Lightning-Damaged Church Bell-Tower Parapet

UPDATED MARCH 28, 2008

1) Photos of parapet rebuild by Talley/Orlando in mid-February, early March & late March.
(See also photos taken of Education Building third-floor roof at base of church's Bell Tower).

2) See separate web-page about a multi-year lease with T-Mobile for a base station:
It may be 3rd quarter of 2008 before this is installed: note it will include lightning protection.

MAJOR INCIDENT
On 6/16/2007 an 18" by 24" chunk of concrete fell from the parapet wall at the top of the bell tower, striking the parish hall roof and cracking a support beam, before falling to ground near a sidewalk. See photos of concrete damage taken from inside the parapet, and from the street.

DAMAGE CLAIM
Claim #13420 was filed by Church of the Redeemer with the Church Pension Group in Dallas. The contact person was Eugenia Peterson, (800) 223-5705 extension 3

"ASSESSMENT"
 The assigned Claim Adjuster was Alan Ruscher of Crawford & Company, who in turn engaged National Loss Consultants to prepare an "Engineers Report" <-- click link for 9 MB PDF file. (This was done in July 2007, but no copy was provided back then to Church of the Redeemer)

REPAIR METHOD
Estimates were received from two firms, and contract was awarded to Talley Construction. Talley provided two estimates, one to replace with concrete, the other with lighter "EIFS".  (Estimators Danny Carr & Mark Lawton copied both estimates to the church late November)

Church Pension Group and Adjuster questioned whether "EIFS" will withstand lightning. Perhaps the question should be: is there lightning protection in place and is the protection adequate?

Evaluation Reports on EIFS manufacturers are available: Note per Wikipedia entry on EIFS:
 "The use of EIFS is regulated by the building codes. However, since EIFS is a relatively new type of wall cladding, many codes do not refer to EIFS by name. EIFS is generally regulated by Evaluation Reports ("ER's") which are technical reports issued by code agencies for a specific product. The ER's go into great detail about how a specific EIFS product can be used. The primary source of ER's in the USA is the Evaluation Services division of the International Code Council. Copies of ER's for specific EIFS products can be downloaded from ICC-ES's website.

SCAFFOLDING
Since over $30,000 worth of rental scaffolding activity was needed, whichever of the two repair methods is used, Talley received $38,000 to get this part of the work started.

REPAIR ISSUES
Alan Ruscher was on vacation for a week & returned Monday Dec 10. Eugenia Patterson was on vacation that week, but authorized Bob Andrew to talk directly with Alan, and through him with NLC structural engineer Greg Gibbs. An outstanding issue in the report still not yet dealt with is NLC's recommendation to consult a concrete restoration expert for options.

Quoting from page three of the Engineer's report (liability emphasis in bold by Bob Andrew)

"It is outside the scope of this inspection to determine the cause of the concrete deterioration, but there is now a danger of pieces of concrete falling from high places on the building wall and injuring a person who may be standing below. Loose pieces should be dislodged in a controlled manner rather than be allowed to fall on their own. The exposed reinforcing rods will rust and expand, making the situation worse. A concrete restoration expert should be consulted for repair options."