Older Buildings

Structural repairs after an engineer's report

On an older Miami building, the structural work usually starts with a document rather than with a symptom: an engineer's report listing what needs repairing, and where. This sets out what those reports typically contain, how the work runs from the schedule to close-out, and the two things that most often go wrong in between.

Most foundation work starts with somebody noticing something: a crack that was not there last year, a door that has stopped latching, a patio that has dropped. On older condominium and cooperative buildings it usually starts the other way round. An engineer assesses the structure, a report arrives listing items to be repaired, and the board is holding a document it has to turn into a finished job and a paid invoice.

That is a different kind of project from a house with a settled corner, and it is worth understanding before the first quote comes in.

What these reports usually list

On a Miami-Dade building of any age, the dominant finding is concrete restoration. Balcony slabs and edges, walkway soffits, tie beams, lintels, columns at ground level, and slab edges around the perimeter. The mechanism behind almost all of it is chloride-induced corrosion of the reinforcement inside, which is covered in detail in the spalling guide.

Beyond concrete, the recurring items are corroded structural steel, failed balcony railing connections, deteriorated waterproofing over structural elements, and stucco that has delaminated from what is behind it. Foundation and settlement items appear less often, because in this county settlement is not the usual failure mode for a mid-rise building on the ridge. Where they do appear, they are normally local: a corner over a soft pocket, or a section founded differently from the rest.

The order the work happens in

The repair schedule. The report normally includes a schedule with quantities and locations. That document, not a contractor's opinion, is the basis for everything that follows.
Quantity takeoff and pricing. Priced line by line against the schedule, so the board can see how the number was built rather than receiving a lump sum with no working shown.
Access and protection. Scaffolding, swing stages, or lifts, plus protection of the areas below. On an occupied building this is a real cost line rather than an afterthought.
Demolition and sounding. The point at which quantities change. Sounding finds delaminated concrete that nothing visible gave away, so expect the number to move here and nowhere else.
Repair and reinstatement. Concrete chipped back past the corroded length of each bar, steel cleaned or replaced, the section rebuilt with a compatible mortar, then waterproofing and finishes put back over it.
Close-out. Photographs, quantities as built, and material records, assembled into something the engineer can sign against so the file closes rather than lingering.

Two things worth getting right

First, budget for growth from the outset. Restoration quantities almost always increase once demolition begins, because the sound area and the visible area are not the same area. A project priced with no contingency is a project heading for a second conversation about money, and the way to avoid that is an agreed unit rate for additional square footage written into the contract before anyone picks up a chipping hammer.

Second, sequence the waterproofing with the concrete. Repairing a balcony slab properly and then reinstating a failed membrane over it starts the same clock again, and the next report will list the same locations. The scope should treat the water path and the concrete as one job, which sometimes means the coatings trade and the concrete trade are working to a single program rather than to two.

Repair scope detail is on the structural restoration page, and the price bands for this kind of work are in the Miami cost guide.

Get a free quote

Call (786) 841-1091 or send the quote form. Describing what you are seeing costs nothing, and so does the written quote that follows.

Questions on this

Does any of this apply to a single-family house?

Rarely in this form. An engineer's report on a house is normally a short document about one problem, a settled corner or a cracked wall, with a recommendation attached. The reports that run to schedules of quantities across a whole structure belong to condominium and cooperative buildings, where one document has to cover several hundred locations and a board has to fund the work from it.

Who pays for the repairs in a condominium?

The association, through reserves, a special assessment, or borrowing, depending on how the building has been funded and what the governing documents say. Which of those routes is being used is worth asking about early, because it sets how the work is phased. A project funded from reserves usually runs straight through; one funded by assessment often gets split into stages.

Our report lists spalling on multiple balconies. What happens next?

The report normally includes a repair schedule with quantities and locations, and that schedule is what everything downstream is priced and built against. Expect the quantity to grow once demolition starts, because sounding the concrete finds delaminated area that was never visible. A well-written contract sets a unit rate for the additional square footage in advance, so an overrun is arithmetic rather than a renegotiation.

We are buying into a building partway through a restoration. Is that a problem?

Not necessarily, but it is a different financial proposition from a building that has finished, and the difference can be a special assessment. The documents worth reading are the engineer's report and its repair schedule, what has been completed against it, the reserve study, and the minutes covering how the work is being funded. Associations are required to make their records available.