Tag Archives: ca balcony inspections

SB 326 Balcony Inspections

SB 326 Inspection Specialists William Leys Waterproofing Consultants LLC Discovers Hidden Dangerous Railing Defects at a Redondo Beach Condo

As deck inspection experts who concentrate on SB 326 inspections for condos, we see a lot of defects in our line of work.

This week was no different, at an inspection we performed with our engineering partners at Critical  Structures Inc we found numerous railings that were structurally compromised. The wood railings on 16 decks were assembled using nails to fasten the stiles to the railing frame.

We don’t like nails for structural railings meant to prevent falls from the deck. In the past, nails were the method most often used, whereas today structural screws are required. At this property we check the railings by pushing on them and with a light kick at the bottom. To our horror, we discovered numerous railing stiles were not able to withstand a light kick without pushing out with the nails.

Watch our 30 second video to understand

Hidden railing dangers found by Deck Expert Bill Leys!

Our biggest fear is that a child leaning against the railing stiles might fall if the nails fastening the stiles pull out of the wood rail bottom piece. With these decks over the concrete driveway and being 14′ high on the lower deck and 24′ tall on the upper deck, any fall from that height would probably have fatal consequences.

This discovery highlights why HOAs need to hire the best qualified inspection company instead of the least expensive company. Yeah the cheap company, if they missed these defective railings and an accident happened, would get sued. Small comfort for the victim if they were seriously injured or killed.

At William Leys Waterproofing Consultants LLC, we are very thorough in our inspections, ensuring with our checklist that we check every critical life safety items. Call us today for a free conversation on how we can help you with getting the most thorough inspection at a competitive cost. Call Bill Leys at 805-801-2380.

SB 326 Balcony Inspections

A Client Asks Us “There Are So Many Deck Inspection Companies, Aren’t They All The Same?”

The answer in short is no, all inspection companies are not the same. Here is an explanation on why inspection companies are not at all equal in experience, ethics and in following the balcony bill requirements.

The SB 326 balcony inspection bill failed to ban inspectors from owning construction companies and failed to ban inspectors who own waterproofing and construction companies from bidding on jobs they inspected, so unscrupulous individuals are popping up to take advantage of unsuspecting and unknowledgeable consumers. 

Without a doubt, during your Google search you are bound to come across  deck inspection companies advertising on the world wide web which are run by individuals who opened a deck inspection company to take unfair advantage of HOAs despite their contractors licenses having complaint disclosures listed on their license for such offenses such as failing to complete work for the price quoted in their contract, taking a deposit in excess of $1,000, hiring unlicensed sub contractors and departing from trade standards.

We personally know of one deck inspector/deck inspection company who is under active investigation by the Board of Engineers for practicing engineering without an engineering license. That investigation was opened in July 2025 and remains active today.

Continue reading A Client Asks Us “There Are So Many Deck Inspection Companies, Aren’t They All The Same?” →
SB 326 Balcony Inspections, Uncategorized

Is Dr Balcony Competent to Discover Defects? We Have Doubts After Our Re-Inspection of EEEs Found Multiple Defects They Failed to Identify!

We were recently hired to do a follow-up inspection at a condo in the Los Angeles area. The client, an individual homeowner, had serious concerns about the report the association received from Dr Balcony. Their concerns began when the inspection was done, saying that a person showed up, said they weren’t licensed but that “someone” who was a licensed architect would review their photographs and information before signing the report.

We got a copy of the Dr Balcony report and reviewed it before we did our own inspection. (Please note our inspection was not an SB326 inspection.) Many of the photographs in the report were blurry and weren’t marked up to identify a defect that supposedly was in the photograph (we mark up all our photographs to show you exactly what defect we found) and the report was difficult to read. We completely agree with our client, I’ve read more than a few reports from other companies and Dr Balcony’s report is a tough read. Defect codes that are for their internal use confuse readers, information on an EEE are in different places and many photographs are of irrelevant subjects.

An example of that is Dr Balcony inspectors seem to obsess over code issues that SB 326 doesn’t require us to concern ourselves with. (We do check railing heights & railing stiles and note that they may not meet current code, same with stairs, but these aren’t noted as defects, rather we advise that the HOA may wish to address these in the future and that your insurance company may require upgrading in order to renew a policy).

Continue reading Is Dr Balcony Competent to Discover Defects? We Have Doubts After Our Re-Inspection of EEEs Found Multiple Defects They Failed to Identify! →
Deck Inspections, SB 326 Balcony Inspections, SB 721 Inspections

A Client Asked Us If We Are “Certified Deck Inspectors” Here’s Our Answer

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.

Continue reading A Client Asked Us If We Are “Certified Deck Inspectors” Here’s Our Answer →
SB 326 Balcony Inspections

Santa Monica Condo Board Selects William Leys Waterproofing Consultants LLC to Perform Their SB 326 Inspection

We’re pleased to announce that we were awarded the contract to perform a SB 326 inspection for a condominium complex on Pacific Street in Santa Monica. The three story building with decks stairs and walkways requiring inspection received several bids from competitors.

The Board after reviewing the bids and each firms credentials, selected our bid over the others, citing that our bid included a guarantee that our engineer will personally inspect the EEEs, that we don’t perform repairs and that our inspection team’s bonafides gave them the confidence in awarding the job to William Leys Waterproofing Consultants LLC.

These walkways and stairs are EEEs as defined in SB 326 and will be inspected by the best inspection team in the industry.

Of course it might also have helped that the Associations Board has an engineer serving as president and recognized that qualifications matter. Our engineer is an award winning structural engineer with years of experience doing structural inspections.

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SB 326 Balcony Inspections

Bill Leys Gives an Update on CAI-CLAC’s Move to Fix SB326

Warning – language.

Termed controversial by one well known attorney in the HOA industry, Bill pulls no punches when it comes to seeing what’s going on and calling out the grifters that flooded the inspection market. We’ve made multiple complaints to state agencies, pissing off the bad apples, been sued to shut us up by POS pretend deck inspectors who use the bill to sucker HOAs into expensive repairs, we’re going to remain controversial and wear that label as a badge of pride.

Watch our video on our thoughts on  CLACs plans to fix SB326. We’ve seen so many issues, from insurance companies denying associations insurance coverage if they have structural issues with their EEEs, to banks denying buyers mortgages on condos with EEE issues to the grifters plaguing the balcony inspection industry using the bill to literally steal from HOAs.

Continue reading Bill Leys Gives an Update on CAI-CLAC’s Move to Fix SB326 →
SB 326 Balcony Inspections

Bill Leys Explains Why Job Site Visits are Essential For Bidding on SB326 Inspections

While on a property in Orange county I made this short video on why we walk properties before we give an HOA a bid on their SB 326 inspection.

Watch our short video as I explain why I want to walk your HOA before bidding your SB 326 inspection.
Quality Assurance Observations, Roof Inspections and Consulting

How A Building Envelope Consultant Can Add Value to Your Residential Building Project

Long term leaks into this building has destroyed the framing behind the siding and because it is so rotted, the siding doesn’t have anything left to be attached.

As building envelope consultants we are often hired to determine where why and how a roof, siding or windows are leaking. After doing destructive testing and finding what caused the problem, it’s often an installer error that created the problem. Yes sometimes it’s defective waterproofing products, but that’s the exception, not the rule.

For architects and their home building clients, one way to ensure that the building envelope is going to perform correctly for it’s expected life span is to hire a waterproofing consultant to review the architects building envelope details, and to perform quality assurance inspections while the building is being dried in. Drying in a building entails roofs, below grade waterproofing, building paper over the plywood covered walls, window and door flashing for example. All of these need to be installed in a sequence to work together for the building to remain leak free.

Whether you are building tract homes, commercial/residential, condos or a spec home, a small add to the project budget to include a waterproofing consultant to assist in keeping your project leak free is a good investment. Consider the costs when a building does leak; there’s investigative costs, loss of use, possible mold claims, expensive repairs and everyone is aggravated.

William Leys Waterproofing Consultants LLC is here to help you with making your building project a success. Reach out today for a discussion on how we can help bring value to your project.

Quality Assurance Observations

William Leys Waterproofing Consultants LLC To Perform Quality Assurance Inspections for an HOA in the San Francisco Bay Area

We will be performing quality assurance inspections on this project in the East Bay.

We’re excited to announce that we were awarded the contract to perform quality assurance inspections for a large HOA reconstruction project in the East Bay area of San Francisco. The 100+ units in the HOA are leaking at the decks and resulted in damage to the exterior walls.

We will be performing periodic inspections of the weather resistant barriers (WRB’s) the installation of sliding doors and the waterproofing of the decks to ensure that they are being installed in accordance with the plans and specifications. This helps the Association ensure its money is being spent well on quality work and the materials are installed correctly that will last for their expected life spend and perform as intended.

Continue reading William Leys Waterproofing Consultants LLC To Perform Quality Assurance Inspections for an HOA in the San Francisco Bay Area →
SB 326 Balcony Inspections

Using Humorous Memes To Get Our Message Out- Protect Your HOA from Unethical SB326 Inspectors Who Own Waterproofing/Contracting Companies

Is humor the best way to market our SB326 inspection services? Viral memes seem to resonate with people these days so it’s worth a shot.

If you need a SB326 inspection you need to vet your inspector thoroughly. Are they independent and free of conflicts of interest? Any inspection company that owns a waterproofing or contracting company is not free of conflicts of interest.

We’ve seen multiple clients coming to us with SB326 reports in hand that were written by contractors, signed off on by an engineer who didn’t actually inspect the EEEs and the report is written to favor the contractor who now uses that report to extort HOAs reserve funds.

At William Leys Waterproofing Consultants LLC we guarantee in writing that we have no conflicts of interest. We don’t own a waterproofing or contracting company, we hire a structural engineer who writes the report and we write a supplemental waterproofing report that is appended to the engineers report.

Call today, time is running out for getting your inspection done before the deadline. 805-801-2380 ask for Bill.