Thinking about purchasing a masonry building? Think again! – Brick and split faced block fail the test
When buying a masonry building in the City of Chicago remember a couple of critical points:
1. We do not do concrete foundation inspections as part of our new construction package.
2. The City can’t afford a masonry inspector
3. A Certificate of Occupancy is typically not helpful under the terms of the Chicago building code.
4. Hundreds of condominium and single family owners across the City are shackled to their homes. They are stuck in leaking, mold infested cold and dirty environments supporting fungal growth, yet they remain afraid to call the City for fear of reprisal. I call it the “you own it, you live in it, you better fix it”.
Experienced home inspectors are bursting at their seams with the simple scale, it’s huge, and major expenses associated with making necessary repairs on their new residential home. This problem is an epidemic. This problem is adding huge expenses to our medical health care system. Finally, this problem keeps building owners handcuffed to the property even if they are sick because the City of Chicago cannot help them and the developer has close his LLC. Where is the relief?
I, for one, am agreeing to volunteer for a period of at least 4 hours a week during the next year to train anyone that’s interested in the minimum standards that are absolutely necessary to be in place when masonry construction in undertaken within the City of Chicago. What citizen or citizen’s group wants this information? It is available through the Masonry advisor council the Brick industry association, and the Chicago Building Code. Its not a good idea to hide from a problem. Its time we take a look at this seriously and address is professionally.