Page 16 - Waterproofing News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Showed spalling in the concrete, cracks in the concrete, water on the ground there. you know about the 2018 report that was done by the engineer. does any of that raise red flags for you? >> [ audio difficulty ]. you know, while some of those things -- i've seen things like that in lots of buildings. the bottom line is you have this particular building, and a lot of buildings, you have the building tower and then the first floor and the basement stick out further than the tower in the plan, and that's where you have planters and driveways and stuff like that. so you have waterproofing on those...

>> well, being a contractor and an engineer, i can speak to this. let's just assume for a second, and this is a big assumption, that it's exactly the same scope of work, because if you have a price on a set date and then three years later you have another price, maybe they added windows, maybe they added waterproofing -- >> maybe it got worse. >> yes, and that's what i'm getting at. let's make the assumption that both were equal but it's the same scope of work. it is the fact that the concrete repair and this sprawling and the fact that the reinforcing steel inside the concrete worsens over ti...

Waterproofing. the issue is when water gets into a crack, all concrete cracks, it's made to crack. water gets into a crack. in the north, you worry about it freezing and thawing, because when water freezes it expands and that makes the crack bigger. you also worry about -- [ audio difficulty ] then you can get rust in the reinforcing steel. when rust gets in the reinforcement steel, at first glance it might look like it's really severe, but remember, it's an expanded material. you take a wire brush and you brush off that rust and you might find you only lost a 16th of an inch of a half inch or...

Precipitate the collapse. what you want to do is try to find the trigger. >> if you can hear me, allyn, you've obviously seen the pictures in the "miami herald" from a pool contractor that showed cracks in the concrete, water on the ground there. you know about the 2018 report that was done by the engineer. does any of that raise red flags for you? >> you know, while some of those things -- i've seen things like that in lots of buildings. the bottom line is you have this particular building, and a lot of buildings, you have the building tower and then the first floor and the basement stick out...

Close together but one with way more structural problems, does it make it more clear what happened here? >> that's a very good point. i think at the end of the day these buildings are just like us. if we take care of them they will be sustainable and resilient. if we do not take care of them, the exponential deterioration that occurs in these buildings especially on the ocean front with the opportunity for the salt to penetrate the waterproofing and into the concrete and onto the steel is what makes all the difference in the world. and i do see it as a major issue that the continued lack of de...