You know the scenario: A couple days before laundry day, you start buying lots of gum and other sundries to start collecting quarters in your change — quarters you have to haul in a heavy bag and feed into washers and dryers. But increasingly, laundry rooms equipped with smart cards and coinless systems are making quarters as obsolete as subway tokens. Is such high-tech sudsing worth the agitation involved in refurbishing your building's laundry room and changing your residents' long-term habits? Aside from removing the gotta-get-quarters shuffle, what's the advantage? Read More »

A 14-story supported scaffold collapsed at 215 Park Avenue South in October 2001, killing five masonry workers and seriously injuring another four. Nearly two years later, Philip Minucci, owner of Tri-State Scaffold and Equipment Supplies of Deer Park, Long Island, pled guilty to second-degree reckless manslaughter after admitting he had erected the 130-foot scaffolding without consulting an engineer or an architect. Building codes require one of these professionals to design any supported scaffolding taller than 75 feet.

Scaffolding and sidewalk sheds may be temporary, but their consequences can be long-term consequences. Here's what boards need to know to preserve life, limb and property. Read More »

There's no way to completely "winterize" a building, but that doesn't mean you can't make sure everything is watertight and in operating order before the cold sets in. Winter is particularly hard on buildings that suffer from water penetration, because trapped water expands as it freezes, causing bricks and masonry to crack and loosen.

Even if you follow a year-round maintenance program — the best prevention — you should still attend to your building's exterior envelope and address key elements of the mechanical systems before the onset of winter. Here's how, in a step-by-step checklist for prepping your indoor and outdoor mechanical systems and your general building exterior. Read More »

A monthly column by HABITAT's editorial director.

"We love our super," the longtime board member said to me when we were talking about problems at his building. So what was he to do when the love affair went sour? One of the porters had apparently gotten angry with the superintendent — his boss — and a heated exchange soon got ugly as each side refused to back down — until the super threatened his porter with a lead pipe. Read More »

Given the rising costs of home heating oil, more and more boards are weighing the options of an oil-to-gas conversion for their buildings' heating plants. Should you? That depends on the configuration of your existing heating plant, the age of your equipment, the price (current and future) of heating oil and gas, and whether your building converts to an "interruptible" or to a gas-only system. Read More »

It may sound like some accessory from your childhood Micronauts, but there's nothing kid-stuff about a microturbine — a gas-powered, on-site device that actually creates electricity for your building and even produces heat you can use for some of your building's hot-water needs. Read More »

While it doesn't rate as high as terrorism or other safety and security concerns on the hot topics list of most boards and their managers, some think that co-ops and condos should be concerned about their early morning paper deliveries. "These delivery people obviously have a key, but nobody in our building knows how they got it or what the arrangement is," says the president of one Upper West Side co-op board. "They get in very early in the morning — these people we know very little about — and have access to the whole building. They can do anything they like, basically. Just think about what they could be doing." Read More »

Gerard J. Picaso has been managing New York City co-ops and condos for over 30 years, and prides himself on his business acumen. So when it comes to greening the 48 buildings in his portfolio, Picaso says his motivation is as much common sense as it is dollars and cents. Read More »

A monthly column by HABITAT's editorial director.

Growing up in New York City, my best friend was always my dog. No surprise there; dogs are traditionally seen as faithful, friendly and obedient. After all, what other animal would be happy to go fetch a dirty stick and return it to you, over and over again? Certainly not a cat. ("Fetch a stick? Moi?")

But popular image notwithstanding, dogs can also be dumb, dangerous and disobedient – and the source of headaches for co-op boards. In fact, if you knock on any co-op / condo attorney or manager's door, he or she is sure to have a canine caper to share with you. Read More »