2005 January

HOW YOU KNOW WHEN YOUR ASSOciATION IS IN TROUBLE

By Timothy Wentzell, P.E.
From an Engineer’s Perspective

You can tell your Association is in trouble when:

• You drive into your Association parking lot, carefully weave your way around the potholes, and realize you have memorized a path to follow, as the potholes have been there for as long as you can remember.  Obviously, your Association is not just waiting for the next summer's paving season.
• You look up at your roof and realize that what used to be three-tab shingles appear to be curling at the edges, and there are deep cracks through the shingles where all the aggregate has fallen off.  Likely, your Association is hoping that it is never going to rain again.  Obviously, roofs have somewhat of a predictable lifetime, and good planning by the Association Board would not have allowed the roofs to deteriorate to this condition.
• You walk from your car across the grass and trip over a molehill and realize the entire lawn appears to be a series of little tunnels.  Either your Association has decided to go the environmental route and live in harmony with the moles or, in order to save money, is not undertaking a grub-control program.
• You walk into your condominium and realize the carpet is damp, and there are dark brown spots on your ceiling where the roof has been leaking from the last storm.  Obviously, once again, your Association failed to plan for the inevitable roof-replacement cycle.
• You step out on your deck and notice that, finally, the two rotten boards in the deck floor have been replaced after months of your requesting the Association to repair them.  However, likely, if two of the deck boards are rotten, the structure itself is in poor shape, and your Association is probably wasting money making isolated repairs, when ultimately a broad deck-replacement program is indicated.
• You call your Association to complain about the roof leaking, and the maintenance folks bring out a blue plastic tarp and nail it to the roof with furring strips, presumably hoping that this will last though the winter.
• While trying to sleep that night, you swear you can hear the carpenter ants munching on the 2 x 4's in the walls, as the continued roof leaking is providing moisture for their colonies to grow and prosper.
• Lastly, you attend the annual meeting the next evening, and the topic is brought up about the level of the Association reserves and whether or not a reserve study has been performed.  Your Management Board's answer is, "Of course, we have a reserve study.  Joe, the Association president, did it just the other night, and we are planning on budgeting for it once we finish selling our units."  Obviously, a professionally prepared reserve study is long overdue for this Association and having adequate reserves would actually help in the sale of the units.  A shrewd buyer would recognize the deferred maintenance at this complex and would be prepared to raise the issue of the level of reserves and whether or not a professional plan had been prepared by someone knowledgeable in the field of expected lifetime of infrastructure items, as well as the cost for replacement of those items.

Timothy Wentzell, P.E. is a principal of Connecticut Property Engineering, which specializes in providing engineering services to common interest associations.  He has completed over 300 different condominium projects, including such tasks as reserve studies (life-cycle analysis), ice damming problem reviews, design and specifications for such projects as pool deck replacements, roof replacements, boiler replacements and/or heating system conversions, vinyl siding installation, paving, deck replacements, and investigation of drainage problems and other structural problems.