another deck failure

[Mark K]

The design live load was not the problem. Note the failure occurred a foot or more from the face of the wall. At this point the bending moment was significantly less than the bending moment at the face of the wall.

 

[Frank]

Blowing up some of the below pics it appears that the balcony was constructed of cantilevered I Joists with waferboard webs. These have very poor water resistance--will get puffy here in a couple months if left outside. That combined with EIFIS type coverings that are notorious for leaking. I would bet on water intrusion leading to rapid deterioration of the I Joists. From how the webs are flaked-- I would suspect a shear failure not a bending failure.

These products are for dry use only from GP literature (unknown manufacturer but all are similar)

1 4–Limitations:

...

C. Wood I Beam joists are for use in covered, dry-use

conditions only (moisture content less than 16%).

The warrantee also excludes excessive moisture conditions--

CONDITIONS AND EXCLUSIVE REMEDIES Before GP will honor any claim under this warranty, the Qualified Owner must give GP written notice no later than thirty (30) days after

discovery of any defect and, in addition, must give GP an additional thirty (30) days thereafter to inspect the Covered Product(s) before any alteration or repair is made. If GP’s inspection

confirms that a manufacturing defect exists and has caused a problem, GP, at its sole option, will either repair the defective Covered Product, provide a replacement Covered Product, or

reimburse the Qualified Owner for the reasonable cost of repair or replacement of the defective Covered Product(s). These remedies are GP’s only obligation for and, in addition, are the Qualified

Owner’s sole and exclusive remedies for any breach of warranty.

Any defect in or damage to a Covered Product resulting in whole or part from the following conditions is NOT GP’s responsibility and is NOT covered by this warranty:

(a) settling or failure of the Structure’s foundation;

(b) failure to meet building code requirements for the roof or floor leading to excessive deflection, structural failure, and/or excessive moisture exposure due to the lack of proper

protection of the Covered Product or inadequate insulation, ventilation and/or vapor retarders;

© causes other than normal use conditions such as improper storage, handling, use, maintenance or installation; impact with other objects; earthquake, flood, fire, acts of God or

nature; or any other cause beyond GP’s control;

(d) exposure or handling that is not consistent with good practice in the building industry, including misuse and abuse and contact with or exposure to abnormal levels of moisture; or

(e) termites, mold, mildew, fungi, algae, moss, bacterial growth, decay, rot or similar conditions.

 

[cda]

Looking for the "fresh air rule" in ibc

former member of the city design-review committee that approved the project in 2001 told the San Francisco Chronicle that the balcony "was meant just to be a place where someone could stand out for bit, get a breath of fresh air. Not for something like 13 people."

Berkeley's building code requires an "open space" balcony to support 60 pounds per square foot, or about 3,000 pounds.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/06/17/berkeley-balcony-collapse-investigation/28879957/

 

[ICE]

former member of the city design-review committee that approved the project in 2001 told the San Francisco Chronicle that the balcony "was meant just to be a place where someone could stand out for bit, get a breath of fresh air. Not for something like 13 people."

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/06/17/berkeley-balcony-collapse-investigation/28879957/

I heard much the same on the radio. The balcony was described as not intended for people to be on ..... it was there for looks. I guess the doors were there if you wanted to get a closer look. They also said that since the occupants generally change often (every three months) nobody was there long enough to notice the poor condition of the patio. Where do they get this stuff?

The wood broke off in the hands of inspectors, added Hom, who visited the site. That indicates major deterioration of the beams, known as joists.

It has been my experience that structural engineers will not provide flashing details at balconies. So it falls on an architect. Sometimes there is no architect. I had a project several years ago that was replacing cantilevered balconies on two story apartment buildings. There were no details for how to keep water out.....and they were replacing them because they were rotten from water getting in. They were about 25 years old.

I wrote a correction asking for details to be submitted to our plan checker. The contractor ended up being replaced several times and I asked each new contractor to provide approved details. They all asked me what I wanted them to do. Finally a contractor brought a detail to the office for review. The plan checker called me to the counter and asked me what I wanted him to do. Nobody wants anything to do with it. I approved the detail. Then other inspectors took over.

 

[conarb]

This latest picture shows that the joists were neither I Joists nor PSLs, they appear to be sawn wood; however I've never seen rotted wood "shred" like this. The stucco doesn't look like EFIS either, it looks like an EFIS final coat applied to some kind of backerboard.

The city has said that the balcony was built to 1998 building code requirements. As part of the inspection process, the city building department would have to ensure these requirements were met during construction."For a structure such as the apartment, I would have expected the construction plans to include structural plans prepared by a professional licensed engineer," Kirby said. "The engineer would have determined the members needed to support the design load, and the inspector would have confirmed the engineer's design was being implemented."The zoning board also approved the project in 2002, which should have been the final step before construction, but the developer itself appealed those proposals, asking for less parking requirements and release from the city requirement to provide 20 percent of his units for affordable housing, Olson said. This brought the project to the City Council, which dismissed the appeal on March 23, 2004. The project received its final city inspection in January 2007, shortly before it opened.¹

The requirements for affordable housing always end up requiring corners be cut somewhere, somebody's got to pay for the losses on those units, the idea is that the rents of the market rate housing can go up to cover the losses on the affordable units but it doesn't always work out that way.¹ http://www.contracostatimes.com/breaking-news/ci_28332627/berkeley-collapsed-balcony-originally-not-part-project-plans

View attachment 1200

View attachment 1201

View attachment 1200

View attachment 1201

/monthly_2015_06/berkeley3.JPG.7c6dd67e472ed6a9e9ba811727818c1f.JPG

/monthly_2015_06/berkeley3.JPG.0a47f0573acf159a28814ea2b71ef0e7.JPG

 

[Wayne]

It looks like a panelized wall system like this one. http://www.advancedexteriorsystems.com/panelizedwallsystems.html

 

[ICE]

Finally a good picture. The wood looks like it is still wet.

 

[conarb]

But leaks happen, I recently had a leak in one of these new bathroom floors where you have no shower curb that everyone wants, I pitched the floor for the 15' length of the room but some water ran uphill through the drainage mat and came out where the stone ended and the hardwood started. While we were down under the house fixing that we found another leak in a stainless steel flashing where the house ended and the stone deck started, GSM flashing only lasts 20 to 30 years, the environmentalists are killing copper because of the fish, that leaves lead or stainless steel, the problem with stainless is that it should be welded and not soldered but field welding is rough and I let them solder joints in the field. Fortunately that house has from 4' to 15' high areas under it that we could get to and catch things like leaks.

Airplanes have inspection plates all over them at crucial points, every airplane has to have at least one annual inspection where the plates are removed and a certified mechanic can look inside with a dental mirror, maybe in sealed areas like these decks we ought to have inspection plates and have an inspector remove all plates and inspect for water leaks or other structural problems yearly. If I couldn't have got under the house above those two areas could have leaked for years before anyone found them, or significant damage was done. That building has continuous soffit venting on three sides under those decks, it would seem that water had to leak through those vents and nobody noticed.

 

[mark handler]

Berkeley balcony collapse caused by dry rot, expert says

By Matthias Gafni and Thomas Peele Staff writers

http://www.contracostatimes.com/breaking-news/ci_28325888/expert-dry-rot-caused-berkeley-balcony-collapse

BERKELEY -- The deadly collapse of a Berkeley apartment balcony early Tuesday morning resulted from water rotting the wood that held it to the building, not from the deck being overloaded, a structural engineer said Tuesday.

The deck showed a "deficiency in the design" said Tony Childress, owner of Texas-based Childress Engineering Services. He questioned the entire deck connection to the residential apartment building at 2020 Kittredge St.

Six people died, and seven others were seriously injured when the balcony broke early Tuesday morning.

Such accidents are not uncommon; numerous people were injured in a collapse in San Francisco in January and another in Oakland in September. Others have been reported across the country in the past few years.

Balcony collapses are "100 percent avoidable," said a lawyer who has represented victims.

"Due to the complete inadequacy of ... inspections around the Bay Area, you literally have ticking time bombs," said Niall McCarthy, a Burlingame lawyer who has represented victims in five Bay Area balcony collapses. "‹

"Balcony maintenance is a life-and-death issue," he said. "If your plumbing goes out, you have a headache and water in your building. If you don't maintain a balcony, somebody dies."

Childress said it was clear that water had reached the wood. "You can see the rotting," he said, after reviewing detailed photos of the damage with others in his failure-analysis firm at the request of the Bay Area News Group.

"This is a situation where a deficiency in the design allowed for moisture to seep in," he said. Childress' conclusion also raises questions about the city's review of the plans and construction.

City officials on Tuesday said it was too early in the collapse investigation to discuss its cause. The 176-unit building's planning documents were in storage and were not immediately available.

Building inspection reports from 2005-06, the years during which it was built, make no reference to balconies.

Neither the company that owns the $65 million building nor the one that manages it would discuss what might have caused the collapse Tuesday.

The 1998 California building standards in effect when the building was designed required the balcony to support 60 pounds per square foot, Childress said.

Under that standard, the roughly 50-square-foot balcony could have held about 3,000 pounds. Thirteen people, averaging 200 pounds each, standing on it at the same time would have added up to 2,600 pounds.

A new state building code effective Jan. 1, 2008, increased the load requirements for such an apartment building to 100 pounds per square foot, said Childress Engineering code consultant Ray Kirby.

Childress said the deck would not have been overloaded had it been filled shoulder-to-shoulder with people. The water intrusion doomed it, he said.

"The water infiltrated from the top down, and the wood snapped from the top down," the structural engineer said.

The building, called Library Gardens, is managed by South Carolina-based Greystar, a property management, real estate development and construction company.

In a statement Tuesday afternoon, Greystar said, "The safety of our residents is our highest priority, and we will be working with an independent structural engineer and local authorities to determine the cause of the accident."

When the balcony broke, it swung down against the building, hanging there like a hinge as the partygoers slipped off to the street below.

It later broke loose, falling on the next deck below, Childress said. Kirby called it a "progressive collapse."

"I don't like the way the steel frame design looks and how it was connected," Childress said.

To prevent the water infiltration, he said, flashing would need to go back several feet inside the wood structure.

Although the building is relatively new, a leak can lead to dry rot in 30 months or less, he said.

Balcony and deck collapses are not uncommon across the United States, with many attributed to poor maintenance, dry rot or termite damage combined with heavy loading.

"Balconies normally don't collapse on their own," said Robert Clayton, a Los Angeles lawyer who represents five students injured in a balcony collapse in Isla Vista next to the UC Santa Barbara campus in 2013.

A San Francisco attorney said he was struck by how new the building is.

"It is shocking that it failed so quickly. You would expect to see something like that with much older buildings," said Todd Walburg, a lawyer with Lieff Cabraser in San Francisco, which has represented victims in collapses.

Two other deck accidents within the past year injured Bay Area residents.

On Jan. 25, three people were seriously injured when a railing, later determined to be rotted, gave way at a San Francisco residence. The victims fell 20 feet.

And nine people were injured, three critically, in September when a deck collapsed at an East Oakland house.

That deck simply pulled away from the house and flipped over. A city building chief later said the deck may have pulled away from the house because it was too weakly attached.

Staff writers Thomas Peele and Leigh Pointinger contributed to this story. Contact Matthias Gafni at 925-952-5026. Follow him at Twitter.com/mgafni.

 

[conarb]

"Due to the complete inadequacy of ... inspections around the Bay Area, you literally have ticking time bombs," said Niall McCarthy, a Burlingame lawyer who has represented victims in five Bay Area balcony collapses. "‹

There is no requirement for ongoing inspections, what's he recommending that we have a maintenance code requiring ongoing inspection and maintenance?

"This is a situation where a deficiency in the design allowed for moisture to seep in," he said. Childress' conclusion also raises questions about the city's review of the plans and construction.

If Berkeley approved the plans using Bituthene for a waterproofing membrane shouldn't Berkeley be liable?

"I don't like the way the steel frame design looks and how it was connected," Childress said.

I don't see a steel frame, I'm sure there are moment frames in the building but they are not evident here, maybe he's referencing the steel ornamental railings, but they didn't fail.

To prevent the water infiltration, he said, flashing would need to go back several feet inside the wood structure.

He doesn't know what he's talking about, flashings never go back into the building, under french doors they go back the depth of the door frame, and good ones have a turned up lip at the interior edge. At walls they go up the wall, not into the building. Childress is an engineer , I've never had an engineer design or specify flashing, that's the architects' job. When they do dig out the plans I doubt we'll see them for liability reasons, somebody could go to jail here, there is no statute of limitations for manslaughter and a contractor was recently convicted of Involuntary Manslaughter in that Fremont case where the earth collapsed after the inspector red-tagged the site.

BTW, the contractor looks like a good contractor, his site says that their projects are all negotiated so there was no low bidding going on, there was an affordable housing requirement and corners are always cut to cover the losses entailed, but there may have been something worse: value engineering. Segue Construction

 

[ICE]

If Berkeley approved the plans using Bituthene for a waterproofing membrane shouldn't Berkeley be liable?

It hasn't come out that the City plan checkers approved Bituthene as a deck waterproofing membrane. Apparently an inspector did approve that since that is what is there. If in fact that was the approved method, the builder may be exonerated. The real culprit here is the inspector but as you know, the AHJ is mostly lawsuit proof.

Even if Bituthene was shown on an approved plan the inspector knows that a walk-on deck waterproofing requires an assembly which has an ICC ES report.

Going by just the pictures I can't say what was done. Bituthene is visible but it seems unlikely that it was adhered to a deck.

It would make sense that the Bituthene was stuck to the wall but flashing should be present to prevent the bituthene from seeing water.

As rotten as that wood appears, the guardrail was the only thing holding the balcony to the wall. The lumber didn't snap but rather it sluffed off as the deck became detached.

 

[mtlogcabin]

The real culprit here is the inspector but as you know, the AHJ is mostly lawsuit proof.

An inspector does not inspect all the various assemblies that go into a buildings construction. An AHJ will determine what parts of a project warrant an inspection before a contractor can move forward with a project what parts do not "require" an inspection.

It is all based on available resources at the time.

Even if Bituthene was shown on an approved plan the inspector knows that a walk-on deck waterproofing requires an assembly which has an ICC ES report.

Code section please

 

[mtlogcabin]

110.3 Required inspections.

The building official , upon notification, shall make the inspections set forth in Sections 110.3.1 through 110.3.10.

The code only requires specific inspection all other "required" inspections are a policy of the department

110.3.8 Other inspections.

In addition to the inspections specified above, the building official is authorized to make or require other inspections of any construction work to ascertain compliance with the provisions of this code and other laws that are enforced by the department of building safety.

 

[cda]

An inspector does not inspect all the various assemblies that go into a buildings construction. An AHJ will determine what parts of a project warrant an inspection before a contractor can move forward with a project what parts do not "require" an inspection.It is all based on available resources at the time.

Code section please

To me by the time an inspector puts their eyes on it, many many people have looked at the design, plans, construction

Yes an inspector should catch some stuff, but how about all the other people that have looked at a design, even before a nail was hammered ??????

 

[Mark K]

The problem is not the attachment of the balcony to the building. Note the failure occurred a foot or more from the face of the wall. I have seen no indication that there was anything wrong with the structural design. Every thing points to rot not the number of people on the deck.

I do not believe that the problem will be solved by a code change.

It all comes down to the tone set by the developer who hires the architect and contractors. I know of one condo developer who hires a waterproofing consultant and has him perform inspections during construction but then some, probably most, do not.

 

[ICE]

Even if Bituthene was shown on an approved plan the inspector knows that a walk-on deck waterproofing requires an assembly which has an ICC ES report.

Code section please

It must be ICE 101. I have always required that.

What do you require?

An inspector does not inspect all the various assemblies that go into a buildings construction. An AHJ will determine what parts of a project warrant an inspection before a contractor can move forward with a project what parts do not "require" an inspection.It is all based on available resources at the time.

I admit that I am not well aquainted with what inspections are explicitly required by the code. I do make it a point to inspect waterproofing.

 

[mark handler]

NY Times blames the kids, "drunken parties"

 

[jdfruit]

This whole ugly mess should be used to better how we do business.

How many times do plan review staff get push back for asking a simple question on waterproofing for exterior decks?

How many timed do inspectors get push back in the field for requiring simple things like durable flashing materials or just get the effing stuff shingle lapped when installed?

There are so many deck failures across this country that can be compiled with pictures and death/injury stats to drive home why the so called "simple" stuff really matters. Poster designer available?

 

[Inspector Gift]

Point of clarification: The recent NY disaster was a BALCONY collapse, not a deck failure. Different type of failure. Inadequate flashing and waterproofing are suspected as the primary cause of the collapse.

 

[Sifu]

Some real clowns giving useless and possibly dangerous advice today on Fox News. Host again commented that the balcony was "decorative". This is a situation where teachable moments could be occurring to the general public but instead they are handing out misinformation and excuses. They could have had an engineer, architect or building code professional on, instead they had a couple of clowns telling us that we should clean our decks off and should use deck screws instead of nails to hold the ledger of the balcony to the building..... Yes, "ledger of the balcony", but they didn't even use the word ledger, they said "board". I was speechless.

 

[mtlogcabin]

Just like a plane crash is investigated to determine the cause so will this. In time the answers and report as to what failed and why will be given.

My question is will it be readily available that we all can learn from it and help educate the workers and contractors in our local areas.

Mark does an excellent job posting accessibility articles and court cases. Maybe someone here knows where or how to access this info when it is published.

 

[mark handler]

Point of clarification: The recent NY disaster was a BALCONY collapse, not a deck failure. Different type of failure. Inadequate flashing and waterproofing are suspected as the primary cause of the collapse.

NO

Point of clarification:

The New York Times apologized for "insensitive language" in its report that linked the accident to previous "drunken partying and the wrecking of apartments".

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-33181475

The NY times was reporting on the Berkley failure NOT the NY failure

 

[conarb]

It will be interesting to see who did what here, during the permitting process, from 1999 to 2005, several changes were demanded by various city agencies and activist groups, as you can see those wrought iron balconies look way out of place on the building, somebody on the Design Review Commission thought the building looked too plain and the resolution was to add those artsy-craftsy balconies, maybe that came so late that the architect didn't even have any input on them, and the whole waterproofing issue just slipped through the cracks, I think I recall reading in one of these articles that the balconies weren't on the original plans.

 

[David Henderson]

Just read an article stating that the Segue Construction has paid $605 Million since 2013 for water problems.