Letter sent months before deadly Florida
collapse warned damage to condo building
was accelerating
CNN,
by
Shawn Nottingham
&
Gregory Lemos
Original Article
Posted By: earlybird,
6/29/2021 2:19:54 PM
A correspondence from the board president of Champlain Towers South, part of which unexpectedly crashed to the ground last week in Surfside, Florida, describes the decay at the building since 2018 saying, "the observable damage such as in the garage has gotten significantly worse since the initial inspection."
Board President Jean Wodnicki addressed the letter to neighbors April 9."The concrete deterioration is accelerating. The roof situation got much worse, so extensive roof repairs had to be incorporated," says the letter, (snip)
"When you can visually see the concrete spalling (cracking), that means that the rebar holding it together is rusting and deteriorating beneath the surface."
Reply 1 - Posted by:
Zeek Wolfe 6/29/2021 2:35:15 PM (No. 830541)
I'm a little confused. Concrete decay? The concrete used in the Golden Gate bridge and the Hoover dam was formulated to last over 300 years. The Colosseum and Pantheon in Rome were built using concrete two thousand years ago. Both are considered structurally sound. Yet they built this condominium building in the 1980s made of concrete, rebar and modern specs only to see it collapse and kill over 100 people. Am I missing something here?
15 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
earlybird 6/29/2021 2:38:57 PM (No. 830545)
Additional OP comment: The assessment amounts are in the post just published above this one. The $800/month figure in OP comment was for this particular owner, who said it would be paid over 15 years. The assessments and payment amounts varied based upon the size of the respective units.
1 person likes this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
earlybird 6/29/2021 2:54:43 PM (No. 830559)
For #1:
https://www.cement.org/docs/default-source/fc_concrete_technology/durability/is536-types-and-causes-of-concrete-deterioration.pdf?sfvrsn=4
1 person likes this.
So the problem is on the condo owners themselves, who failed to act on the matter. Trial attorneys are going to have a tough time suing them all, but I bet they will try based on the dead people (who were also owners I suppose, unless some were renters and could have a claim against a condo owner). The aftermath will be interesting.
2 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
DVC 6/29/2021 3:06:54 PM (No. 830576)
One of the photos shows, at the upper corner, a structural concrete beam which is severely spalled, with corroded rebar visible. This rebar would normally be an inch or two below the concrete surface, but the corrosion has cracked the concrete so severely that chunks have fallen off, exposing the bare steel bars to a more corrosive environment. The pool chemicals are extremely corrosive to steel. If I was designing that pool area, I'd want a double coat of epoxy paint over all the structural concrete to keep the pool chemicals from reaching the rebar. And that protective paint would need to be regularly renewed.
This portion of the pool deck didn't come down, but it gives an idea of what the condition of the concrete structure was there, and MAY have been similar elsewhere.
The article implies that spalling and cracking are the same thing. This is very much NOT the case. A crack is just that, a crack. Spalling is actual chunks of the surface popped off and gone, almost always due to subsurface cracking which has forced the missing piece away from the main part of the item. And it is important to understand that a lot of concrete structures have a cosmetic layer of stucco. Cracks in the stucco layer may be because of structural cracks in the concrete underneath, but stucco cracking and spalling (confined only in the stucco) can be entirely cosmetic if the concrete is OK underneath. This is why reports of "cracks" is very imprecise, and even "spalling" can be unclear, too. Cracks and spalling in a stucco layer are cosmetic. Cracks and spalling in main structural beams can be seriously compromising strength of beams.
I can tell you that the concrete beam in the top of the left photo is in bad shape and that is serious, not cosmetic.
7 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
DVC 6/29/2021 3:11:11 PM (No. 830580)
Re: the comment on Roman concrete.....KEY point, they used unreinforced concrete, which can last virtually forever. The Pantheon is a perfect example.
We use REINFORCED concrete which can do things that unreinforced concrete can never do. This requires reinforcing bars inside. Unless these are a corrosion proof material, the structure will last until the bars corrode and pop apart the concrete. Some engineers are studying at fiberglass reinforcing bars in concrete to resist corrosion. If you REALLY want a durable structure, use titanium reinforcing bars. Titanium is usually used in aerospace for lightness, which is hopeless in heavy concrete structures, but titanium is also nearly corrosion proof. It would be VERY expensive, but VERY durable, too.
4 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
mc squared 6/29/2021 4:07:34 PM (No. 830636)
Is 'unexpectedly' the proper term? Maybe anticipated. That of, course changes things legally.
2 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
john56 6/29/2021 5:05:34 PM (No. 830670)
Remember, we're also dealing with the forces of nature -- sandy, shifting, water from the barrier island where the building was constructed. Yeah, in hindsight, they should have dealt with this at the time. But then again, how many high-rise towers, even in beach front communities, fall down (excluding, of course, damage ala 9-11, terrorism, war, or natural disasters)?
5 people like this.
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Comments:
This article uses the term “neighbors”. The correct term would have been “owners”. This was an official board notice of the building’s problems. According to one 20 year owner, who survived, he didn’t totally understand it because he “doesn’t know about rebar and such”, but he did mention that each owner was to be assessed a substantial amount of money (I don’t recall the exact amount) which was to be paid at $800/month for a number of years. “Like another mortgage,” he said.