Greg Batista: 0:00

I was actually in Champlain Towers, you know, a couple of years before, before the collapse happened, and I was telling them, hey, this is not a waterproofing issue, you have a concrete repair issue, and I repeated that message over and over again, and we all know what happened, it was because, you know, people didn't react the way that they were supposed to react to professionals telling them, you know, you, you got a problem.

Announcer: 0:22

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about board members: 0:25

Association Insights and Marketplace, Association Reserves, Community Financials, Kevin Davis Insurance Services, and the Inspectors of Election. You'll find links to their website and social media in the show notes.

Robert Nordlund: 0:38

Welcome back to HOA

Insights: 0:39

Common Sense for Common Areas. I'm Robert Nordlund, and I'm here today for episode number 161 with a special guest on the topic of caring for your buildings. Greg Batista, PE, is the owner and founder of G Batista Engineering and Construction, and has over three decades of experience. He's a trusted expert with a history of managing projects from design to completion, ranging from single family homes to big high rise communities, and it's his high rise condominium experience where our careers intersected. I've got his book right here. YouTube viewers can see it. It's called

Negligence: 1:18

Averting Disaster at Your

Building: 1:20

Lessons learned from the Champlain Tower South collapse. He's a repeat guest expert who we've had on the show back on episode number 84. I'm on his email list, and enjoy. Yes, I do enjoy reading your emails, Greg. I enjoy reading your email notices, and that's that's how I continue to learn things. And he's got always some novel ways boards can care for their buildings. Greg has a heart for being proactive about taking care of your buildings. I think you'll see that shortly. So, if you have any buildings or common areas, we'll have something for you in today's program. Well, we're here weekly, so if you missed last week's episode, number 160 or any other prior episode, take a moment after today's program to listen from our podcast website, hoainsights.org or watch on our YouTube channel, but better yet, subscribe from any of the major podcast platforms, follow our YouTube channel to give us a better chance to increase in the search engines becoming a subscriber increases the podcast position, which helps others find this free resource, so they can be better equipped to lead their association. Those of you watching on YouTube can see the HOA Insights mug that I have here, that I got from our merch store, which you can browse through from our hoainsights.org website, or the link in our show notes, and you'll find we have some great free stuff there, like board member Zoom backgrounds, and some specialty items for sale, like mugs. So go to the merch store, see what we have for sale, and at least download a free Zoom background to enjoy your next board meeting. Well, we enjoy hearing from you, responding to issues you are facing at your association, so if you have a hot topic, a crazy story, or a question you'd like us to address, you can contact us, and please do at 805-203-3130 or email us at podcast@hoainsights.org Today's episode was inspired by Brian from Portland, who wrote "we're trying to react in a timely manner to keep our building well maintained, but do you have suggestions or tools we can use to be proactive?" So I'm back on the program, so welcome, Greg, and any comments right here at the start for Brian?

Greg Batista: 3:45

Well, first of all, Robert, thank you for having me again on your show. It's a very.. it's such a treat to be back here and speaking with somebody that's so also, as well as me, so passionate about teaching the gospel and having people understand, you know, the realities behind how buildings work and how they can work against you, and how can, and how, and most importantly, how you can take care of them before you know bad things happen. My specialty is in concrete repair, and the engineering behind the how these repairs need to be done, especially with concrete, but you know, throughout my career, 30 plus almost 40 years of doing this, as you run across, you know, if you're working with existing buildings, you run across a lot of maintenance items and things that you know that if they get taken care of in a timely manner, we wouldn't have, you know, the people wouldn't be in such a big mess, right? So it almost seems sometimes like you're you're always working against the clock, but there are certain systems and you know, software out there that can be used on the property management level, or even on the level of certain companies. I don't know if over there in California, you have this company that got, they got vans running around that company called Maintenex. I don't mean this commercial, but these are people that they specialize in, you know, not only keeping the law. Log of all of these issues that that can come up, but being proactive, and you know, been logging these things and repairing things, you know, not only as they show up, but you know, be a little bit proactive. There are systems that are out there now. It doesn't necessarily fall within, you know, my confines of, you know, concrete repair, that's only one small bit of maintenance part, which is, you know, there's literally millions of item things that can go wrong in a, in a building, but yeah, there's a lot of good systems out there. You just do a good Google search and ask AI which one's the best systems for you, because, you know, some, some have some pros and cons, and you just find the best ones that's for you.

Robert Nordlund: 5:37

Yeah, well, our audience has their in-plan developments, big HOAs, they're in town homes, they're in co-ops in New York, they're in mid rises, little tiny beach front six unit condo associations, and some high rises, and oh boy, got some big sprawling HOAs, golf courses, and water parks and all that kind of stuff in Texas, so lots of different kinds of things, but how about we start simple. You said one thing, and about the companies that service the needs of your association, is it usual or unusual that they're actually keeping track of what they're doing, and how often, so they can be proactive. Is that an expectation that you should start to have?

Greg Batista: 6:25

Oh, no, not.. not. Trust me, I've dealt with 1000s of homeowner associations, and I think there's only.. there's only one that has actually, you know, proactively used one of these.. one of these people, and maybe it's because they use them that they don't have to call me up, because I typically show up when there's already problems, but you know, I know that they're, I know that they're out there, but the thing is, is that you know you're talking about, you're talking about these, some of these buildings that are, you know, new and old and big and small, and in different geographical areas, but there's one underlying theme here, that, that, that is that, that envelopes all of these buildings, it's that maintenance is a thing, it's a big deal, especially if it's new, because you're, if you have a, if you have a new building, you have to still maintain your air conditioners, which you probably might want to do, you know, they have motors that have moving parts that need special, that needs special care, and if they're new, you have a good starting point, right, and you work from there, as opposed to if you have an older building. Oh, let's start a maintenance log now. Then, yeah, well, if we would have been done proactively, maybe in the beginning, then you probably wouldn't have as nearly as many issues as you would otherwise have. So, yeah, even if it's new, especially if it's new, you should start, you know, start from from ground zero, start a good maintenance program.

Robert Nordlund: 7:43

So, what I've learned so far is that it is just like Brian asked to start the episode. He says we're reacting. Is there any way we can turn to being proactive? So, you're saying that the average service company is also reactive when you call to get something fixed, they come, they fix it, and then they wait until you call them next. There's very few that are logging that, and we'll give you a call in six months, saying, hey, we fixed your number three HVAC unit, it's probably time for us to view it again, double check it again. Okay, so that's not common, but it's probably a good idea. Number two is, and I got talking so much, maintenance happens, and you want to start early rather than late. So we could talk a lot about the mechanical equipment, the elevators, the blowers, the chillers, all that kind of stuff, but even the static items, the concrete, the balconies, pool deck, the I start to get shivers when I think about it. The planter boxes, those things may look static, but you can't beat Mother Nature and Father Time, so those things also need maintenance, right.

Greg Batista: 9:03

Of course, I mean, you got things that are semi-static, like windows and sliding glass doors, they're the air, they don't move, but they have moving parts, and the moving parts, they're constantly, you know, at the mercy of the high winds, depending on where you live, of course, but yes, and everything in between, I mean, it's, it's everything, basically, is to one point or another, is going to require some sort of maintenance.

Robert Nordlund: 9:24

Let's go all the way to simple. Let's talk about a small association, or maybe even a big HOA, that all they have is a little clubhouse with one restroom and a hot water heater. Aren't there little devices now that can detect when that hot water heater starts to fail and drip and leak that can alert you to that, so you don't find out a week later.

Greg Batista: 9:50

Sure.

Robert Nordlund: 9:50

Tell me, start to talk about simple things like that.

Greg Batista: 9:52

Well, okay, let's talk about that one that you just mentioned. Yeah, there are little little devices where as soon as it feels some water. Water, for example, you could put that little device inside the drain pan for the water heater. It's got little two little electrodes, and once you know some water falls in there, it closes the circuit, and you know you got alarm sounding, right? Even those kind of things, they require maintenance. So, so, yes, there are all sorts of things out there, but every time I get asked these kind of questions, I always start at the low hanging fruit, and what is the biggest bang for your buck, right? When you are maintaining your building, and I typically say it's the painting. Painting is something that it's basically you're putting a raincoat on your, you know, like it's like you putting your in coat on, you know, you're once you paint, you're, you know, caulking in the joints, you're filling over any cracks, because water gets in there, you get insect infestations, you get leaks, you get moisture intrusion, these things cause mold and cause a whole other plethora of issues, so if I were to say, hey, let's start out simple, let's start out with the low hanging fruit that you get the most bang for your buck. You know, painting is definitely on the on the top of the list.

Robert Nordlund: 11:08

Fantastic. And painting has been around forever.

Greg Batista: 11:10

Yeah, everybody knows how to paint, you know. You don't, if you live in a small, you know, duplex or triplex, you know, you guys get together with your neighbors and you can, you can do that. It then, you know, just to make sure that what

Robert Nordlund: 11:22

you make me nervous when you talk about volunteers doing that kind of stuff, but I think about with our clients, we talk about the idea of familiarity blindness, because when we come to a property once a year, or once every third year, typically in the reserve study industry, we have fresh eyes, we can see the property, but for the board members and homeowners who see the property every day, what we find out is that they no longer see the property because they know that there's a crack in the sidewalk right by the mailbox. They know that you have to jiggle the pool gate twice to get it to open, and you begin to no longer see it, because it has become familiar. So, is that an issue that sometimes the homeowners just start to fail to see the obvious?

Greg Batista: 12:10

Yeah, of course. And it's human nature. I mean, even, even for me, there's.. we have a door outside that we have a.. that it closes a storage place to, you know, things that are valuable, and my girl, and the door, you have to actually like, like, oh, and every time you open it up, it looks like it's getting worse and worse and worse, and my girlfriend tells me, Greg, this is a maintenance thing, you gotta, you talk all this stuff about maintenance, why don't you fix that door? Don't worry about it, you know, I got, I got, I got things to do, and the thing is, it doesn't bother me, because I go in there, I start opening and closing, I don't see it as a problem, but yeah, you know, if it was on somebody else's, I would, oh, I put that on the list. Hey, you know, you got to fix your door, but it's just human nature, so it definitely plays into it.

Robert Nordlund: 12:53

Yeah, my mom would tell me about the cobbler whose children never have good shoes, and that's the same thing, because the cobbler is always busy working on someone else's shoes that he forgets to take care of his own kids' shoes. Okay, low hanging fruit is painting, so we're not even talking technology here, we're just talking about caring for your building and being, and I think we can use the word proactive, don't wait until that paint is peeling and chipping and exposing the underlying, but I like that,

Greg Batista: 13:24

but extends it extends beyond the painting, because as you paint, you're going to be looking at your building, right? You're going to be looking at it, you're going to see that there's

Robert Nordlund: 13:32

a square foot by square foot that focus, it forces you to see the building. Yeah,

Greg Batista: 13:37

correct. And the thing is, you take it further, you're as you're painting, you can see the caulking around your window when it's cracked, when it's chipped. It allows, it might allow like some kind of moisture to get in there, you know? Like, how many times are you going to be around your house? Oh, let me go check out the caulking today. That doesn't happen. It happens when you're taking, when you're, when you're actually looking at it, you know. There might be a hole that, that what is a,

Robert Nordlund: 14:03

you're gonna force me to write a note to go around my house now,

Greg Batista: 14:06

so you know, get your, you know, get your partner, and you know, paint, then you'll find, I guarantee you'll find some stuff, so, so, yeah, in more than just the physical way that paint works, that it's a barrier, it allows you to, you know, to see your building in a different light.

Robert Nordlund: 14:22

Now you got me entirely thinking. I thought we were going to talk about technologies and things like that, but this starts with the simple and the obvious and the ancient. So, are we talking also about just fundamental maintenance type things? We're talking about cleaning the debris off your roof, make sure the gutters are clean. Is it that level of being proactive on the little things that we need to start with?

Greg Batista: 14:48

It depends, because if you're walking around your building and you see a huge crack, then that's going to trigger, you know, calling an engineer, and then you know, then you, then you have to do a whole other set. Of other things to what I'm, what, what I like to tell people is that you know these are the kind of things that you and I sell, right, as a professional, we want people to do the right thing, but at the same time we need to understand, and especially down here in Florida, we need to understand that people, you know, there's a lot of people that are moving out because they can't afford the additional, you know, insurances or they can't afford the repairs that are required because of these 40 year recertifications that are coming up,

Robert Nordlund: 15:26

right,

Greg Batista: 15:26

and you know people are very conscious about what these things cost, and you know I've been to meetings where you know people are like they're almost crying, they say we can't afford all these repairs, so and my heart goes out to them, even where I live here, the HOA has gone up, you know, two and a half times, so I get that, so in getting that, that's when I try to motivate people to say, look, you can make the most impact with painting a building, and that will make the most impact, the lowest cost with the biggest impact. It's not that one's more important than the other. It's that I'm trying to put it in a way that that people can say, hey, you know, maybe we should, you know, spend a little money, and that might get them to motivate them to going on other stuff. You know, on the other side of the coin, though, you have places where we do see, like, a lot of spalling and concrete repair, and you know, then that we're talking about big bucks there, you know, and when you get into that, that's when you get into the preventative technologies that you know we might be talking about in a bit, and about ways that that you know maintenance can be employed in order to minimize or or do away with those kinds of future costs,

Robert Nordlund: 16:44

yeah. Well, Greg, I think fundamentally it comes down to Mother Nature and Father Time are formidable opponents. Since the beginning of time, they have an incredible winning streak, but I appreciate your counsel. You need to start, and I think about what I hear in the airport, where they say, if you see something, do something, and I think there's so many board members that see, oh, that's a little crack, it was there last week, I don't need to worry about that, but they do need to call someone, because that may be an indication of something much more significant, and if you stop it now, it may be a caulking project, if you don't stop it now. It may be a very expensive repair project, or even a local rebuild. And so I want to make sure we're communicating that message loud and clear. Is that fair?

Greg Batista: 17:34

No, of course. And just exactly what you're talking about is one of the underlying themes of the book, right? Yep, because you know, the I was actually in Champlain Towers, you know, a couple of years before, before the collapse happened, and I was telling them, hey, this is not a waterproofing issue, you have a concrete repair issue, and I repeated that message over and over again, and we all know what happened, it was because, you know, people didn't react the way that they were supposed to react to professionals telling them, you know, you, you got a problem, and that's the underlying theme in the book, is that look, you know, if you see something, say something, and when you talk to a professional, you should pay attention to them.

Robert Nordlund: 18:13

I want to make sure our audience hears that we need to learn the lessons of those that come before us, and the Champaign Tower South people, they saw it, they got used to it, they got slowed down at the very end by COVID, it slowed down their construction bid process and their loan process, and just some bad timing that and bad circumstances that led to 98 people dying, but we want again, this is why you're on the program, because we feel we are concerned about these buildings, but I'm looking at the time here. It's time for us to take a quick break to hear from one of our generous sponsors, after which we'll be back with more common sense about maintaining your common areas.

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Robert Nordlund: 19:27

we're back. Well, during the break, Greg and I were talking about what we want to prioritize for the second half of the show, and Greg said it earlier, he's a concrete guy, that's kind of his specialty. He could, he warned me that we could have multiple episodes talking about various concrete issues, but I want to make sure we talk about the big things. So, first off, let's talk about spalling. What can you tell our board members what spalling is, and why it's significant?

Greg Batista: 19:53

Spalling is just basically the concrete breaking underneath over pressure that's happening on the end. Side of the concrete, so let me explain a little bit better, so you get a visual, a visual feel for what I'm talking about. If you have a piece of concrete, a solid piece of concrete, and you have a piece of steel running inside of it, you know, piece of steel is is completely embedded in the concrete,

Robert Nordlund: 20:14

right? The re what you commonly see,

Greg Batista: 20:17

correct, the rebar, that's just basically, you know, it's steel, and steel rusts. Now, what happens is that, that once you get water getting into the concrete, you know, concrete is really, if you look at it through a microscope, it's basically like a sponge, it's got a bunch of little holes in it, and water eventually gets entrained in moisture, and it gets to the to the rebar, right.

Robert Nordlund: 20:36

Okay, so concrete is porous, and as you said earlier we need to prioritize painting, which now my brain is putting these things together, keeps the water from getting into the concrete.

Greg Batista: 20:49

That is absolutely right. I mean, it's a lot more complex than that, but at its very basis, that's that's exactly what's going on, because you know the same way that water gets in, you know, chlorides get in and these different chemicals that break down, not only the concrete, but they break down the, you know, they start the process for the corrosion of the of the steel, but anyway, but the thing is, is that once, once that the chlorides, and you have that chemical reaction, that the rust starts to develop, what happens to rust when it gets really rusty, it expands, it gets, it gets fatter, it gets fatter, and those forces that are induced inside that concrete, once it starts to expand, eventually it's not going to take the force anymore. You're going to have a piece of concrete just pop out, because, yeah, and then you know you have a piece of steel that takes up seven times its mass, seven times its diameter, just because you know it gets, you know, it's it's rusting, so as it grows, it's going to bust out the concrete somewhere, so that's that's eventually what a spall is. The spa, in the in the in the strict sense of the word, is the actual piece of concrete just falling out of the beam or column or whatever you want to call it.

Robert Nordlund: 21:57

So if you hit a piece of concrete, concrete with a hammer, then you can chip a little piece off, but when it happens from the inside, it's a spa.

Greg Batista: 22:08

Well, the spa happens because it's the piece of concrete that, that it gets detached from the underlying layer, right? If you hit it with a hammer, it's going to fall by itself, but you know, sometimes it's just precariously right, right next to falling down, that you know, if you look at it the wrong way, or there's rain, it's gonna, it's gonna fall down by itself.

Robert Nordlund: 22:28

You realize you got me biting my lip here, because I'm feeling danger to a building, and it's starting to, starting to creep me out.

Greg Batista: 22:37

Well, when you're in this line of work, you're constantly looking up, you're all going by these buildings, and literally, literally, that, that's what, that's what happens. So, that's what happens when you're in this line of work.

Robert Nordlund: 22:46

Okay, so we're talking about the vertical surface, where you would think that water would run down, but enough of it seeps in that it causes problems, and I imagine that's true for balcony surfaces, pool decks, planter boxes, everything like that.

Greg Batista: 23:04

Yes, absolutely. And especially on the horizontal surfaces, where you have, you typically have waterproofing.

Robert Nordlund: 23:10

Okay, standing water.

Greg Batista: 23:12

Yeah, you can have standing

Robert Nordlund: 23:13

water, or even the water that drains, it's there for some period of time.

Greg Batista: 23:16

And you know, you have paint that covers your wall, but then you have waterproofing, where you are going to get maybe some, some, you know, standing little what we call bird baths, you know, you have them standing there, but you know you need something that's a little bit more strong than you know what you would have on a vertical surface, which is a wall, so you know we can include waterproofing in the same conversation that we had a few minutes ago, as far as protecting your, your envelope and putting that rain coat on,

Robert Nordlund: 23:42

good, and I would imagine that extends then to parking decks.

Greg Batista: 23:48

Yes, absolutely.

Robert Nordlund: 23:49

Okay,

Greg Batista: 23:50

parking decks, parking decks are, you know, they're they typically don't get painted inside a lot of times, so you know it's got, especially when you have ones that are near the coast, they tend to have that, you know, those problems, you know, as far as the spalling.

Robert Nordlund: 24:04

Okay, so cars are exposed to rain, exposed to moisture. They drive in, and two things go on: the car comes in and drips onto the concrete, and then when you're turning the corners, you're rubbing and smearing the concrete hard on any surface protection, I guess. There's a third thing. When the car then comes to a stop, it drips oil and other things. Oh, gee, there's more. What if it's a Tesla? It's not dripping oil, but isn't a Tesla way heavier than the average gasoline-powered car?

Greg Batista: 24:40

No, I wouldn't. I wouldn't know that.

Robert Nordlund: 24:42

I think I think it is, and that adds a structural load, so the concrete is going to sag and deflect, and every time it deflects, it's like a piece of paper that you bend and bend and bend and bend and bend, and eventually that puts more stress on it and more concern and. Closer or more of an opportunity to initiate a crack. Okay, a lot of things going on. So,

Greg Batista: 25:07

yeah.

Robert Nordlund: 25:08

Tell me about, is this something that is safe in the board member's hand, or do they need an outside set of eyes to see it clearly?

Greg Batista: 25:19

I always say, you know, if you see something, say something, because you know the people that are on the board, you know, they, they walk around, they see they're the first ones to see a crack where there probably wasn't one there, you know, a week before or a month before, and you know, I depend, you depend a lot on on that kind of feedback, you know, a lot of the calls that I get are because somebody has seen something, and they're saying,'Hey, at least look into it, you know. And it's something that, that I take, you know, very, very seriously. When, when a lot of times, when you know somebody calls and says, 'Oh, I have a small crack, but I don't think it's anything that's so well, you're doing, you're taking the right step, you know. And a lot of times I say, 'Look, just take a picture of it. Let me, let me see it, because that might get, you know, a conversation going. You know, at times I can just see a crack. I know what you know, I know immediately what it is. Oh, that's not a load-bearing wall, you know. Just forget about it, that's fine. But, but have that conversation, you know, to start off with, to begin with.

Robert Nordlund: 26:15

Yeah. Well, you're the one who can discern that, because to a board member, it may just be a crack. I got a couple more ideas. One is, if you see something, get a picture of it and tell your professional. Hopefully, you have a structural professional - I don't want to say at your beck and call, but someone that you refer to that has a file on your building, and you can say, this is what this thing looked like on, you know, january 15, and put yourself a note to take a picture. february 15, march 15,

Greg Batista: 26:48

is

Robert Nordlund: 26:49

that a good thing that you can do to empower the professional to know, is it moving, is it changing? Is that maybe something that a board member can do?

Greg Batista: 26:57

No, absolutely, but it depends on the crack, you know, you get to a point in your career where you can, you can see something, and you can say, "Oh, 99.99% that's nothing. Then there's, "Oh my god, that's a huge problem, or typically it almost falls somewhere in the gray side, right? And what I do with my clients, you know, people that have been, you know, hiring me for the past 10 years or plus, that you know I have, I'm able to tell them something like, look, you know, it's going to cost you $1,000 to get me out there to look at this thing, but this is what I suggest for now, just, you know, mark off that, because you know, sometimes they tell me, hey, that crack wasn't there, you know, two weeks ago, it might be in their head, it might not be in their heads, right, but I tell them is, look, get it, get something, and scratch where that, where the crack ends, you know. Let's wait a little bit, and if you see that it extends beyond that point in the next several months, or whatever, you know what, then we'll, then we'll go take a look at it, because you know it's I'm trying to help my, my, my clients, you know, in a way that I find in my engineering judgment to be, you know, reasonable, but the thing at the important thing is that they're calling me. You know, a lot of people don't like to call engineers because all of a sudden they say, okay, you know, this guy's gonna is$1,000 here, I don't want to do that, and they, and they risk their safety for to perhaps, you know, save themselves a few bucks. So I like to think that that I have a good enough rapport with these people that they have the confidence to, you know, to talk to me, and you know, be able to air out these, these possible issues.

Robert Nordlund: 28:30

I like what you're saying. We have so many, we want to make sure our board member audience feels like they have power, like they have agency, that they can control things, but obviously they're not experts, so I like your idea of if you see a crack Sharpie market small where the crack ends, and then you'll know if the cracks getting bigger. Work with your professional, but in the past we've had a theme here of the 4c that we encourage our board members to have. One is to care. You got to care about your building. You need to be curious. What is that? Is that significant? Then you need to be courageous. What am I going to do? What do I need to do? And number four is communicate, and those are four principles. And I see those in my brain right now, and I want to make sure our audience here is challenged to be courageous here and not be part of the problem in just saying, oh, that's no big deal. I don't think that's the board member's role. I think that is, I want to be clear, your role as the structural consultant, you can help them. I appreciate your, your spirit, you have nonprofit client, our, you know, our community, entire community association industry, our nonprofit clients, and you can work with them. You can say, take a picture, mark it with a sharpie, give it a little scratch, and then call me in a month. I like that. That gives agency and. We, the board members showing that they care. Are we on the right track here?

Greg Batista: 30:05

No, I absolutely love what you're saying, because I, I like to think it's because I care. Yeah, you know, and I like to treat my, my clients with a certain way. I'm not your typical engineer, that's very, oh, you know, take themselves seriously, and walk around like, no, I'm, I'm, I like to think of myself as somebody that, that's approachable, right, and starts with this whole thing that I have with my books online, and everything that basically teaches you a bunch of stuff that you don't necessarily have to call me, but all this, all this stuff is out there, and, and there's one thing that, that you know, everybody, you know, people tell me, "Oh my god, all these people on these, they're crazy, they're insane, they're this, they're that, and I always tell them, "Look, 99.99% of these people that are on these boards, they're good people, they really, really want to do the right thing, the vast majority of them, of course, is going to be a couple of cooped in there, mixed in there somewhere, because they come out every once in a while.

Robert Nordlund: 31:06

Yeah, I don't think I would have gone 99.9 I might have gone 98

Greg Batista: 31:10

That might be in California, that's like California water.

Robert Nordlund: 31:12

There we go, we got 95% in California, 99.9 in Florida, so it's a national average of something nice and high,

Greg Batista: 31:20

exactly. But when you get to Miami, it becomes like 75%

Robert Nordlund: 31:23

Oh yeah, okay.

Greg Batista: 31:25

Anyway, you got so

Robert Nordlund: 31:27

we're still being recorded here, so this is this still part of the show. Let's

Greg Batista: 31:30

get back on. We own it in Florida, we own it. We own our crazy, so you know the about the C's that you talked about, and in me saying that these are good people because they honestly care, you know, the big question comes up is, yeah, they care, but more often than not, it's, it's the financial issue that comes up, and they care about themselves and having to spend all this money, but they also care about, you know, the buildings that they live in, you know, they're past

Robert Nordlund: 31:57

that courageous hump,

Greg Batista: 31:58

and that's where the courageous part comes in because not only is it a money issue, but then you know these people, God bless them, they're volunteers, and they put themselves on the, on the firing line, because all of a sudden you know they've got half the, you know, half the people that live there, you got them, you know, as an enemy right now, because they want, you know, they want to spend, and they're probably, you know they're probably paying the engineer or the contractors under the table is probably his brother, and that's how things work. So, so, yes, you got courageous, and you got to do it because you care, and and the basic tool that you have that anybody has, whether it's me, the contractors, or the homeowners, or the people on the board, is is communication, because that's the only way that you're able to to deal with all these, all these, all these issues that everybody comes out with, you know, not insane. I love that, I love that concept of the seas, that, that's, that's, that's actually beautiful.

Robert Nordlund: 32:55

Yeah, well, I think it resonates with you. You live in a community association, so you get it. But, yeah, this is the world. Hey Greg, this has been so fun to have you on the program. It's an excuse for me just to spend some time talking with you and having a bunch of other people listen in on what we're talking about. Thanks for sharing some of your insights about taking good care of your buildings. But it is time to wrap this up. Any closing thoughts to add at this time?

Greg Batista: 33:20

The only clothing thought that comes into my head right now is that this is truly a treat, right, and I know that you have a, you know, in your podcast and stuff, and I tried to start a podcast before, and it's just so much work, it's so much work, and people don't realize that, so I understand what you're going through, and I would hope that this is not the last one, I like the dynamic between us, and I know that between your expertise and mine, we have a lot to, you know, to report to everybody out there. So

Robert Nordlund: 33:49

another episode,

Greg Batista: 33:51

I really look forward to it, Robert. So, thank you for having me on once more.

Robert Nordlund: 33:55

Cool, Greg, it's always a pleasure to chat with you. I appreciate your expertise, and realizing we both care about community association buildings and those board members, and so you resonate with what we're trying to do here on the show. If you're in Florida and you want to get in touch with Greg and his company, you can reach him through his website at Ask G Batista, that's ASKGBATISTA.com Well, we certainly hope you learned some HOA insights from our discussion today that helps you bring common sense to your common areas. We look forward to having you join us for another great episode next week.

Announcer: 34:33

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HOA Insights: 34:34

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