How to read a crack, what separates a harmless one from one that needs an engineer, and what to do before spending on repairs that do not address the cause. With the thresholds from the Colombian technical guidance, which change with the material and are not the one millimetre everyone repeats.
The yellow sticker does not say the building is fine, and it does not say it is about to fall down either. What each colour means exactly according to Cali city hall, what you can do today with each one, who signs the assessment that follows and what to ask them.
14 min
Width is not the only thing that matters, and the threshold half the internet repeats is wrong. How to read a crack with the criteria of the Colombian technical guide: what caused it, when to call somebody, and what looking cannot tell you.
16 min
Of the five points where a roof fails, four are matters of design or of maintenance and only the fifth is the waterproofing. Almost every quotation proposes changing the fifth. That is why the drip comes back.
17 min
There is a point at which repairing stops being maintenance and becomes diagnosis. What the signs are, in which four cases the seismic building code requires the study, in which one it expressly says it is not needed, and who can sign it.
11 min
Five different kinds of damp produce similar stains and are repaired in five different ways. How they are told apart on site, with the tests that decide it, and why condensation is not cured by waterproofing.
16 min
You paid for a diagnosis and were handed a quotation with photographs. Which sections a report that is of use carries, what the only Colombian legal definition of a well-made technical report says, and seven signs of one that will do nothing for you.
8 min
A technical inspection to establish what is happening and why, before spending on repairs that do not address the cause. You get the diagnosis in writing, with the remedies and the order to do them in.