As an odorless, colorless gas, radon is often overlooked and underestimated, but it has potentially fatal consequences when left unmanaged. It is a radioactive gas believed to be the leading cause of lung cancer among nonsmokers, and has also recently been linked with blood cancer in women.
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Repairing and restoring historic concrete often involves dealing with concealed conditions contributing to distress. This 1920s Pacific Northwest building features cast-in-place concrete façades finished with facing mortar.
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During a visit to review curtain wall assemblies on a project under construction, we noticed something unrelated—brick ties supporting a cantilevered through-wall flashing drip plate at a window opening in the exterior masonry. This unusual condition invited further examination of the cavity wall construction.
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Condition assessments are conducted to evaluate existing conditions, identify distress, determine appropriate repairs, and assist property owners in understanding possible future repair and maintenance costs.
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Suspended scaffolding is used for cleaning windows and performing exterior maintenance on multi-story buildings. This equipment tends to be rented when needed, but some taller buildings have built-in, permanent components for such access.
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When specifying and installing air and moisture/vapor barriers, consideration is often given to cold-weather limitations of those materials to better ensure proper application and long-term performance.
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Unitized curtain wall systems offer many benefits when used for the building enclosure. They can increase quality control of the overall system, as the units are largely shop-fabricated under controlled conditions rather than field-assembled.
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The importance of selecting an appropriate weather-resistive barrier (WRB), given project-specific conditions such as substrate types and anticipated in-service environmental conditions, has been emphasized in several past Failures articles by these authors.
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In our work as forensic architects and engineers, we are regularly involved in litigation over stucco failures, including hotels and high-rise condo complexes. (For this article, ‘stucco’ refers to traditional portland cement plaster direct-applied to a masonry substrate, rather than using lath.)
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The benefits of maintaining continuity and proper integration between varying components of the exterior building envelope are becoming better understood.
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