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| \n Interview with Steve Jackson, CAC, CA\/DPH, Vice\u00a0President<\/div>\n \n \n \n \n Planning for winter\u00a0weather is an important element in a strong project plan. \u00a0In this interview, Steve shares his tips on how to keep water out of your building and prevent post-construction defects.<\/p>\n Q: Why is it important for Project \/ Construction Managers to include moisture management\u00a0strategies\u00a0in the Project Plan<\/strong><\/em>?\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n It takes a team of experts (architects, engineers, contractors and other professionals) to design, build\u00a0and renovate buildings. One often over looked area of expertise is the water intrusion\/moisture management expert.\u00a0There are countless ways water\u00a0can impact a project: broken pipe, groundwater intrusion and\u00a0storms, just to name a few. Having a plan in\u00a0place to manage water intrusion concerns is\u00a0important. The plan, when combined with periodic proactive\u00a0inspections can help identify areas\u00a0of concern before they become major problems.<\/p>\n Q: \u00a0What are some examples of damage that\u00a0<\/span>may occur due to unplanned water\u00a0intrusion during a project?<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Unfortunately,\u00a0most projects are built with a reactionary approach to moisture management.\u00a0<\/span>Every winter we get countless calls from clients with \u201cproblems\u201d related to rain water intrusion.\u00a0<\/span>Often times early season rain events are unexpected and protections are not adequate to prevent\u00a0<\/span>water intrusion. Construction sites can get wet fast and the extent of water damage can often\u00a0<\/span>be overlooked until the impact to schedule and cost is extensive.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n It is important not to just think about rain. \u00a0We recently had a project where ground water\u00a0<\/span>intrusion damaged finishes in a building after the building was occupied. As the building was\u00a0<\/span>under construction for more than a year, these areas of intrusion could have been identified\u00a0<\/span>long before occupancy. Now the response will require impact to the building users, requiring\u00a0<\/span>design, implementation and monitoring of the repairs. If these issues had been observed during\u00a0<\/span>construction a different response could have been considered and the impacts (time, money\u00a0<\/span>and inconvenience) could have been better managed.<\/span><\/p>\n With a proactive approach to mold and\u00a0<\/span>moisture we can avoid problems rather than respond to problems we call it “problem avoidance\u00a0<\/span>before problem solving.”<\/span><\/p>\n Q: Have you had any incidents where clients have gone over budget or had their project time\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/span>prolonged due\u00a0to water intrusion issues?<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n Unfortunately, yes, far too often we get the call where a project is delayed and the budget is\u00a0<\/span>impacted because a situation that could have been identified sooner or was thought to be minor\u00a0turned out not to be the case.\u00a0<\/span>Waiting days or weeks to report a water condition can lead to mold and\u00a0<\/span>much longer impact to the construction schedule.<\/span><\/p>\n Conducting periodic, proactive moisture inspections can identify\u00a0potential issues much sooner. These issues can be resolved faster, cheaper and create\u00a0<\/span>opportunities to learn; preventing similar problems as the project progresses. Having the project\u00a0<\/span>team notify the water intrusion expert as soon as an issue is noted helps expedite an\u00a0<\/span>appropriate response.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Better yet, detecting the issues during periodic routine inspections allows the issues to be\u00a0<\/span>managed as part of the ongoing work and within the current schedule.<\/span><\/p>\n Q: Describe\u00a0the most significant or challenging water intrusion project you have\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/em>worked on?\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n On one project, I got a call to respond to an emergency flood at a large multi-family building\u00a0<\/span>under construction. The first phase of units was days away\u00a0from being turned over to the owner,\u00a0<\/span>ahead of schedule. A vandal had plugged a bathtub drain on the fourth floor one Friday\u00a0<\/span>afternoon before a three-day weekend and turned on the faucet. By Monday morning, security\u00a0<\/span>noticed water rushing out the first floor door. By the time my client (the builder) called over 10-\u00a0<\/span>days had passed since the leak was reported. They thought they had a plan in place to address\u00a0<\/span>the flood. By the time we arrived for our initial inspection, mold was present in about 20 units.\u00a0<\/span>The mold impacted gypsum board walls\/ ceilings, cabinets, and finished floors. Water had also\u00a0<\/span>impacted insulation and gotten into several HVAC units within units.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Had we been called on day 1, the response could have included aggressive drying and removal of\u00a0<\/span>water-damaged materials. Instead, with the delayed response\u00a0this became a mold remediation project.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n During our time onsite we discovered a previously undiscovered concern. Mold\u00a0<\/span>was observed along the base of many walls outside the flooded areas. Further inspections\u00a0<\/span>identified mold under cabinets in the kitchens and bathrooms of many units. The source turned\u00a0<\/span>out to be related to Gyp-crete flooring. The Gyp-crete was not adequately dried prior to\u00a0<\/span>installation of cabinets and the drying was not monitored to observe\u00a0impact to adjacent gypsum\u00a0<\/span>board. This discovery had a HUGE impact to the construction schedule and the owner was\u00a0<\/span>forced to delay \u201cmove-in\u201d dates for tenants. The damage to the building, the time impact to the\u00a0<\/span>schedule, the cost of the repairs and liquidated damages were all\u00a0<\/span>tremendous.<\/span><\/p>\n If the problematic Gyp-crete floor had been allowed adequate time to dry none of these\u00a0<\/span>unexpected conditions\u00a0would occurred. Periodic inspection of moisture conditions would have\u00a0<\/span>likely noted the elevated moisture\u00a0conditions in the gypsum walls prior to installation of\u00a0<\/span>cabinets. Perhaps there would have been impact to the\u00a0schedule, but the impact could have\u00a0<\/span>been identified sooner allowing for schedule recovery in other areas. So\u00a0instead of a few days of\u00a0lost time from drying, the project was delayed over six weeks.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Having the water intrusion expert on your team from day one, to develop and implement the\u00a0<\/span>Mold and Moisture Plan, oversee periodic inspections and provide training to key team\u00a0<\/span>members helps ensure that your\u00a0projects get completed on-time, on-budget while handing over\u00a0<\/span>a healthy building<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n Request a Project Consultation<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Interview with Steve Jackson, CAC, CA\/DPH, Vice\u00a0President Planning for winter\u00a0weather is an important element in a strong project plan. \u00a0In this interview, Steve shares his tips on how to keep […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"Layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["entry","author-admin","post-162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-environmental-consulting"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.accenv.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.accenv.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.accenv.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.accenv.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.accenv.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.accenv.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":460,"href":"https:\/\/www.accenv.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162\/revisions\/460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.accenv.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.accenv.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.accenv.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} |