s why.
At my previous firm, I led the continuing education effort for our interns, as a way of helping to prepare them for the architectural licensing exam. One of the things that we used to do, and that I enjoyed immensely, was to perform a little role-playing at our monthly office meetings. We would choose, pretty much at random, three teams. Each team had one of our project architects, and usually two or three interns of varying degrees of experience. Each member of a team was assigned to play a role -- but they could decide for themselves who the participants should be to most effectively arrive at an outcome. Sort of like Celebrity Apprentice, but long before Donald Trump thought of it. Often, teams would decide that one player should be the owner, one should be the architect, and a third would be an engineer, or something else the team decided was most relevant. Occasionally, the team would decide that the third member should be a lawyer. That didn’t happen often, because as soon as that was disclosed, we would stop the exercise and use the occasion as a teachable moment, explaining why we didn’t want to have the attorneys involved. I’m sure you can think of many of those reasons.
In my work as a forensic architect, I have seen too many school projects forced into the litigation process. For those of you who are familiar with that process, you know that it can be a L-O-N-G, mind-numbing, sometimes convoluted, and always expensive proposition. This process is typically initiated by the school’s administration because water has been discovered at unwanted locations inside the building. Sometimes this leaking is the result of defective construction, sometimes defective design, but too often this happens because the building has not enjoyed the benefits of proper maintenance.
The term “litigation” describes the entire process that is initiated by the serving of a complaint; it is not just when a case is brought before a judge and jury at trial. Unfortunately, when the litigation process begins, what actually happened, why, and who is at fault is not known -- but there are many suspicions, along with the requisite allegations. The litigation process, including the trial, is structured to determine exactly those things. But to get to that point, many hypotheses are developed by the plaintiff’s attorneys, and anyone who could even remotely be involved in the “who” is listed in the complaint. Most of those entities are eventually exonerated, but usually at great cost, both in the pocketbook, and to professional reputations. It may require dozens of attorneys and technical experts to convince the trier of fact (a judge or a jury) that the leaking problems were actually the result of improper care and maintenance (if that is truly the case). Once this gaggle of outside parties gets involved in the litigation process, it is extremely unlikely that any of the original parties -- the owner, the architect, the contractor, the subcontractor -- can emerge from the process without damage. The concept of “innocent until proven guilty” may guide the general thinking, but it is very difficult to be named as a defendant in this process without having your reputation tarnished a little..
Accordingly, it would be much better to identify sources of problems, where possible, before they result in leaking damage, before fingers are being pointed in every possible direction, while they can still be handled at a manageable cost.
Here are my suggestions for how to do this…
Ongoing Care and Maintenance of Masonry Walls
Sealant Replacement
Mortar Joint Repair
Grouting of Hairline Cracks
Repointing Mortar Joints
Opening Weeps
Conclusion
Conclusion
Budgets are being cut back almost everywhere you look. Staffs are being reduced, and work loads increased. Entropy prevails. But the last thing anyone wants is to take a building’s problems into litigation, only to learn that they were caused by neglected maintenance. We certainly don’t want to have to pay for both a lawsuit, and then also the repairs to the building that we should have made some time ago. Make a promise to yourself now to get on top of these issues, and prevent as many headaches as you can. You may get only as much credit for your efforts as an offensive lineman for the Broncos. But at least you should not have to be Tebowing, looking for divine assistance, if you see a little water on the floor somewhere.
http://jnxclusives.blogspot.com/p/sealant-replacement.html
