In terms of wear and tear on buildings, winter is the harshest season of the year. Snow accumulation and ice damming on roofs can be a major headache, pipes freezing and bursting could spell disaster, and just about any accumulation of water means trouble.

Though it’s a tough time of year, association managers, building engineers, and residents can work to prevent weather-related issues in their buildings. Understanding where and why such problems may occur, before they happen, could mean the difference between low-cost solutions and a major renovation.

Avoiding Problems

Simple maintenance steps taken to winterize a building, performed at the right times by qualified pros, can save cash and effort over the long-term. And perhaps the greatest source of winter-connected problems in the building is the spot people seem to look at the least: the roof. Especially during the winter, but really throughout the year, the roof should never be ignored. If left unattended, problems with a roof can affect the building’s façade, structure and foundation.

“There are many ways to winterize a building,” says Steve Hroncich, owner of Adriatic Restoration Corp. in Haworth. “We have applied exterior insulation and finish systems (EIFS) stucco systems to the façade which would help conserve energy, also re-caulking around windows and doors can help as well. For the gutters a heating cable should be installed.”

One of the most common roof problems for some multifamily buildings is ice damming, which is often the result of a faulty roof design. An ice dam is the ridge of ice that builds up along the edge of the roof or through the gutters. When the air temperature is very low, and a roof doesn’t have a steep enough pitch toward the drains, the melted water refreezes at the edge of the roof and through the gutter. This rim of ice traps runoff water, which then backs up onto the roof, seeping under the shingles and leaking inside the building. It also puts a lot of stress on roof seams, gutters, flashing and other elements of the roof system.

“This can be prevented by ensuring that there’s always a layer of cold air beneath the roof’s surface,” says Marciano Stanko, a registered architect and owner of New York City-based Magnum Opus Architecture, P.C. “That’s typically done through venting in the soffits or eaves of the building.”

By allowing the cold air under the roof’s surface, you won’t have the snow melting and creating that river of water beneath the frozen snow. Another way to prevent ice damming is to have a qualified roofer install ice dam prevention material on the roof. A two-foot-wide swath of waterproofing membrane is installed around the perimeter of the roof. With that membrane installed, if any melt-water escapes beneath the shingles, the roof’s waterproof barrier will remain intact. One more option is to install heating cables on the roof, to form a path for melted snow to travel through an ice dam. But heating coils can burn out and are not easily regulated.

Preventing ice damming is just one aspect of proper roof maintenance in anticipation of winter during cold months. You must also insure that water always is properly channeled away from the roof. This is something most building or HOA superintendents can do, first and foremost by ensuring gutters and downspouts are clean and free of debris at all times.

“If you have a shingle-roof watch out for ice dams. We all know what they look like after this winter,” says Sam Colacurcio, owner of Eastern Waterproofing & Restoration Co. Inc. in Jersey City. “Flat roofs should be inspected by your staff every month, paying special attention to drains, puddles, loose features of roof structures, such as metal work. Roof issues should be dealt with quickly; if insulation gets wet it loses its R-value (a measure of insulation’s ability to resist heat traveling through it) and therefore its insulating ability.”

Those connection points between areas of a roof, such as where the roof meets the gutter or where shingles meet flashing, can quickly turn into problem spots for leaks, if left unchecked too long. “Ninety-nine percent of a building’s problems occur at one percent of a building’s surface,” Stanko says.

The process of examining and repairing a roof, or planning a replacement of the roof, is really an ongoing one. It continues from year to year and is never done. You don’t discover potential trouble spots in a roof by having your building engineer do a walk-around there once every couple of years; you’d be too late then. Finding problems in time is a question of looking frequently for them, even in the middle of winter.

Depending upon his capabilities, your superintendent or building engineer might go up and check on the roof a couple of times during the winter to ensure that no obvious problems are missed. You also should allow the building’s consultants to do their jobs.

In-Depth Inspection

Inspectors can be a registered engineer or registered architect. In such inspections, the entire building is visually inspected and also physically inspected. Doing a close-up, probing examination of one side of the façade of a building, inspectors will perform a roof to foundation “drop down” with a movable stage like window washers use. At that time the inspector will look for loose cornices, mortar joints, lintels and sills. Some bricks might be removed temporarily to see if there is any water seepage behind the brick façade.

An inspector may also test to see if the building is leaking an excessive amount of heat through its roof. This may be determined partly by finding out how much insulation is in the roof. Inspectors will do a core drilling to determine how much insulation exists.

During a thorough exterior inspection, the inspector should check to see that the windows have adequate pitch to send water away from the window. A standard pitch is ¼-inch downward to the bottom of the sill.

Caulking around windows should be scrutinized every three years by a qualified inspector, at which time an inspection will be done from the inside to check on integrity of the windows. Depending upon the type of caulking, as well as building conditions and how well the caulking was applied, it could need to be replaced every few years. The only way to know when that job must be done is to have a qualified person inspect the caulking, but residents often can tell when something’s amiss, due to the draftiness inside their unit.

Various parts of your building’s exterior envelope have different life spans, but siding, shingles and roofs last 20 to 30 years if they are properly installed and maintained. When the roof does need to be replaced, though, it could be pricey since such jobs range in cost from $15 to $40 per square foot. And with residential building roofs in New Jersey ranging in size from a few thousand square feet to more than 30,000 square feet, the numbers quickly add up. They are the stuff of special assessments.

Piping Hot

Ensuring that pipes and plumbing are safe from freezing temperatures in the winter is the building engineer's job. But to begin with, it’s the contractor’s job. Pipes should be properly insulated when they are installed.

“Pipes should not be exposed to freezing temperatures if possible,” says Hroncich. “If that’s not possible and it is exposed to the freezing temperatures. I would close off the water source and drain the pipe. If that is not possible then I would get a heating cable or tape to run along the pipe. You will have to monitor this method each year.”

Some pipes, though, are located in unheated or poorly heated spaces. Basement pipes in unheated spots such as crawl spaces, and pipes located in poorly heated stairwells, or pipes exposed to the weather on the rooftop, all should have proper insulation that is routinely checked, and replaced as soon as it appears to need replacement.

When preparing to winterize a multifamily building, the heart of the matter is the structure’s boiler. Remember, these basement behemoths need regular tending, and not just in the colder months. Boilers need to be maintained on a regular basis, not only for proper heating of the building but also because it’s the law.

Perhaps the most crucial part of maintaining a boiler is employing the right boiler maintenance pro. Such a professional should do regular fireside cleanings of the boiler and at least biannual checkups of the system. As the boiler’s stack temperature increases, it indicates residue buildup and means it’s time for a cleaning. Stack temperatures and other readings must be done at least a few times a week. Some buildings have their superintendent or building staff take such readings daily. The super should keep logbooks for this data, in order to record, compare and monitor daily water level and pressure readings.

One final tip in winterizing your multifamily building: consider ways to keep what’s outside, outside. Install a runner or long carpet in the entry hallway at the door, to catch most of the snow and salt that gets tracked in by the residents. It could prevent a lot of soiled carpeting throughout the building.

“Winterization should be completed before the winter starts,” says Hroncich. “Later in the winter season, prices may go up in labor and materials. Also, it is much more comfortable for the mechanics to perform their work in the warmer months and not rush the job when it’s already freezing.”

Jonathan Barnes is a freelance writer and regular contributor to The Cooperator. Staff writer Christy Smith-Sloman contributed to this article.