Comments on: “Our roofs don’t leak.”

By: Joanne A. Schneider

Joanne A. Schneider — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 22:02:49 +0000

Hi Joseph, I remember when the architects said that! I’ve learned that it’s not the architects you need to get assurances from but the engineers. At Colgate, we have not (yet) had leaks but we had other issues regarding how well the mechanical system met specifications. The university sued the architect of record (we also had a design architect) who settled which paid for add-on features to the mechanical system which met the agreed upon specifications. Good luck with stemming the roof leaks.

By: Joseph

Joseph — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 21:03:15 +0000

Jeff, your questions are reasonable, but I’m not in a position to answer them and I don’t believe that knowing the answers would help us much. The way things are structured, LIS is not a customer of the architects, Facilities Services is. Facilities Services is charged with maintaining our buildings, and we’re their customer. It’s true that LIS has to cope with the water incursions, but FS pays for any expenses related to fixing them. It wouldn’t be appropriate for LIS to contact the architects directly any more than it would be for somebody to call BTS directly instead of calling Telephone Services if their phone wasn’t working.

I have communicated our frustrations to FS and to the folks in the Office of Facilities Planning who, for the most part, once a building is complete don’t have much more to do with it. The people on the front lines, who actually have to contract with the roofers and try to fix the problem, are as frustrated as we are.

By: Jeff Lahaie

Jeff Lahaie — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 13:22:06 +0000

Have the Architects commented? Have we sent them a bill for the damages? If they were so confident of their design, they should stand by it. Did the college get something in writing from them saying they would stand by their design?