Community Chat

[Etoile308]

Could you ever again feel secure living there?

[Pink123]

Gardenman is right.  I live in South Florida and lived in oceanfront, intracoastal condo's for years.  The salt is so corrosive.

I know that building, it's quite old and surprised it wasn't torn down for a more glitzy multi million dollar building like so many of them are up and down the coast in my area at least.

And since the Champlain Tower's collapse new rules have been put in place costing condo owner's a fortune in assessments.  There's no end to it.  There used to be a major 40 year inspection but now it's much earlier on in a building's age. 

The monthly maintenance fee's are insane as well nevermined the multimillion dollar constant assessments.

If it's not that it's this.  Always something. A new gym, pool, hallways, lobby.  And the 5 "board of directors" aka condo commando's run the show  and do as they please.

I sold early this year thank goodness and they paid my huge assessment too thank goodness.  No more condo's for this girl and I"m loving living in a house now!

[gardenman]

Yeah. Oceanfront construction poses unique challenges and nothing you build there using modern methods will last for long without lots of upkeep and added costs. People want to I've there though, so the builders build there. 

Most modern construction techniques use pre or post-tensioned rebar to strengthen the concrete. Which is great. As long as corrosion isn't a major issue. And in coastal areas, corrosion is a major issue. Once salt gets to the ends of the rebar it will start eating away at the rebar and migrating inward. When steel corrodes, it expands, and that expansion cracks the concrete allowing more salt air/water exposure which leads to more corrosion and more issues. It becomes a never-ending battle. 

You pretty quickly get to a point where you just have to tear it down and start over. If you can get fifty years from a modern structure in a coastal environment, consider yourself lucky. Epoxy-coated steel rebar solves many of the corrosion issues, but the epoxy coating is a bit fragile and is often damaged during installation which negates the gains from it. And the epoxy coating can hide corrosion going on under the coating.

At this point, there is no good answer to building large structures in a coastal environment. You just have to accept that any structure built there is temporary. You won't be handing down a seaside condo to your grandchildren or great-grandchildren.  

[songbird]

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@Another new name Sue wrote:

Poor residents!  Probably a lot of retirees.  

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Used to be the majority of residents in Florida.  But a flood of new young families from other states has changed that.  Florida has become the new California.  The newcomers  have driven up the cost of housing. Also up is the former low taxes and cost of living. People are escaping to the sun states.  They want warm weather all year round. They want to be beach front or near water. Texas is another state that has exploded in population. The newcomers are smart enough to avoid North Texas (with it's Oklahoma style violent weather) to the hill country or West Texas, Southwest Texas, etc. The further south and west you go in Texas, the least amount of Tornadoes.

[Pink123]

That's exactly what they are doing @gardenman.  They are taking the balconies off these huge highrises and they are only 25 years old or so. Ir used to be done at 40 years.   New rebar with epoxy coating are used to rebuild the balconies.  I saw it all around before I left.  It's terrible.  2 years of nonstop noise with jacking out all the tiles on the balconies, etc, etc.  A real headache.

I'm surprised that old building is still up as I said before.  Right down the street is the St. Regis, Ritz Carlton, Seasons  condominiums- well you get the picturre of the wealth.

They will continue to build as long as there are buyers with lots of $$$$. They come from all over the world now and most are seasonal or used as  third and fourth homes.  When you drive by A1A on the ocean at night the buildings are mostly dark much of the year.

And so it goes.....

[Porcelain]

Sea levels rise. Coastlines move inland. Pretty simple. Maybe it's only shocking for those who thought it wasn't happening.