As any good condo administrator knows—either through common sense or painful experience - failing to clean up snow or ice promptly can result in injuries, acrimony, and expensive lawsuits. Any one of those is reason enough to get seriou…
Few things are as important to our health and well-being as the air we breathe, especially inside our own homes. That is why it is so important for individual homeowners as well as management to stay up-to-date on issues of indoor air …
As we go about our busy lives, we often forget about everyday physical facts—like the unceasing tension gravity places on the materials we assemble into buildings and other structures, for example. Whether or not we are paying attention…
Despite the due diligence of boards and property managers, building code violations can occur during routine inspections—be it a faulty pipe, broken step or rusted fire escape. It is the speed and accuracy of addressing these infraction…
If phones can be “smart,” why not buildings? With the ever-expanding array of consumer technology available today, it should come as no surprise that residential buildings are incorporating more and more cutting-edge technology into the…
Brickwork is everywhere across the Chicagoland area. Around since the early 1600s, the popular building material is commonly used not only because of its aesthetic appeal, but also because of its practicality. Naturally weatherproof, b…
Warranties for products are simple to understand, most people might think. You go to the store, buy a computer or a DVD player or a TV, or even a larger appliance like a refrigerator, and you get a piece of paper describing a one-year …
When the power goes out and city dwellers are left in the dark, people assume they won’t be stuck in cold apartments for days. Just as we expect our hospitals to have backup power generators to save patients who are on life support syst…
Noise is a key quality-of-life problem for almost anyone living in a densely-packed urban environment. It's the bane of many a condo-dweller’s existence, and over the years engineers, architects, and designers have tried any number of w…
With the possible exception of fire, nothing is more damaging to residential buildings and the property of their occupants as leaks. Whether it’s a torrential deluge from the upstairs neighbor’s overflowing bathtub or a slow, seeping lea…