How to Prevent a Burst Water Pipe This Winter

Water expands 9% when it freezes. There is no stopping it, so it can burst pipes, fittings, and valves. If you live in the southern United States or a warmer climate where below-freezing temperatures occur infrequently, your business may be at a higher risk of a burst pipe.

Many commercial property owners have experienced this issue. To avoid sharing in their misfortune, it is imperative that you take the necessary steps to prevent your own water system from freezing.

You can save your property from total loss by taking these steps in freezing conditions:

1. Shut off the main water valve: Find the main water valve for your property and turn it off to keep additional water from flowing into the affected portion of the system. If your fire protection sprinkler pipes burst, you will need to post a full-time fire watch.  
2. Turn off the electricity to the affected area: Live current near a flooded area can present shock hazards. Turn off the power at the electrical panel to prevent dangerous conditions.
3. Contact a plumber: If you see standing water but can’t tell where the frozen or burst pipe is, call a plumber to diagnose and start the repair process. Fixing the source of the leak is your top priority!

Need more help recovering from a burst pipe? Make sure you take these steps to prepare your building for winter!

For a free download of our winter preparedness checklist, please click here.

Read how you can save your property from total loss on our website.

The IEI Advantage for Structural Engineering

Innovative Engineering Inc. has been a trusted structural engineering, waterproofing engineering, and restoration engineering resource to some of the largest property owners and managers across the United States for over 25 years.

Our passion is showing real estate professionals how to self-inspect their facilities in order to reduce repair and replacement costs and know when to call in an expert. Our engineers are glad to walk your facility, let you know the condition, what and when repairs or replacement are necessary, and provide reports with construction costs and recommend quality contractors to perform the work.

Contact us today to get a quote!

How to Deal with Frozen Pipes in Your Building

Are you prepared to deal with frozen pipes in your building this winter?

Most buildings have preventative measures – such as insulation in exterior walls, attics, and crawl spaces – which do a good job of holding in the heat and protecting water pipes, but if you have extended periods of long-term cold weather or widespread power outages, your pipes could suffer.

Here are the basics:

• Water freezes at 32 degrees (Fahrenheit) or colder
• Pipes in 20 degrees or colder for prolonged periods will freeze
• Exterior pipes freeze much faster than internal pipes

Water expands 9% when it freezes. There is no stopping it, so it can burst pipes, fittings, and valves. If you live in the southern United States or a warmer climate where below-freezing temperatures occur infrequently, your business may be at a higher risk of a burst pipe.

Many commercial property owners have experienced this issue. To avoid sharing in their misfortune, it is imperative that you take the necessary steps to prevent your own water system from freezing.

Read how you can save your property from total loss on our website.

The IEI Advantage for Structural Engineering

Innovative Engineering Inc. has been a trusted structural engineering, waterproofing engineering, and restoration engineering resource to some of the largest property owners and managers across the United States for over 25 years.

Our passion is showing real estate professionals how to self-inspect their facilities in order to reduce repair and replacement costs and know when to call in an expert. Our engineers are glad to walk your facility, let you know the condition, what and when repairs or replacement are necessary, and provide reports with construction costs and recommend quality contractors to perform the work.

Contact us today to get a quote!

Essential Winter Preparedness Checklist for Facility Managers & Owners

Is your facility ready for winter?

Have you done everything to ensure your staff are safe and warm during the cold months ahead?

Winter preparedness shouldn't be overlooked, and it's important to follow a checklist to make sure you don't forget any essential items that keep your facility up and running this winter:

Test Heating Systems: Ensure heating systems are functioning properly. Replace filters utilizing high efficiency filters and consider cleaning ductwork and installing a UV sanitizer to minimize the spread of viruses. Also, bringing in more air from the outside can help dilute the number of viral particles in the air. This may cause higher energy bills, but the payoff is healthier, safer employees and guests.

Test Emergency Generator: Service and test emergency generators. Ensure you have the appropriate amount of fuel, and that fuel is tested periodically to determine if fuel polishing is required to keep the fuel clean and free of contaminants.

Shut-Off Landscape Sprinklers: Shut off and completely drain irrigation systems.

Inspect Building Envelope: Visually inspect the roof paying particular attention to areas where work has been done, loose flashing, debris removal from roof, drains and gutters. Visually inspect the façade of your building paying particular attention to doors and windows. Avoid having to fix a roof, door, or window leak in the middle of a winter storm.

Snow and Ice Removal: Have On-Call Service provider(s) available 24/7 for snow and ice removal. Have them work overnight as required to remove snow and ice before occupants arrive each morning. The property owner usually has 48 hours to remove the accumulation of snow or ice to avoid being sued for a slip and fall. If this is done in-house, the property owner or manager should make sure equipment is available and has been serviced, ice melt is available, and shovels and snow blowers are ready. Ice melt such as Calcium Chloride, Magnesium Chloride, and Calcium Magnesium Acetate are not harmful to concrete. Rock salt (sodium chloride) is often the first deicing agent turned to because it’s inexpensive and effective. However, it’s very corrosive and can cause significant damage to concrete surfaces and even pose a threat to pets and plant life. Also, ensure winter wear is available to your workers.

Read the full list on our website!

The IEI Advantage for Winter Preparedness and Parking Structure Inspection

Innovative Engineering Inc. has been a trusted resource to some of the largest property owners and managers across the United States for over 25 years.

Our passion is showing real estate professionals how to self-inspect their facilities in order to reduce repair and replacement costs and know when to call in an expert. Our engineers are glad to walk your facility, including parking structure inspection, let you know the condition, what and when repairs or replacement are necessary, and provide reports with construction costs and recommend quality contractors to perform the work.

Contact us today to get a quote!

Emergency Preparedness for Winter

Is your facility prepared for winter?

Winter can be a challenging season for property owners and building managers. Inclement weather can strike without notice, and if you’re not prepared, your building and occupants could suffer costly damage.

As the seasons change and temperatures drop, make sure you plan adequately and take these essential steps for winter preparedness:

• Emergency Preparedness: While the following activities ahead of winter will minimize the likelihood or magnitude of unforeseen losses, not having an “Emergency Preparedness Plan” in place can be considered negligence. While insurance typically covers property losses, it likely does not cover lost revenue of affected tenants which can be much more than the cost to repair property damage.
• All actual tenants should be notified before winter threats, such as low temperatures, of steps to be taken to minimize losses to them and other tenants. This may include ensuring unheated spaces are either insulated and heated and/or the affected plumbing lines either drained or heated with heat tape and fire sprinkler lines heated with heaters or heat tape. Also, ensure heaters and heat tape are actually functioning correctly.
• On-Call Property Manager(s) should be identified and be available 24/7, including holidays.
• On-Call Service Provider(s) should be identified and available 24/7, including holidays. Service providers should be familiar with where all utility shut-offs are located.
• A current list of emergency contacts with backups for owners, managers, tenants, utilities, and on-call personnel should be made available and distributed to all tenants and owners.
• Keys for each tenant space should be kept by the property owner or manager and be available to the On-call Property Manager and service providers.

Read more about winter emergency preparedness on our website!

The IEI Advantage for Parking Structure Inspection

Innovative Engineering Inc. has been a trusted resource to some of the largest property owners and managers across the United States for over 25 years.

Our passion is showing real estate professionals how to self-inspect their facilities in order to reduce repair and replacement costs and know when to call in an expert. Our engineers are glad to walk your facility, including parking structure inspection, let you know the condition, what and when repairs or replacement are necessary, and provide reports with construction costs and recommend quality contractors to perform the work.

Contact us today to get started!

Get the Biggest Bang for Your Buck with Parking Structure Maintenance

Most people, including professionals in the commercial property industry, are either unaware or refuse to accept that parking structures require maintenance. The truth is, they begin to deteriorate before they are open to the public and do so exponentially after just a few years. Unlike the structure of the building or buildings they serve, which exist in a controlled environment, parking structures are exposed directly to the elements. Exposure to precipitation, road salt, thermal expansion and contraction, and vibratory loads, all contribute to the exponential degradation of a parking structure. As can see in the graph below produced by the National Parking Association, simply kicking the maintenance can down the road only results in higher maintenance costs. You will notice that performing maintenance early at A to A’ costs less than performing it later at B to B’. And delaying maintenance too long can result in an unsafe structure or worse, failure.

Biggest Bang for Your Buck

The top level of your parking structure typically serves as the roof of the facility. Focusing on this level will provide the largest return on your maintenance investment. Since water is the number one enemy, causing the largest repair expenses, it is important to remove water from this surface quickly and efficiently. This can be accomplished by managing precipitation runoff from the surface so that it does not have a chance to soak into the concrete or leak through the joints to reinforcing steel below and cause corrosion and spalling of concrete. Maintenance of surface sealer and joint sealant will provide the biggest bang for your buck.

Read more on our website.

Innovative Engineering Specializes in Parking Structure Maintenance

Innovative Engineering helps owners with parking structure maintenance and reducing restoration costs. Unlike most other building systems that are protected by a conditioned building envelope, parking structures are directly exposed to the elements which results in exponential or accelerated deterioration.

Our engineers are glad to walk your facility and let you know about any conditions that require immediate attention. Since the back of IEI business cards contain a crack gauge, you can easily evaluate any cracks within your structure to determine if it is of concern. Give us a call today!

 

The IEI Physical Security Advantage

More than 4,000 pedestrians, patrons, and employees are severely injured each year, and tragically preliminary data show as many as 500 deaths result from these largely preventable accidents.

Additionally, commercial buildings such as schools, hospitals, and office buildings have such a constant inflow of visitors that security requires more planning than ever.

How can you be sure that your employees, customers, and clients are protected?

Ensuring building security and complying with regulations is essential to making sure your assets are protected. A strong security system can help protect from theft, vandalism, and other types of damage. Many industries also have specific physical security requirements that must be met.

CPTED (Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design)

 CPTED focuses on creating safe environments by using architectural design, lighting, and other factors to reduce criminal activity. The core principles of this approach are:

1. Natural surveillance: Placing architectural features, activities, and people in spaces to maximize visibility. This includes landscaping in such a way that it reduces hiding places for intruders, and allows clear visibility through fences and windows.
2. Natural access control: Having designated ingress and egress points, shaded areas near entrances that allow for more surveillance, and visible hallways and foyers are examples of natural access control.
3. Territoriality: This tactic discourages crime by clearly marking the boundaries of an area, such as transitions between private, semi-private, and public areas, and signage that designates private vs. public spaces.
4. Activity support: Discouraging actions such as loitering, and having a design layout that promotes an open field of view.
5. Maintenance: Keeping up with broken windows, overgrown landscaping, inadequate fencing, and worn or malfunctioning locks.

Learn more about physical security engineering on our website!

The IEI Physical Security Advantage

IEI routinely conducts peer reviews of both structural and physical security designs on behalf of the federal government. Our expertise not only matches that of world-renowned experts in the physical security field, our extensive engineer of record experience brings a unique blend to the project team.
IEI takes a wholistic approach that includes all disciplines. We know what it takes to ensure the physical security requirements get incorporated into the construction documents regardless of discipline. Contact us today to find out how we can help you!

The Importance of Physical Security for Commercial Buildings

Did you know that according to storefrontsafety.org, “every year in the United States there are as many as 22,000 crashes into stores, offices, bus stops, shopping centers, post offices, restaurants, and storefronts?

More than 4,000 pedestrians, patrons, and employees are severely injured each year, and tragically preliminary data show as many as 500 deaths result from these largely preventable accidents.”

How can you be sure that your employees, customers, and clients are protected?

Security Bollards

Security bollards are large posts you often see at the doorways of stores. These are used as both physical and visual barriers, and can protect lives and property by controlling traffic settings.

Vehicle ram-raids have been a security concern for stores for decades, and threaten the safety of employees as well as customers. The damage caused in these incidents is often very extensive and costly, so security bollards are a must for your commercial property.

Blast Resistant Engineering

Make sure your physical security engineer considers blast resistant building practices! In 2020, the city of Beirut suffered a tragic explosion at a port warehouse, which resulted in 150 dead and 5,000 injured.

Buildings are meant to shelter the people inside of them, but when they’re in such close proximity to an explosion, the building materials themselves become the weapons.

You can prevent this type of tragedy in a few ways:

1. Standoff distance – This is the distance to the source of the blast. If the potential blast zone can be predicted based on what kind of hazards are in the area, death and injury can be avoided.
2. Blast-resistant materials – Like in the case of the surprise Beirut explosion, if the location of blast source can’t be predicted, the second most effective protection is choosing building materials that can resist explosive force. Certain materials are made to resist a blast, and cut down on the number of flying shards and debris in the event of an explosion.

Learn more about physical security engineering on our website!

The IEI Physical Security Advantage

IEI routinely conducts peer reviews of both structural and physical security designs on behalf of the federal government. Our expertise not only matches that of world-renowned experts in the physical security field, our extensive engineer of record experience brings a unique blend to the project team.
IEI takes a wholistic approach that includes all disciplines. We know what it takes to ensure the physical security requirements get incorporated into the construction documents regardless of discipline. Contact us today to find out how we can help you!