What Does a QEWI Check for When Conducting Facade Inspections?
Sept. 9, 2015 — Ever seen an enclosed balcony? "A balcony enclosure can be one of two things," says attorney Abbey Goldstein, a partner at Goldstein & Greenlaw. "One is you put up a simple plastic or other covering around it so when you go out you don't have to deal with wind and the elements. It could be screened — some people call that a 'Florida room' or sunroom. And the other is people making them into actual rooms. They'll knock down the walls and enclose [the area, so it becomes] an extension [of] the apartment."
Many co-op and condo owners in high-rises have such enclosed balconies and boards are now facing new questions. Among them: How do they fit in with required façade inspections? What are their legal status? What do they do to your building's floor area ratio (FAR), a measure of your building's maximum allowable use?
Here's the first of a six-part series that breaks down what you need to know:
When Are the Façades Inspected?
Under Local Law 11, now called the Façade Inspection and Safety Program (FISP), buildings taller than six stories require a façade inspection every five years. The pertinent law is Rules of the City of New York (RCNY) Sections 103-04, amended May 17, 2013, to mandate balcony-railing inspections. These must be done by a Qualified Exterior Wall Inspector (QEWI), which the city defines as a state-licensed civil or structural engineer or a state-registered architect, both with a year's relevant experience. The Department of Buildings, which oversees FISP, allows inspectors to look at a representative sample, rather than every balcony, based on their professional judgment.
What does a QEWI physically do at your building? "We have a lever we use with a pressure gauge on it, and put a load to the railing," explains engineer Eric Cowley, principal at Cowley Engineering. "It takes a two-man team: one applies the apparatus, the other sketches the railing and reads the data. Usually we apply a 200-pound load to the top rail. If it passes that without breaking or bending, we're pretty confident the railing is okay. We also test the posts."
And there's more than just load-pressure to examine. "With aluminum railings, as opposed to steel railings, it's a little more difficult to determine the condition because there's no obvious corrosion," he says. "The weakness in aluminum is masked — you don't notice the weakness until you apply a load to it and it either bends or breaks. We had one client with an aluminum railing with glass panels. We used a suction cup to pull on a panel — it immediately broke before we got to the proof load. That condo [board] is in the process of replacing all the railings."