A commercial-rental entity’s insurance company retained VERTEX to investigate a property with residential rental apartment buildings to determine if the flooring supports had been compromised and find the source and/or cause of reported rot issues. The first story of each building had been experiencing recently aggravated floor buckling where new flooring had been placed and severe acute rot at locations of original flooring. VERTEX visited the site and worked with the site’s maintenance personnel to secure access to the crawlspace below. We reviewed the condition of the interior, exterior, and subfloor spaces as well as reviewed soil conditions, grade contour elevations, local weather data, and surrounding sea tidal levels. Ultimately, we determined that while rotted and buckled areas of flooring required repair due to deferred maintenance coupled with defective construction and installation deficiencies, the cause of the aggravatingly acute nature of issues was recently exacerbated by the occurrence of high levels of king tides.
VERTEX’s observations and findings were presented to the insurance carrier in a written report. This project was a clear demonstration of issues that occur when various required crawlspace configurations, needed vapor slowing/stopping inhibitors, and minimum drainage techniques are not abided.
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