"I got the term 'walkthrough' from a managing agent some time ago who asked me to do this thing," says engineer Ed Simoniello, a partner and the president of SW Engineering, in Manhattan. "[W]e tried it on a few small buildings for one agent, and [the boards] thought it was useful, so we began offering it to other clients."

Like, architect Stephen Varone, a principal of Rand Engineering & Architecture, says his company offers both "a physical-conditions survey, which is the whole nine yards, and something we call a 'building evaluation,' which is more like a list. It still has things like budget projections, but may rely more on photographs than on long narrative descriptions."

In a full-scale building-conditions report, the architect/engineer typically has residents complete a questionnaire asking about apartment conditions, in order to help discern patterns indicative of larger building problems, and spends days doing a comprehensive physical survey that may involve invasive tests and often requires scaffolding. In the end, the board gets a thick report complete with new architectural drawings.

In a walkthrough, the architect/engineer spends a few hours "noting obvious conditions or telltale signs of problems," says Simoniello. "We start at the roof, walk the fire escapes, walk through the common hallways looking for things like smoke detectors and emergency lighting, and work our way through the mechanical rooms and equipment vaults – just noting deficiencies," he says. "e look at the façades with binoculars. And we look at a sample apartment or two to get a handle on any deficiencies…." A condensed report notes and prioritize things a board should address.

"We've been doing it for probably a quarter of the price" of full-scale reports, Simoniello says. Other companies charge as much as half the price, but comparisons are inexact since a major factor is the size of the building being inspected. Very small buildings aren't cost-effective for architectural/engineering firms, since, as Varone says, "If I'm writing a 90-page report, it takes me just as long no matter the size of the building."

Size Counts

Walkthroughs are most effective, say the engineers, for buildings up to six or seven stories, with two to four apartments per floor. Buildings larger than this get exponentially more complex physically "and management gets more complicated," says Simoniello.

At least one co-op board officer in a small apartment building says a walkthrough inspection nicely fit his building's needs – and budget.

"We're refinancing," explains Robert Kruckeberg, treasurer of a 22-unit, self-managed co-op on Manhattan's Upper West Side. "We needed to get a five- to ten-year estimate of capital-improvement costs, so we got three bids all around the standard price for a [full-scale] survey" of a building that size, roughly $8,000. "Then I looked at an old inspection report and noticed that back around 1994, the cost was maybe $1,500 – and even with inflation I didn't see how the cost could have ballooned to $8,000. So, I went back and asked if we could get a lower-cost, partial survey."

In this case, the board had already recently had engineers examine the roof, "and we're pretty confident about our front façade. We were concerned now about things around the foundation, possible leaks into the basement, and just wanted to be sure we hadn't overlooked something."

That's when SW Engineering suggested a walkthrough, he says, at "about a third of the cost of a full inspection." SW got the job, and Kruckeberg accompanied a company engineer who "was very open to questions and asked me about other areas of concern. So I was happy with what he provided. I'm not sure what a full inspection would add other than formal drawings."

Just Reconfirming

Sometimes, choosing a quick and inexpensive walkthrough as opposed to an expensive, full-scale report "has a lot to do with politics," Simoniello says. "If two or three people on a board have control and just need someone to confirm what they want, then a walkthrough report should be adequate."

"A client may decide, 'I just need someone to give me a general checkup so I can confirm that our heating plant is actually my number-one priority before I spend a half-million dollars on that,'" says Varone.

In a macro sense, the difference in cost between a full-scale report and a walkthrough isn't huge. Since a walkthrough is only appropriate for small buildings, we're talking about spending maybe $5,000 to $8,000 as opposed to $10,000 to $17,000. But if you have 25 apartments, saving $7,500 could mean sparing shareholders a $300 assessment.

"The challenge is to get buildings to not neglect things and to be proactive," says Varone. "I'd rather have boards opt for the smaller version than nothing." He warns, "There are limits to what you can do with this type of visit." But ultimately, "[H]aving a less expensive option may prevent some boards from doing nothing."

Adapted from Habitat December 2008. For the complete article and more, join our Archive >>

Illustration by Marcellus Hall