"  Ch Ch Ch Changes"....Don't Always Improve IT (Your Roof, Your House) .   The Roof View Here's a view of a 'flat' roof that has been shown on some of my other blogs. Flat roofs are not actually flat. They either slope to a central drain or drain to one edge. This angle is gradual so the drop from the high part of the roof to the drain is not much. Here it is about 6". Thats fine when it's just raining and there is no blockage of the drain(s). Blockage from debris is only a concern if you have large trees nearby and even when you don't, you equip it with a wire bulb strainer and check it several times a year.   Parapet Wall Detail This is not a typical roof vent . It is small and built into the parapet wall and the opening is close to the roof surface. This is not a concern in light ra... 05/27/2011

One, Two, Three, You Can't Hide From Me!    The First Clue   Here the street face of the painted basement concrete wall is blistered.  The other adjacent units are not. They have smooth solid paint surfaces. Blistering paint is caused by water escaping from underneath. This means the walls are wet or are getting water from some where. The most common sources are conditions found higher up the walls or from the roof.        The Second Clue   This is over head on the same front wall. This is the roof soffit. Now the dirt on the top of the siding is not surprising or rare. However the streaks are caused by running water (there's no other cause). The water has to come from higher up. What's higher up?  Nothin' up there but the roof and sky. No not the sky, this is under the soffit.         ... 05/05/2011

This wall looks pretty good, no problems here, right? Well maybe. But look up at the second story level. Look where the decorative front type brick meets the planer single colour side brick. You can see the joint between the two, right? The light whitish colour of the mortar, yes. Why is it like that, we don't see any others like it do we. So lets go over and take a closer look at it. Now you can see it ;    Now you CAN see it!   There's a bulge!    What does that mean?   That means that the ties that joined this masonry to the wall framing behind have let go, at least in some areas.   Why? The metal strips have rusted and broken. This is from water that has gotten in behind the wall bricks over the years.   This can be from just the weather exposure of the brick, but usually it indica... 05/01/2011

SO what's wrong with this?  Doesn't Look Too Bad, Right? The cantilevered structure of the balconies are fine.  There's some blistering paint on a nearby wall but thats just paint work. The balcony iron work is in good shape, firmly attached and no rust.  Caulking could look neater but it's doing its job.  All the balconies on the street side are like this, no rotting wood. The rear balconies are another story however.  Did you notice the garage doors?  They are roll ups but they have man doors build into them.  They haven't been used for cars for years but they operate just fine, manually, and the man doors are functional too. So has my miss-direction kept you from seeing the really interesting detail?...Maybe. Here's a close up that should tell the story:   The deck covering material... 04/29/2011