Did The Pool Deck Contribute To The Collapse at The Champlain Towers?

It’s been a week since the collapse at The Champlain Towers. The loss of life and devestation to the community of Surfside, FL cannot be calculated at this time. Workers are still scrambling against the clock and hoping against all odds to recover survivors from the deadly collapse. Almost immediately, pictures and reports began pointing to the pool deck as the possible source of the building collapse.

One of the initial first reports pertaining to the incident was from a resident who claimed that directly before the structure failed, that the pool deck was caving in. This news in itself came as a precursor to a damning structural survey discovered that was released in 2018 which pointed to numerous repairs that needed to be conducted, citing various leaks and deteriorating concrete as a necessary focus for immediate repair work.

What Role Did Poor Waterproofing Play?

To get a better understanding of what role waterproofing may have played, we reached out to one of the leading experts in the pool industry – Vito Mariano, President of Basecrete and a recognized industry authority on waterproofing pools. Mariano’s company has been involved in over 90,000 swimming pool waterproofing projects worldwide. As an analyst, we asked him based on the photos circulating in the media what his take was on the incident. Specifically, did waterproofing play a role in the collapse of The Champlain Towers?

“Concrete is a sponge for water and it has to be protected, especially if it has steel in it. This is a perfect situation where water got to the steel – it expanded and once the metal in the steel starts to break down, you are going to get some deviation in the strength.” said Mariano.

New video footage released the other day shows what appears to be pouring water coming from the ceiling of the parking structure at the Champlain Towers, which validates what many have been saying – which is the collapse started in the parking structure near the pool deck.

What’s In The Morabito Report?

Frank Morabito’s analysis conducted in 2018 indicated a laundry list of structural repairs that needed to be conducted. Morabito’s report included major structural detoriation in the concrete slab below the pool deck, as well as abundant cracking and spalling in the columns of the parking garage.

Read the entire Champlain Towers structural analysis report from 2018

We asked Mariano if any particular shortcomings in the pool deck area may have led to deterioration and whether this is common in the pool industry.

“I do see this type of thing all the time. I get the worst swimming pool vessels in the country thrown at me.” said Mariano who explained that not all of them can be saved “Some of them have to be demolished and started from scratch”.

Many pools in South Florida are suspended between the floors of a building or over a parking structure. The need for waterproofing these vessels and the surrounding structure is imperative. Mariano explained that these types of structures are constantly prone to movement. “The structure has to maintain all that weight in place and when you get deterioration that starts, you never know… it’s a ticking timebomb”.

“Concrete needs to be protected from water, even if there is no swimming pool it still needs to be protected because you have hundreds of thousands of tons that are suspended and moving in the air.” said Mariano, “Then you have all these structures that are built on sand around these beaches. They’re all built on pylons. As we all know this building was sinking for a number of years.” continued Mariano.

What Went Wrong With The Pool Deck

The Champlain Towers had been sinking at an average of 2mm per year according to reports. In the structural survey done by Frank Morabito, his analysis defined the pool deck area as an instance of poor project planning. The flat surface of the pool deck allowed water to sit on top of the waterproofing until it evaporated.

Morabito’s recommendation was to perform immediate repairs which would consist of removing the deck waterproofing as well as the top concrete slab to gain access to the waterproofing membrane. The report stated however, that it would be impossible for full restoration and repair work on the pool corbel and wall repair work in the pool pump room to be performed. The survey indicated that “areas of deteriorated concrete appeared to penetrate deep into wall/corbel construction” and that “aggressive excavation of concrete at the severely deteriorated pool corbel could affect the stability of the remaining adjacent concrete constructions.”

The recommended repairs were going to cost approximately $15 million dollars. It’s a point of fact, that the process of conducting the repairs would have effectively shut down the building for a good portion of residents as well.

When discussing the overall cost of the repairs, ultimately it is the homeowners who were going to foot the bill. This year each resident had been assessed their fair share of the necessary repairs. On average residents were facing anywhere from $80,190 for one-bedroom units to $336,135 for the owner of the building’s four-bedroom penthouse for the recommended repairs in Morabito’s report.

The underside of the pool deck had cracks that were radiating and were fixed with epoxy injection. In the structural survey conducted in 2018, the report indicated that the application was not continuous and was evident of poor workmanship.

A commercial contractor snapped some photos of the pool equipment room days before the collapse. These photos were released recently on the Miami Herald website. As can be seen from the photos, there are definite indications of major deterioration of the concrete structure in the pool pump room.

When analyzing the photos the contractor took and inspecting the deterioration, an analyst on CNN Wednesday evening determined that the photos of the pump room look bad but are inconclusive and was reluctant to say whether they represent a contributing cause in the collapse.

In analyzing what went wrong, we asked Mariano, if this method of epoxy injection repair was correct. “You have to use a proper material to do your injections first of all.” said Mariano, “I would never use epoxy to fill a crack that is going to move. Epoxy is a very rigid material, you need something that’s going to elongate when it does move.”

Mariano recommended a waterproofing caulking and injection system for this type of application. “The failure of using the proper material will always create some damage in the future if there is any additional movement of water.”

Sadly, this type of incident is fairly common in other places of the world with lower construction standards. It is incredibly rare to see this type of structural failure in North America, however it’s not unheard of and Mariano fears that unless something is done soon, we may see more similar incidents unfold.

Many of the high rise condos in South Florida were built over 50 years ago. Mariano explained what troubles him the most is that the building standards and the quality of concrete were lower decades ago. “The stuff that they built years ago really scares me.” said Mariano, “These buildings that are falling apart were built 50, 60, 70 years ago, they’re the ones I’m really worried about. The standards then don’t even come close to the standards we have today.”

America’s $3 Trillion Dollar Concrete Bill

The problem seems systemic as these aging concrete structures become more and more expensive to fix. People have this misconception that concrete is permanent. The notion of long standing concrete structures dating back to antiquity often leads to a misguided belief that today’s concrete has the same strength or more. In actuality this couldn’t be further than the truth. Today’s modern concrete has a lifespan of roughly 50-100 years thanks to the way that modern concrete is reinforced. One of the most famous concrete buildings in America, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater, cost only $155,000 to build in 1936… the cost of repairs in 2001 came to $11.5 million.

Mariano said the most troubling issue is ultimately that HOA’s do not want to pay for the necessary repairs on these older buildings. In many cases the residents are looking at over a hundred thousand dollars in assessed repairs and simply can’t afford it.

In a recent article Slate said that the dream of Florida is dead and said that the Miami condo collapse was a crisis for the entire state. A sentiment Mariano echoed when he described the issue of aging buildings and HOA’s who are reluctant to pass millions in repairs on to residents. The issue has many condo owners in South Florida concerned whether their buildings are safe or not.

As the nation speculates, the cause of the collapse is still under investigation as are rescue efforts. To date the death toll is now 22 people. So far no survivors have been recovered and approximately 126 people still remain unaccounted for. Impending weather is also expected to hamper first responders as Florida lays directly in Hurricane Elsa’s long range path. Concerns remain about the structural integrity of what is left standing. Rescuers stopped for 15 hours Thursday as engineers evaluated the remaining structure.

Listen to our complete podcast with Vito Mariano