Many decks in SLO County are 20 years old or older, and may have serious defects and deterioration from years of use and lack of maintenance.
Deck Expert Bill Leys is offering his deck inspection services for the low price of only $200 through May 31st to SLO County homeowners who want to ensure their deck is safe, a savings of $150 off the regular price of $350.
Don’t risk a deck collapse accident which is entirely preventable by inspecting the deck, the framing, posts and the connection to the wall with our 30+ point visual inspection!
Call today 805-801-2380 and take advantage of this great offer.
Deck Expert Bill Leys thoroughly inspects your deck to ensure it is safe to use for that graduation party, a wedding or the Saturday BBQ.
This is another reason why EEE inspections are necessary!
At William Leys Waterproofing Consultants LLC, we take balcony inspections very seriously as life safety is paramount! Don’t wait until an accident happens, even though no one died in this accident, we’ll bet good money that one or both victims of this railing failure will bring a lawsuit against the building owner. A good inspector likely would have flagged the railing as being unsafe.
Here at William Leys Waterproofing Consultants LLC we have found many structural deficiencies over the years on EEEs we have inspected. We have had to post notices informing residents that the balconies were off limits until repairs were made.
Recently one of our clients who we have a proposal out with to perform their deck inspections under SB326 reached out with some follow-up questions. They wanted to know if we were going to use a boroscope camera and if we were “certified deck inspectors”. Our answer is no, we are not “certified”. Allow me to explain.
A quick search on Google showed us that there are several companies that advertise they are “certified deck inspectors”. Diving deeper, it seems all these unscrupulous inspection companies claiming they are certified inspectors are directly affiliated or owned by contractors. By claiming they are “certified inspectors” they seek to elevate their bonafides by saying they’re something that doesn’t exist in the SB326/SB721 inspection field. Continuing our search, the legitimate companies that we compete with make no such claim that they are certified. They make statements that they are architects or engineers, which is readily confirmed via the Board of Engineers and Board of Architects.
Watch this quick video about using fire pits, turkey fryers and grills on combustible decks… To ruin the plot line, do not use turkey, fryers, fire pits or grills on any decks.
Please be safe this Thanksgiving holiday and don’t grill, use a fire pit or fry the turkey on your deck!
Many companies are offering deals that have hidden motives behind them. Before buying, you need to know what it’s really going to end up costing your HOA.
William Leys Waterproofing Consultants LLC was recently contacted by a member of an HOA in Ventura County where that member had learned that his association’s Board of Directors were considering passing a special assessment in the range of 2 million dollars for repairs to balconies and stairs.
Information we got from the owner was that a large nationwide HOA reconstruction firm told the HOA that they had 13 emergency repairs and 300+ non emergency repairs to do and the budget was apx 2 million dollars for this work.
If you have been following our blog for any time now you know that we have been railing against the practice that is roiling the inspection industry where unethical inspection companies are using Engineers or Architects to robo sign reports that they have written after they have done the inspection. Sb326 clearly requires a licensed architect or engineer to perform the inspection however some companies are trying to deliberately circumvent that requirement and are using contracted labor to do the inspection instead of an architect or engineer.
We made up this form that you should ask your inspection company to fill out and certify/attest that their inspections follow the letter of the law and that a architect or engineer shall be performing the inspection.
Balcony collapses in the Silver Lake area of Los Angeles CA. Fortunately only minor injuries.
I have questions. Was this a condo or an apartment? Was an SB326 or SB721 inspection done and what were the findings? Who did the inspection if it was inspected? If it wasn’t inspected, why not? SB326 required inspections to be done by January 1, 2025 and SB721 was extended a year until January 1, 2026. Did a landlord/property manager delay the inspection if it was an apartment? Did a board of directors delay an inspection despite the deadline?
All these questions need to be asked by ABC7 Los Angeles who reported this incident. ABC 7 please reach out to me and I will meet you on site today, Sunday Feb 16th to review the accident scene from the street. 805-801-2380 Bill Leys
A client we are working with on a balcony inspection proposal walked us through their underground garage to get to the other side of the building so we could count the decks. As we walked through the garage I mentioned that that were a lot of leak areas and I saw that there was some crumbling concrete as well.
They said oh we are getting the leaks fixed, we have two bids and we are going to hire X company to do the waterproofing on the podium deck above. I said that’s good because you have some problems here… What are they doing? It was then they showed me the two scopes of work that the contractors had proposed to do.
This scope of work mentions nothing about using any particular brand or specific material. It is poorly written and leaves out many important steps that this job requires. Poorly written as well, this scope of work is ambiguous and like the first scope, has no mention of any brand names or warranty.
We initiated a conversation with the client and discussed these proposals and corresponding scopes of work. The client believed that the work they were ready to award to a contractor was going to fix their problems. Several issues they had were a failing coating on the podium deck, leaks into the building and severe degradation of the structural concrete deck.
Under the podium deck is significant deterioration. If you see these symptoms in your concrete, you have 99 problems but a waterproof deck ain’t one. Hidden behind a pan on the ceiling to catch water, hidden structural damage.Up above on the deck, failing coatings are dangerous to bare feet and they leak into the deck below.Failing coating at the pool deck coping. A very clogged up downspout is causing water to back up and causing leaking into the building.
We gave the Association a proposal to consult and perform non destructive percussion testing of their concrete deck and the coating on top. The engineer we partner with and I inspected the deck and as seen above, found some serious damage to the concrete and rebar inside. We found that nearly all of the coating on the top of the deck was delaminated and failing. We found that there was stress on the walls that the pool was set into.
We are pleased to announce that we have been selected by a 40 unit HOA in Cayucos on the Central Coast of California to inspect their balconies stairs and landings to bring them into compliance with SB326.
If your Associations decks need to be inspected under SB 326, reach out for a free quote today. We visit your property, we determine how many EEEs need to be inspected and we determine the best method of access to the EEEs. Then we can give you a fixed quote for your Stage 1 inspection.
This Association sits near the ocean and enjoys great views down the coast. While residents enjoy the views from their decks, we want to be sure they can do so safely. With over 40 SB326 inspections under our belt and the fact that we’ve been inspecting decks since 2007, the Association found our experience to be just what they were looking for.
Find out why managers trust us to be their authoritative source for balcony inspections and get started now! Call us direct at 805-801-2380 or use the contact us box on the left side of the page.
A 9 year old child is lucky to be alive and only suffered some relatively minor injuries when the railing on a deck he was playing on gave way and he fell from the second story deck to the ground.
Our screen grabs from a TV news channel shows just how bad a shape the railing that still remains on the deck is in.
Stiles on the right side of the deck are obviously in poor condition. The whole front part of the railing is gone, indicating widespread dry-rot and likely improper fastening of the railing to the posts.The remains of the railing lay below the upper deck.
I’ve seen similar railings like this in the past where a carpenter uses a nail in the top of the railing and one on the bottom to attach the stile. This method is not a very good method to achieve a 200 pound resistance to someone leaning against it, and especially for small children who are probably leaning on the stile’s themselves. These cheap wood stiles will often rot out in a few years from being exposed to water.
On one inspection I did at a property for sale, I kicked the wood stiles with a bit of minor force and the stiles failed. The seller was furious that I “damaged” his property, but I pointed out that if his grandchild leaned on that railing he likely would have fallen 15 feet to a concrete sidewalk below. My answer was I probably saved someone’s life, so fix it properly.
A better method of protecting occupants is to use pre built railings that are made of metal welded together in the factory.
Falls through railings are unfortunately a common occurrence, and many result in death or severe injuries. Years ago a Board member of a condo I managed fell through a dry-rotted railing while on vacation, after a few days he passed away from grievous injuries.
This is another example of why we inspect folks.
When it comes to life safety, don’t fool around folks, the reason we inspect is to prevent accidents.
If you are buying a property with decks and railings, have it inspected by an expert like ourselves before closing.
If you are an HOA get your decks inspected by the experts at William Leys Waterproofing Consultants LLC. We guarantee that we have no conflicts of interest and that we only work for the associations best interests.
SB 326 Deck Inspections & Building Envelope / Waterproofing Experts
SB 326 Deck Inspection Specialists * Building Waterproofing Consultants * Construction Defect Investigations By Bill Leys The Deck Expert 