Take It To The Board with Donna DiMaggio Berger
Take It To The Board with Donna DiMaggio Berger
Everything You Need to Know About Concrete Restoration Projects with Alessandra Bianchini, of Carousel Development and Restoration Inc.
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At some point, every building will require concrete repairs and restoration. If you've ever undertaken a concrete restoration project, you're aware of the many challenges they entail: substantial costs, lengthy time delays, irritation over hurricane shutters, windows and doors, uncooperative owners and the potential for incidental damage. Host Donna DiMaggio Berger sheds light on these projects with guest Alessandra Bianchini, Vice President and General Counsel of Carousel Development and Restoration Inc. Alessandra is the fourth generation of her family to be in the construction industry, and in this episode of Take It To The Board, she does a deep dive into how contractors typically handle these large projects and what your community can expect from start to finish on a concrete restoration.
Their conversation on balcony restoration gets down to brass tacks on every front—from the necessity of removing every last tile to address spalling, to the legal hurdles faced when trying to gain access to units. They also tackle worker safety measures, the importance of expert counsel, and offer advice for associations gearing up for significant inspections. As Donna and Alessandra reveal, it's not just about finding the right team; it's about peace of mind. Join them for a conversation that could provide valuable insights for your community's next major restoration endeavor.
Donna and Alessandra also discuss how increasingly violent weather patterns and climate change can impact the maintenance needs and structural integrity of concrete buildings and also unpack the importance of clear, consistent communication and detailed planning when undertaking concrete repairs in an occupied building. They share best practices for ensuring minimal disruption while keeping association residents in the loop and (mostly) happy during these vital projects.
Conversation highlights include:
- Best practices for work crews doing concrete repair and restoration in occupied buildings
- What causes concrete to deteriorate and how long that process typically takes
- Best practices for re-installing tile or other coverings on balconies, post-concrete restoration
- The point at which a building is no longer a candidate for restoration
- Impact of climate change on the structural integrity of buildings
- Trends and innovations in concrete restoration technology and techniques
Hi everyone, I'm attorney Donna DiMaggio-Burger, and this is Take it to the Board, where we speak Kondo and HOA. At some point, every building will require concrete repairs and restoration, and for those of you listening who have gone through a concrete restoration project in your community, you know how expensive, time consuming and, at times, frustrating they can be. The goal of today's episode is to give our listeners some real insight into how these projects work from someone who has spent her entire lifetime surrounded by construction industry talk. My guest today, alessandra Bianchini, serves as the vice president and general counsel of Carousel Development and Restoration Inc.
Speaker 1Carousel is a concrete restoration and project management firm that is located in Delray Beach and has been doing business in Florida since 1979. Alessandra is the fourth generation of her family to be in the concrete repair industry and in 2011, she joined Carousel on a full-time basis after graduating with an LLM in environmental law. She is admitted to practice in both New York and Florida. In 2015, alessandra also obtained her general contractor's license. As a fellow daughter of an entrepreneurial Italian father, I've been looking forward to this conversation for a while. I'm sure Alessandra and I will have some similar experiences to relate. So, alessandra, welcome to Take it to the Board.
Speaker 2Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it. It's my pleasure.
Speaker 1This is a long overdue topic. We're in our third season and we haven't yet spoken to a general contractor, so we're delighted to have you on and listen. We have listeners all over, but for our listeners in Florida, a lot of them already know the name Carousel and the concrete restoration and project management work that you do, unlike construction new construction what I want to ask you about, to start with, is how do your crews approach challenges associated when you're working in a building that's wide? I get the calls all the time, alessandra, about the concrete restoration and the balconies and everything else, so how do you navigate that? It is challenging.
Speaker 2It's important to remember that these are people's homes and so, unlike new construction where nobody's living there, you have to be very mindful of their interiors, even though you're only working on the outside. Their schedules, the noise level, trip hazards, their cars with dust and slurry. It's incredibly complicated when people are living in the building, which they always are. Even in the summer, you'd still have residents. It may only be 40% occupied, but it's occupied nonetheless, and so what we try and do is we have a pre-construction meeting before we start the project.
Speaker 2We invite the members to join us, whether it be via Zoom or in person, and we like to tell them the area we're going to stage things. We tell them about temporary walls and how far back things need to be moved, and to let them know about the good, the bad, the ugly of what their project is going to look like. And then we send a follow-up letter out, because people need to know that if we have to come into your unit to perform concrete repairs, floor is going to be damaged. We do not have rubber chipping hammers, so things are loud, things are dusty, and I find that transparency really is the key here. You don't want your client to be in the dark and that's when they tend to get aggravated. We try and just address it up front. We don't sugarcoat it.
Speaker 1Tell them it's going to be a headache Right, restoring the concrete on, let's say, 12 stories, 12 stories with balconies. But how much lead time do you have? And let me give you an example. So I got a call a few weeks back. Same thing. They were doing the concrete restoration on all the balconies. This person said all of his fine antiques were covered with dust and were damaged and he wanted the association to pay for all of that. When I dug into it with the board yes, of course the company, both the board and the GC and the project manager they had all put out information, they had held meetings. They had told people pull your things back, cover them, remove them. I guess we both know from experience that some people are not the best when it comes to listening or reading or paying attention. But how far does this process typically start? Let's say you're talking about a high-rise building, of prepping people for what to expect.
Speaker 2We like to send out notices and have the pre-construction meeting before we even mobilized the project, so weeks in advance, and then we usually will send the letter out again once we've started the actual restoration.
Speaker 2Regarding when we are getting to a unit in particular, because restoration the schedule changes. You may think you're going to complete one area in three weeks and you open it up, there's more damage. You're there for four or five weeks and so the schedule is really always a moving target and we like to update that with every pay application. But we also have weekly meetings where we'll tell the board and the property manager we anticipate getting to these units in two weeks and there will likely be invasions. So in a week they need to pull the furniture back. So we try and keep them updated as the schedule shifts. But when it comes time to okay, it's time to move your things and get serious, we like to give them about a week. You also don't want to do it too early because then they've moved all the furniture and they're inside and they're uncomfortable and then you don't get there for another three weeks, and so it's a balance.
Speaker 1Yeah, the less angry you make people, probably the better it is, and I imagine, though, that there are some challenges when you're dealing with buildings that have a lot of renters in them who may have a different approach to those. Hey, now's the time to do something, because I know, on my end as association counsel not always, but sometimes, the renters mindset is a little bit different Like, well, this isn't my job to move stuff, this is the especially if it was a furnished apartment that's being rented. This is my landlord's job, and there's just a disconnect there. Do you find that as well?
Speaker 2Yes, and I think that often that the renters or they may not want to move it, or sometimes they don't know there's lack of communication between the owner and the renter. And then the renter says I don't understand, I rented this from you for the summer and now there's a protection wall up. I can't even see the beach. What did I pay for? And so oftentimes we're in the middle of that argument and we shouldn't be, but it happens, yeah.
Speaker 1And the clients are the board, you know the associations are as well at times. You know, in terms of somebody who is an investor owner and is renting out. Well, you know what, as an investor owner, there are ongoing repair and maintenance projects that need to be undertaken and it will impact whoever's renting at that particular time. But I want to ask you, when it comes to let's take balconies because that's on, everybody is always asking about the balconies. Do you always, when you're doing concrete restoration on a balcony, do you always, Alessandra, have to remove the sliding glass doors? Is that a given that those doors are coming up?
Speaker 2No, Okay, no, that is the engineer's call. They will perform their auditory investigation where they listen for the concrete and they tell us the areas to open up. And if it's close to the track and they believe the spa continues underneath the track, then the door has to come out. But it's not always the case.
Speaker 1Well, talk to us about spalling. So just a little overview. If you go on a balcony, people looked at oh there's a few cracks. We think they're cosmetic. Tell us how you can tell whether a balcony is experiencing structural deterioration.
Speaker 2So spalls sound hollow and it looks almost unprofessional, if you will, when you go out there with a golf club or a hammer and you just knock on the slab. But that's really the best tool we have is to listen so we can hear this is hollow, this is likely a spall. This area is good, so we don't have to mark that, and sometimes you see the cracks. The rebar will expand when it's corroding and it will pop the concrete Most of the time. Sometimes you you don't see it and you only hear it, and so that's why it's important to do a visual and auditory inspection.
Speaker 1You're dealing with balconies. Let's say there's shutters. Okay, you're in a building with hurricane shutters. I know we're seeing each other. We're only capturing the audio and you're laughing. And you're laughing because you know where I'm headed with this, because this is a big thing with the shutters. Now you, obviously you know, I guess some communities they make the owners take them down. Sometimes they may ask a company like carousel to take them down. They still have to be stored they. Also, there has to be some Evaluation as to whether or not these things are code compliant and can go back. Anything you want to tell us about shutters.
Speaker 2People love their shutters, they become very attached to them and my best advice to an association and a board is to Hellier unit owners, before you start the restoration project, what the call is on the shutters. If people want to keep their shutters, they should write an email or a letter I want to keep my shutters. If they want them disposed of, if they want to keep them, they should make sure that they were permitted Originally, that they were installed. The city, the town, municipality governing body said yes, these are okay. If I take your shutter off and I go to reinstall it and it wasn't permitted, I can't put back something that that was illegally done in the first place. Also, if you want to keep them, we usually wrap them in viscine and keep them on your balcony so this way they don't get lost, they don't get confused, and it's helpful as well when the unit owners go and take a look at your shutters, move them, take a video of it, look at your mechanisms.
Speaker 2Oftentimes your, your locking system is incredibly corroded. The wheels are corroded and people don't realize it until they really take a good look. And it's important to know what you had before, because oftentimes, when they do get reinstalled, that's when you do the inspection, you're starting to notice things that you never saw before. So my advice is to look at your shutters before and when shutters are installed after a concrete restoration project by other people, not the restoration contractor, it is wildly important that the association make sure that they are installed correctly. We see a lot of Perrosion happening from improperly installed shutters. Water is getting through where the tapcon should be. They're not caught properly. So it's important that after you spend all this money on a restoration project, if people want their shutters back, that they are installed correctly.
Speaker 1And that's such an important point because I have so many clients that, after just what you said, after spending millions of dollars on a Concrete restoration project, the last thing they want is Mrs Smith's cousin Coming out to reinstall these and potentially reinstall them in a way that is again gonna damage the concrete. So there's a lot of communities that are looking to get away from shutters and I also get away from tile on the balcony floors, which I want to talk to you about in a minute, but that's another big one. But the current law in Florida is that people have to be allowed to have shutters, even over impact glass. I know that there's a bill pending that may change that, so we have to wait to see. And again, in other Jurisdictions throughout the country it really depends, but not everybody is subject to hurricanes the way Florida is subject to hurricanes.
Speaker 1But I want to see a couple things again about the balcony. So let's say you're working on a balcony and it's unsafe, right? You've got the swing stage there, you've got material there. It's really not safe for people to go out onto that balcony. What's your recommendation? Would your company put something there to prevent people from Accessing the balcony? And then, of course, when we get pushed back from owners, it's like that's a fire code violation, because I've got to be able to get out on my balcony. What about those issues?
Speaker 2So once we have mobilized a stack, I have equipment and I have employees out there and materials. I Recommend to all of our supervisors every unit gets locked from the outside. Not everybody will try and open the door. Some people can control themselves. Others need fresh air and if I don't have any railings up, that is a huge, huge issue. And even if the railings are still installed you have safety lines, you have dust. It is very dangerous for people to be out there, for not just the unit owners but also my employees. They don't need people coming in and out. So we do lock it from the outside doesn't get unlocked until we complete our punch list and our equipment is gone and People do.
Speaker 2I receive a lot of letters from unit owners that claim it is a fire code violation. They've called the fire department and the building department on us. The building department and fire department come out and they say it is not a fire code violation. You were not going to jump off your balcony from the fifth floor if there is a fire. It is not a means of escaping a fire. As long as we provide ingress and egress to the building right, then we're fine.
Balcony Restoration and Maintenance
Speaker 1So so I love hearing that you take that precaution, because I will tell you there are some Restoration companies out there that what they do is they tell the board to tell people not to go out Onto their balconies. And I do not believe the honor system works and my question is okay. So you've told the two owners? Do the two owners tell the cleaning people? Do they tell the piano teacher who's coming who may want to step out for a smoke break on the balcony? Are they telling everyone? Like you said, there's real liability here, there's real safety hazards, not just for the residents but for your workers. So I think the precautions you mentioned, which is just lock it so you, you know you take them out of harm's way that's significant to me.
Speaker 1You talked about stacks. That's another question. I get all the time Okay, access. So we've got some disgruntled people living in these communities not always, but there's always one or two. Okay, and Mr Jones won't give us access, but you need to stage equipment from that point. Okay, talk to me about stacks, because I always hear, okay, well, we're gonna have to move to another stack while you, donna, go to court to get an injunction so we can get on that balcony. That's gonna take some time. We're moving to another stack now. Now we're gonna have to, I guess, demobilize, remobilize, and it's gonna cost money. Can you talk about that, sure?
Speaker 2It's funny because oftentimes you would be my first phone call if I Can't. I've called a mr Lester many times, acting for him to get in touch with his client.
Speaker 1So so far our listeners. Steve Lester is the chair of the practice group, the construction law practice group, here at backer, who is a big fan of Alessandro's.
Speaker 2I, ideally, you have your plan on how you're going to mobilize your means and methods before you even start the project, and so stack one, let's say, is where we're going to begin and I we set our equipment up. If we we usually start top-down, gravity dictates if a unit owner is not clearing their Property, their furniture off of off of the balcony, and we don't want to touch it, we don't want to break it, you have to move stacks. You don't want to even really start on that stack because it'll mess up your whole flow. Their furniture could get very dirty. It ends up being a big mess. So we will, you will have to.
Speaker 2If you're it's a, if it's a swing stage, you have to go to the roof and you have to Take the swing stage down and you have to move the equipment over and Then you have to sort of revamp your whole whole schedule. It's not necessarily always as simple as just moving the equipment and starting a new stack. It could also depend on where you are in in the work, if somebody does get out there and they mess up your waterproofing, or if if you're Reporing in your company from the bottom up, they could not be enough from the whole schedule off. So it happens, the associations lawyers usually handle that, because the board always throws their hands up and says we don't know what else to do and I say you have to call your attorney.
Speaker 1Yep and get and get us access. You know I wasn't actually going to ask you about roof anchors, but every time I do a podcast episode, I you know zig and zag with the conversation. If a building has issues with roof anchors, does that? I imagine that would delay your project, and is that something that a restoration company would rectify because you've got to cook those swing stages Into the roof on the roof anchors, correct?
Speaker 2Well, a lot of the buildings that we work on don't even have the roof anchors.
Speaker 1Oh, okay.
Speaker 2Most of the buildings that we work on have a parapet wall, and so you would clamp your equipment to that wall. If the Building does not have a parapet wall, you use a system called weights and beams. It's exactly what it sounds like a beam with almost looks like gym equipment, if you will, with the weights on the side, and your swing stage would be attached to that, and then you'd have another system for your safety line, because every employee needs their own safety line. They cannot be attached to the same line as the swing stage or each other, and it all has to move as you go around the building, because it can only be on so much of an angle Before.
Speaker 1Osha said you have to move the equipment, so I promised our listeners they were gonna learn more about restoration projects than maybe many of them ever knew before. I want to talk about the tile. Okay, so that's the other thing. The big thing is the shutters and then we've got the tile. So you know, in these older buildings where I imagine they form, you know, Most of your client towel which is building stall, you know you're not doing restoration work on brand new buildings. People over the years have put, you know, custom tiles and marble and all of this on their balconies. They are not happy, because I hear from my clients they're not happy when that stuff gets ripped up. First I want to ask you you talked about spalling in the auditory Inspection. I would imagine you have to take up all of the flooring or just some of it. How does that work?
Speaker 2Well, one of the biggest issues with tile is that if there is a fault underneath, you won't necessarily see it. It won't pop the tile, so you could have very bad concrete and have no idea. When you do do the auditory inspection. If you're hitting the tile and you hear something hollow, it may just be the tile delaminating, could be what we just colloquially called a bad tile job, or it could be a spa, and you don't know until you lift up the tile. If I have to lift up one square foot of tile, the whole balcony has to come up. I cannot remove tile without breaking it. I cannot do concrete repairs in a section without getting the rest of the tile incredibly banged up, cracked. Heavy equipment's going to be on there and ultimately, if I'm repairing one square foot or two square feet, what is the point? I'm not going to waterproof just one small area. You want the benefit of the contractor being up there. Rip up the tile, waterproof the whole slab do it properly.
Speaker 1I can just imagine your contractors on a balcony with the owner looking peering out through the windows as you're ripping up this tile. It's got to be challenging. So you take the tile up. Now we've done the beautiful restoration, it's all laid down, the waterproof. Do you also always routinely waterproof? Correct, when you do when you restore a balcony, correct?
Speaker 2That's the standard that call is up to the engineer and the specifications and how they have specified the work to be performed. I have not come across a project or an engineer that does not require waterproofing.
Speaker 1Rebar is already rusting. Does that have to be replaced or you just putting? Is the standard to put fresh concrete on top of rusted rebar or no? You have to remove the rebar as well.
Speaker 2So what you have to do is you either have to clean it or, depending on how degraded it is, you replace it. If it's salvageable, you sandblast it or wire wheel it. You clean it. The engineer will then come back out and take a look to see. If it's too bad, they say cut it, flights it, we'll put another rebar and we'll dowel it in and you'll get a new mat of steel. But most of the time it can be salvaged. We clean it, then we coat it, then we put back the clean concrete and the engineer inspects every one of those steps before we put the concrete back.
Speaker 1So now we've done it, it's all beautiful again. And now my owner says I want to put back some tile on this brand new. And it's kind of like the shutter discussion we just had right, which I assume a lot depends on the installation. So there is a way to install tile in a manner that won't accelerate future deterioration. So there's a good tile job and a bad tile job, but what's the industry standard, Alessandra, in terms of putting tiles and others you know, astroturf and other things on top of these balconies?
Speaker 2The industry standard is to just do your waterproofing and a spray deck on top with either a knockdown or a trial finish, and to not put tile back. It goes back to what I was saying earlier. If I repair one section of your balcony but not the rest of it, you still have concrete deteriorating on the parts that weren't repaired, even though it wasn't a spa when we were there. It will at some point. And if your tile goes back, you're in the same position where you don't know it's happening and also you know the grout lines are very porous, so water and salt do get in through those grout lines. So the standard is no tile goes back, which I'm a homeowner myself. I don't live in a condo, I live in a house, but I am a homeowner and I like my tile. If somebody told me they were coming in and ripping out my tile, I would not be pleased either, but it's unfortunately. For the good of the building it has to have to be taken up, waterproofed, and we recommend not putting it back.
Speaker 1You know, I've had this conversation with one of my best friends who owns a design company, an interior design company. She was on the podcast I think it was the first season and we talked about that. Because the aesthetic sometimes is, I want that beautiful marble to just flow out through, you know, from my living room onto the balcony. But, to your point, when you're living in a multifamily building, sometimes your personal desires have to take a backseat to what's in the best interest of everybody and certainly what's in the best interest of preserving the structural integrity of the building. So you heard it here, folks, if you really like that, look maybe a single family house, I don't know. Well, I guess. At that point I want to ask then, so to an average layperson, why is concrete deteriorating at all? Why don't we just build things and it just stays forever? What's causing the concrete to deteriorate so?
Speaker 2chlorides in the air, essentially salt and moisture. So, being near the ocean, south Florida is special. It has more chlorides in the air than most parts in the country, and so what?
Concrete Maintenance and Climate Change
Speaker 2happens is those salts sit on your balcony, the rain, the heat, the moisture, and concrete is porous, so concrete absorbs it and that salt goes into, gets to the rebar. Rebar is a metal. It starts to rust. As it rusts it expands and it pops your concrete and there you have the spall and from there it just sort of trickles down. You see the stucco. If it's on a vertical drop you could see the stucco delaminating. And when you take chemistry class in high school and you say I don't need this, you might. If you go into concrete, you might.
Speaker 1So let's say we have a building located right on the coast in South Florida. How long would that process take to really start doing a number on the concrete?
Speaker 2If the building was built well, you could get 15 years. Some you start seeing it as early as 10. Some might make it to 20. But I'd say that 15 year mark is probably a good average.
Speaker 1And if you have a construction defect, a lot less time to see the deficiency show up. Yep, wow, wow. Are you seeing anything related to climate change in your industry? You think with regard to concrete?
Speaker 2What we're seeing is these storms that we are now experiencing. You know, traditionally winter in Florida has been pretty dry compared to the summer, and when you do normally get a rainstorm in South Florida, it's that two, three hours massive pouring and then it stops. And recently what we've been experiencing are these steady rains, wind for 24 hours where it is just pounding the building, and so what's happening is, because of these climate changes, you're seeing more leaks. The water is sitting there longer, being absorbed longer. Water is a miraculous force of nature. It will find its way. So if there is a crack, it will find its way through that crack and gravity dictates it could travel a couple of stories down and you think you have a leak on the third floor. It's really coming from the sixth floor. So these rainstorms that are 24 hours or it's accelerating this issue.
Speaker 1So in an ideal world, how often would associations maintain their concrete so they keep it in optimal condition?
Speaker 2I think your best bet is probably, every year, have the maintenance crew do a walkthrough and look for any signs, so you can call your contractor to come out and fix things as they come up, rather than necessarily waiting for a two, three million dollar job. You want to stay ahead of it and so, if you don't have the maintenance crew to go around and look every year, every three to five years, you definitely want somebody to come out and take a look, because these buildings are, as you said, 50, 60 years old and once it starts it doesn't just because you had a concrete restoration project. More often than not, you're not replacing all the balconies, so it will continue, and so you need to be ahead of it.
Speaker 1It's really important advice. I mean some places that you know they've waited a long time until it's crucial. It's critical at that juncture and I would imagine it costs less if you do it as you go along. Right, so to make sense from a money standpoint, to do it as you go along, Absolutely.
Speaker 2If you have 100 square feet to repair today, today's prices will be less than two years from now. I've never been in a world where prices decrease for labor materials. So if you have an issue, address it.
Speaker 1Have you ever gone out to a building and it's just too far gone, where it's like we can't restore this? This needs to really probably be knocked down. I mean, I would imagine at some point restoration may not be an option.
Speaker 2Yeah, I think what happens mostly from our perspective is you don't really know the extent of damage until you start. So unless an engineer has gone out and performed a survey and said absolutely not, you can't really understand the full scope of how bad it is until you start opening things up and then you, at that point you're committed and usually continue on with the project, unless it is a true life safety issue where you have to stop and people have to get out. But unfortunately the way it is is you can't see through concrete, so you don't know when to do.
Speaker 1So in Florida again, we've got people listening all over, but we have a lot of listeners in Florida and after Champlain Towers and after the legislation that was passed Senate Bill 4-D, and then the Glitchville 154. You've got milestone inspections. Still the deadline remains 12.30, 12.24. I imagine you guys are busier than ever. I mean, how are you keeping up with the demand?
Speaker 2We are incredibly busy and all of our competitors are incredibly busy. Unfortunately, a lot of clients. We have to say we just can't. If you want to start this season, we can't be your contractor. Or can the building wait till the end of the year? Give us six months or we're not opposed to say I'm sorry but I can recommend another contractor. There are several good companies in this area, but it is a common theme. We are all very busy, so where do you find your workforce?
Speaker 1I was talking to somebody the other day that more high school. I read somewhere that more high school students are now thinking about going into the trades as opposed to acquiring massive student debt to go to college. So is that a place where companies like Carousel look in various trade schools? Or where do you find your workers?
Speaker 2We haven't experienced that yet. I would love if at a high school kids, I say kids 18 year old would want to come here and be taught and they can work their way up and that would be great. Most of our employees are the neighborhood in which Carousel our office?
Speaker 2there's a lot of word of mouth. We have a lot of gentlemen that live in the neighborhood and so they tell cousins and friends. We also have several of our supervisors who are heavily involved in their church, and so a lot of our employees come from the congregations where they attend church Word of mouth. But it is very difficult to find people that want to be outside on a side of a balcony in the Florida summer, chipping overhead concrete.
Speaker 1We had Jane Gilbert on the podcast. I don't know if you know Jane she's Miami Dade's Chief Heat Officer. She was actually the first, world's first Chief Heat Officer and she's right in our backyard and she was talking about how, again, tying in the climate change, we're going to have to take into account the climate. When we've got people working outside, whether it's roofers, people working in concrete, restoration landscapers we're going to have to start thinking about how to provide those people with breaks and safe conditions.
Speaker 2Absolutely. The guys are taking more breaks. They're working a little bit slower because it is so hot in the summer here now, and it's important we have not just OSHA obligation but from a morality standpoint you weren't these guys to be safe Guys? We do have some women that work for us as well, but you want them to be safe and you want them to be happy, and so it's important that we do provide water and mandatory breaks.
Speaker 1So, as the storms are getting stronger, are there? Are there innovations in concrete that are on the horizon to address what we're seeing in terms of the weather patterns?
Speaker 2Most of what we're seeing in new products are in the way of waterproofing. I know one company in particular has come out with a new product that instead of a three or four step process it's a one or two step process. So when you put down waterproofing it has to be dry. The slab has to be dry, which means it has to be dry for about 24 hours, which means that the day before it could not have rained and you cannot be expecting rain later that day, and more often than not our projects are full force in the summer when it is the rainiest down here. So it is a little bit of a dance when you get to the portion of the job where you're putting waterproofing and three, four days could go by and you can't put anything down. This new product that requires less steps. It also it dries faster, so your window of time needed is smaller, which means that the job can go faster and so that we're seeing mostly in the waterproofing areas, and some strides.
Speaker 1Great. Speaking of storm season in hurricanes, what do you do when you've got a project, you're in the midst of it and a named storm is approaching? What do you do with all your equipment?
Family Business Challenges in Construction
Speaker 2Alessandra, I usually cry for a little bit and I send up a lot of emails out. Most of our contracts have the procedure that needs to take place, so we're usually responsible for our own equipment to dismantle it. We send a letter or an email to the building manager and the engineer and we say we're going to stop forward progress and we're going to start buttoning up and the guys that are on your project stay on your project to dismantle the equipment. If somebody needs a dust or temporary wall to be reinforced, we make sure that their temporary wall is reinforced. Make sure it's foamed or caulked. The water doesn't get in. Bring the equipment down. We call the dumpsters, we call the toilet companies. Everybody has to come out. And what's been happening? Thankfully, what's been happening is we haven't had direct hits, so we've been lucky. But it is a bit of a scramble and when you have jobs from Jupiter to North Miami, everybody's running around like a chicken without a head, I am sure.
Speaker 1And if you've taken the shutters off, do you put plywood or do you run and try to put the shutters back on? How do you address that issue? You do plywood, you do plywood. You can just cover it up, yeah.
Speaker 2Lots of times what we try to do is, if it's just a slab repair, we only remove the bottom track of the shutter, and so we'll leave the shutter hanging on the top track and we push it to the side and tie it and wrap it while we're there for construction. So if a storm does come and we left your shutter, we can just move it back and close it. Oh, that's smart.
Speaker 1So I read that your company is involved with the International Concrete Repair Institute. What does that organization do?
Speaker 2It is, as the name suggests an international organization. It's an international organization that focuses on restoration concrete restoration as opposed to new construction. The organization has been around in South Florida since 1976. So a couple of years older than me and I think in 2014, I was elected Treasurer of the Southeast Florida Chapter and I have been serving as Treasurer ever since. It's a great organization. They have two conferences every year, one in the spring and one in the fall, and people from all over the country and Canada they come and they do classes on concrete repair, new products. It's really great networking. We just had our first networking event of the year last week down at Tap42 and engineers, material suppliers, contractors we all get together and we like to talk about concrete.
Speaker 1It sounds fascinating. I'm sure there's a lot of cocktails involved.
Speaker 2There is a lot of cocktails.
Speaker 1You are correct. Well, I want to switch and I want to talk about carousel being a family business. Okay, that fact, I did not know that and that's not the case for a lot of these restoration companies. I will tell our listeners that I said in the intro. So my father, vic DiMaggio, he owned Hollywood Bread. I don't know if you remember Hollywood Bread in the Hollywood with the building there, the Hollywood Bread building that. Remember being a kid that was my dad's company.
Speaker 1I'm one of four kids and my dad said to the four of us you're not going into the family business, we're not forget it, don't even think about it. We're not bringing you here to partner. He said we're not bringing any of you in. I don't know if that was like a lack of confidence in any of us or it was something, or he just wanted to wrap things up. But in your case, your father, michael, started the business 40 years ago. I think he was working with your. I read he was working with your great uncle, joe. Is that correct? And this was during the housing boom in the 80s and they were building houses. And then in the 90s they decided to switch and go into go from new construction to structural restoration. So I wanted to ask you I know you're an attorney, you're very accomplished what was your personal path into this family business and do you have siblings who are also in this business? I have to know.
Speaker 2Okay, so I will start a little bit with my father. My father did restoration back in Philadelphia when he was younger. His great grandfather opened up a restoration company when he came over from Italy and he worked with his seven sons, and then from there everybody went to their own little trade. My grandfather was a mason by trade and my dad worked with him. He worked on the Liberty Bell up in Philadelphia. He worked on the art museum steps. He pointed the steps. They worked on City Hall and then he moved down here in the 70s and he opened Ferris Fowl with his uncle through marriage in 1979. And so when they started, they were doing new construction and then, as the boom hit in the 90s, companies like the Narn Devasta just couldn't keep up. They were so big, and so he went back to his original roots, which is restoration. And, similar to your father, my father never said that, oh, this will be yours one day, or all my children will work with me. That he was always no, no, no.
Speaker 2Go to college, go find your own path. And I went. I graduated from the University of Miami in 2007 with an English literature degree. I know Now I'm doing concrete. Life is funny and from there. I went to law school and it was in law school that the conversations started to happen about well, when you're finished you'll come work for care. So you know a little bit here, a little bit there. And I remember I passed the bar and me work in Florida and I moved home and I was home for about a week and he turned to me and said so, so when are you going to work?
Speaker 1He said when he met work for him right, correct, correct. And I said oh.
Speaker 2I was applying for jobs and other. I was thinking I would go be a lawyer, an actual lawyer, and here here I've been here for 13 years. I do have siblings. I have an older sister and a younger brother, and I am. My sister is a very talented artist. She does actually work with us, she does the safety inspections and the marketing, and my brother has a PhD in jazz, piano and wow professor at a university and so he has no interest in the family business. And my sister and I are here and I sort of just fell into it. My siblings call me mini Mike, my brother.
Speaker 1And they're just happy that you're keeping the legacy business alive.
Speaker 2I think someone's happy to be here, so have somebody else here reading all the nasty emails we get. It's not them.
Speaker 1You know it's funny. So your story is actually more similar to my husband Michael's story, who is also a lawyer. In the same thing he started at Schatz and then at some point very early on, his family was, like you know, be great to have an in-house council for this company. It was a swimsuit company and he went in. Now there were some challenges Michael's back to after many years. He's back to having his own practice. But family businesses are unique and that's why he specializes in actually representing family owned businesses, small and mid-sized businesses because it's different when you're working with your family. So what are kind of the ground rules at Carousel for the Bianchini's when it comes to, let's say, you have a difference of opinion about something? How do you navigate that?
Speaker 2I think what is important to understand in family companies is that when you come in as the newbie, you want to come in with gusto and I know everything. I just got out of college and I know about all this new technology, and there is something to be said for doing this for 50 plus years. There is knowledge there that you cannot be taught in school, and so what I've learned over the last 13 years is that my father knows more than I give him credit for, and so you learn more from listening, and it's been. There have been challenging times, there have been arguments, there have been tears, but over the last 13 years, I think we have a really good flow.
Speaker 2Now, when there is a disagreement, I always say, being the middle child, I'm the great moderator, I don't care for confrontation. I don't think it really gets you anywhere. If there's a disagreement, I sit back, take a day or two and I formulate my thoughts and then I will address it and oftentimes more often than not I will say my father will turn to me and go. You know, I think you're right. That is a good idea. Okay, thanks, it's just about. You know, like any other company or job or life in general, you have to understand the personality of those with whom you surround yourself, and so you have to respect that they bingo, that was so.
Speaker 1if I'm hearing you, it's about respect, which is very important in Italian culture and specifically when it comes to the family.
Speaker 2Absolutely. You have to respect Mike's the boss.
Speaker 1That I know because I've lived that. What about challenges? I wanted to ask you, as a strong woman, you know involved, you know a crucial part of this company challenges in the construction industry overall, as a woman, I have to say overwhelmingly, the individuals I have come into contact with have been gracious, accepting.
Speaker 2On the flip side, more often than not I have people say oh, because you're a woman, will you please make sure you're at this board meeting because there's a lot of female owners and your. They tend to trust other women more in the concrete industry rather than hearing it from a man. I have engineers that have been wonderful and respectful. They've reached out to me before calling my father to say we know that you're next in line to take over and you know we just want to talk to you about this issue. Or even competitors will call and pick my brain about things there have its life. There have been situations where people have given off, handed comments, but for the most part I have to say owners, other attorneys that I deal with at engineers everybody has been very respectful. It's actually been a pleasant surprise because 13 years ago there were less women than there are now, but now I would say consistently it's still pretty much about 10 percent and most of the women are engineers, right.
Concrete Restoration Succession Planning & Advice
Speaker 1Exactly so I'm. But you know you're right, there's pros and cons and when it gets down to it, when you start speaking, and they know you and you know your stuff and, as I said in the intro, you grew up, I mean, even though you weren't in the business. From the time you were two years old, you were at the table listening to your dad, your uncle, your uncles, your, you know your grandpa, so you've kind of been, you know, bred for this. Once you start talking and they see your expertise and that you care, in my, in my, in my experience, when you're dealing with community associations because it's not like you're dealing with some, you know owner that somewhere else and it's a big corporation you're dealing, as you said from the outset, with people living in these buildings. It really is about do you care about the work you're doing and do you care about the outcome?
Speaker 2Absolutely, and I think it shows you know, being a family owned company, I have a vested interest in keeping a good reputation and keeping this company moving forward. For another, I mean, well geez, the minimum 35 years.
Speaker 1If anybody listens to this podcast episode, they're going to hold you to that.
Speaker 2I do the math on that and I think well, my father, he just turned 75, on Friday Actually happy birthday dad.
Speaker 1Yeah, let him know.
Speaker 2And if I, if I keep going until 75, it's going to be a while. So but I do, I care. I care about the company, I care about the work we do and I care about our employees, and some of these men have been with us for 30 years. They're like family. So well.
Speaker 1Have you thought about a succession plan? Alessandra, do you have kids? Yeah, are you starting to groom them for the concrete restoration?
Speaker 2I do have children. I have two. I have a little girl who is nine and a little boy who is six, and we joke because we say that my daughter is the one with the personality to be the boss. Wonder where she got it from. There is, when I was probably still in college, my father and my uncle did do some succession planning and stock is in various state. You know things, but it's time to actually address that, now that I've been here for 13 years, it is something that we do need to look more closely at, which would be negligent if I didn't considering it.
Speaker 1After this episode, you'll come out and say maybe we should call a board meeting. You know, it's funny.
Speaker 2I've actually reached out to several attorneys because I you know that's something I'm going to handle. I have research and nobody. You think I would get some professional courtesy being another attorney, but nobody's calling me back.
Speaker 1So I'll have some names for you. So you've been so generous with your time. I want to thank you. Any final thoughts? Anything I didn't ask you that I should have, or any final thoughts for our listeners about the challenging, challenging environment of concrete restoration.
Speaker 2Yeah, I would like to just leave everybody with start early. If you have your 40 year inspection in two or three years, don't wait a year and a half or two years. Start early. It is a long process. You will have lots of questions, you will interview several engineers, so it is very important to begin your process early. Get a good engineer that knows restoration, that's been in the area, and they will recommend the contractors and get a contractor to that you feel comfortable with.
Speaker 2Somebody that will answer your questions. It doesn't always, unfortunately, come down to the price. I know a lot of people are on fixed incomes and these projects are expensive and loud and long. I'm surprised anybody likes me, but it is important to start early. This way, when you're in a scramble, poor decisions are made. Yeah absolutely.
Speaker 1You'll feel better about the process if you like the partner you're engaging with throughout the process. We find that even obviously with litigation painful, protracted, costly, but if you have the right litigation partner yet handling it with you, you just feel better about it.
Speaker 2Right On a two year project. You are going to be speaking with your contractor almost daily for two years. It is a relationship. It's important that it's somebody who knows what they're doing, somebody who's friendly, will answer your questions. It's important that the engineer and the contractor get along as well. Defer to your engineers, start early, and that's really what I want to leave you with.
Speaker 1Well, I thought my job was tough. I think yours is a lot tougher. Thanks a lot for being here today. Thank you so much, Donna. It was my pleasure. Thank you for joining us today. Don't forget to follow and rate us on your favorite podcast platform or visit tickettotheboardcom for more ways to connect.