SATURDAY WORK AT PBSA STOPPED
Saturday October 30, 2021
Today we had an interesting situation occur at 33 Ocean. We heard jackhammering and truck air breaks at 8 am on a Saturday. Upon inspection of the building we found Apartment 606 was using jackhammers to remove west facing windows. The owner had a concrete pump set up in the circle to pump concrete slurry to 606 to level the floors. Several owners questioned this owner about this job. First off he said they were his windows and he was replacing them. It was pointed out that all window and doors are owned by the building and are not his. He would have known this if he had approached the Board which he obviously had not. He had already started to have the exterior concrete chipped away on one window. This was stopped. When asked how much concrete they were pouring onto the floors he said around 10 cubic yards to level the floor between 1 inch to 3 inches. I asked what the weight of 10 yards of concrete was and he did not know. One of my previous jobs was to manage a concrete pumping rental company that was involved in every major construction project in NYC and the Tri State area. We pumped concrete for the Freedom Tower, The New York Times Building, The Transit Hub in lower Manhattan, the Manhattan Bridge, Teterboro Airport hangers, Jet Blue and Pan Am at Kennedy, Yankee Stadium, Mets Stadium, ConEd, Control Tower at Laguardia, pier on 125th Street, schools on Staten Island, Jacobi Hospital in the Bronx to name a few.
He said the engineers signed off. I told him each cubic yard of concrete weighs 4050 pounds, so 10 yards would be 40500 pounds. Not being an engineer I felt that would be too much for this 65 year old building. If he is using a slurry mix to level the floors, then the mixture would have less gravel and more water. A cubic yard of water alone weighs 1700 lbs. Where do you think that water slurry will go when it starts to cure? The water slurry will find every hole and crack to the 6th floor and drain into 505, 506, 405, 406, 305, 306, 205, 206 and finally to the new lobby floor. Add to that the substantial added weight and I feel that is a recipe for another south Florida disaster. Thank God he listened and stopped the work.
Kevin Bennett was not made aware of this pour or removal of windows nor was Carl Tomik. That tells me he did not have Board approval on any of this. All work in the building is scheduled to stop on October 31, 2021. Except where emergency work has been granted by the Board, as in the case, where construction in 606 caused water damage to the 05/06 stacks already last month and they are being repaired.
The last Board meeting gave owners till November 30, 2021 to finish work this year. In the case of 606, they are no where near finishing. They have only demoed all interior walls and tile floor. We are entering the holiday seasons and no one wants major construction noise during Thanksgiving. I have family arriving for Thanksgiving as do many other owners and I feel this is a major inconvenience to the PBSA community for the sake of 606 who has been less than honest in his work project. I feel in the future all Saturday construction has to be okayed by the board members, and the ownership notified, so that there is no misunderstandings and additional non permitted work being done. Add to this no work during holiday weeks.
Rich Bolton
After this situation, the Board of Directors took the step to stop all further construction by Saturday November 13, 2021 until after the winter season. Now our Snowbirds can live here in peace and quiet...Thank you