When Building Electrification Uncovers Decades of Hidden Problems

When a post-war Upper West Side co-op decided to electrify to meet Local Law 97 requirements, they thought they had a clear roadmap. But what started as a $2 million project quickly spiraled into something much bigger and much more complex. Tina Larsson, CEO of The Folson Group, reveals why even well thought out projects can double in cost and scope. If you're planning any major infrastructure work, her insights could save your building from similar surprises. Habitat's Emily Myers conducts the interview.

Thanks for listening. Subscribe to this podcast for more stories on how New York co-ops and condos have solved a myriad of problems. Brought to you by Habitat Magazine, the "bible" that hundreds of board directors turn to every day!

Transcript

Emily Myers (00:00)
Welcome to Problem Solved, a conversation about the challenges facing New York co-op and condo board directors. I'm Emily Myers with Habitat Magazine, and I'm joined by Tina Larsson, CEO at the consultancy firm, The Folson Group. Tina, great to have you.

Tina Larsson (00:15)
Thank you so much, Emily. Great to be here.

Emily Myers (00:18)
So our conversation is going to focus on what happens when an infrastructure project snowballs. We'll discuss why it's so important for a board to have a comprehensive list of all the equipment and systems in the building. And we'll look at strategies to cope with the dreaded domino effect of one project necessitating another. So let's jump in with a look at a post-war co-op you're working with, Tina, on the Upper West Side. How did you get involved with the building?

Tina Larsson (00:46)
So thank you for the question. So let's back up. the building wanted to electrify. This board is very proactive. They want to adhere to the Local Law 97 carbon limits and they want to abandon carbon.

They had already engaged. had spoken to the New York City accelerator. They had already hired an energy consultant. And now all of a sudden they had these stacks of reports and they went like, now what do we do? And so they hired us. They found us. Well, we met them through NYC accelerator and

They hired us as a project manager to plan and get this project done.

Emily Myers (01:32)
So the building was looking to bring down carbon emissions in line with local law 97 and perhaps had the misconception that the energy audit would provide them with a blueprint going forward.

Tina Larsson (01:46)
That is absolutely correct. They thought that we get this energy consultants report and they will tell us this is what you need to do. But there are so many different options. So it takes a lot of evaluation and working with a board. What is it that you're really trying to accomplish? There's a lot of discovery in this. So just having a list of here are 20 different things that you can do.

is very often not very useful for boards.

Emily Myers (02:14)
So how did they decide to proceed then?

Tina Larsson (02:17)
So they hired us and we had a lot of calls with the board to discover what is it that they're planning and is this feasible. in this case, they had actually already had gotten a Con Edison load letter and the load letter determined that the building did not have enough electric capacity to electrify the building

the boiler, they did have, according to Con Edison they had enough electric capacity to install a domestic hot water heat pump. So that has already been taken care of. But in working with Con Edison we discovered some snowballing effect here. Domino. So Con Edison wanted us to, when they were

connecting, bringing in more electric capacity to the building, Corn Edison wanted us to put the temporary electric lines through the storm drain that goes into the vault, into where the electrical main box is located. In doing that, the electrician had some concern. They said, well, if there's corrosion in the storm drain,

We don't want this is electricity right now. First of all, the electrician and us, we looked at each other. went like, are you sure that you want to put electricity through water? Right. And, ⁓ but they were, they insisted. we brought in the plumber who dropped the camera down the storm drain and it turns out that the storm drains were completely corroded. So nothing was going through them, not even a drop of water.

This building is seventy-five years old. So we said, okay, so how do we replace the storm drain so we can facilitate this? In doing so, we had to bring in a structural engineer. And the structural engineer said, ⁓ it seems like we might have to do some research because we might have to structurally enhance the vault.

Emily Myers (04:10)
Right and the vaults are of course these spaces originally used I think for coal storage and they're enclosed and often forgotten basement spaces that can extend beyond the property line and under the street.

Tina Larsson (04:23)
Yes, and we actually do not know. We call it the vault. It's really the basement. We are actually not sure yet. We're still, because of the winter, we can't do it right now. So we are actually completely exposing the entire entrance slab and only at that time will we know if there is a vault or if everything can be removed inside of the property or inside of the building.

Emily Myers (04:48)
Okay, so what you're explaining then is a plan to electrify opening up a Pandora's box of potential vaults, remediation, storm drain repairs. What was the step-by-step solution for this building then?

Tina Larsson (05:01)
It was to bring in all the professionals that we needed and then engaging a structural engineer, also an electrical engineer who has to calculate all the load from all the different apartments so that we can really tighten up the plan to get all of this done in the proper way. So the electrical main box needs to be replaced, the feeder boxes need to be replaced, and then more...

electricity needs to be brought up not to all apartments but to many apartments in order to facilitate this heavier electric load.

Emily Myers (05:38)
So what was the original budget for the project and how have these complications changed that?

Tina Larsson (05:42)
Yes, so it was about $2 million and we don't have an exact number yet because we need to do the vault repairs first. And once the vault has been structurally enhanced, then we will have a much better idea of how much it's going to be. Very often we tell boards that it's going to take, if you get an estimate, it's probably

If it's an old building, it's probably going to take twice as long and be twice as expensive.

Emily Myers (06:11)
Gosh, so we're talking about projects snowballing, know, you doubling in cost in some cases. So what can boards do to get ahead of these situations? As you mentioned, budgeting for something larger is probably one strategy.

Tina Larsson (06:26)
Absolutely. Expecting that it's going to cost twice as much. I mean, that is also very often a general guideline with anything you do with old buildings. and take twice as long. But I mean, the solution is really our solution to this was that it turned into a multi-year project with a lot of planning. We're putting a lot of work in the planning stage to get this right. And then

It's really about evaluating all the systems that will be included in this. So a lot of energy specialists in the local law 97 space, they have experience when it comes to the heating plant, but there's so much more to it, structural, facades, exterior work, right? So taking a proactive approach and taking an inventory of all the different system at the

onset of the project, it's going to allow you to have a better sense of how much work it's going to involve, how many engineers you need to involve, and being able to proactively plan it. And in our opinion, the planning stage is really the most important stage.

Emily Myers (07:35)
you're sort of hinting at having an inventory of building systems so that perhaps if you know that your storm drain is 75 years old and hasn't been touched for that length of time, it's probably time to take a look at it before you start a big project. Is that what you're suggesting?

Tina Larsson (07:52)
Yes, absolutely. then again, the boards tend to not look into things that if there's nothing wrong, right? I mean, now in this particular case, when we brought in the plumber to drop the camera down the storm drain, we asked.

the staff and they said, ⁓ no, that has never worked. We said, what happens when it rains? And the staff actually knew that no water went down there. They knew, they told us that we have to take the broom out whenever it's raining because we have to move the water. But that had never been communicated. And that was very early on in us starting. So that was part of the discovery.

Emily Myers (08:35)
Gosh, so it's interesting what you're saying is the staff were perhaps sweeping out floodwater, you know, as a matter of course, it's always been done like this, this is how it does, how it works. And yet, of course, that hid a bit of an issue and an issue that complicated the building work when you went to electrify.

Tina Larsson (08:58)
Yeah, then one more thing about the staff is that we asked the super early on, we said the electrical box looks a little corroded, where is that water coming from? And he's been there for 20 years. He said it's always looked the same. And it didn't look so bad when it was closed. But as soon as the electrician opened up the box, we saw even more deterioration of the electrical box.

Emily Myers (09:25)
Gosh, so what are some of the takeaways? What

are the steps a board can take early on then to avoid unexpected expansions in a project scope?

Tina Larsson (09:34)
So we want to look at all the systems that are involved. So look at the vault. Is there any corrosion? Look at the storm frames. Look at the planters. Planters very old. There are lots of buildings that have planters outside of their buildings and there's often problems with the planters. Speak with the board. Do they have rights problems? Do they have leak problems? Do they have... So there's a lot of...

different ways to take a proactive approach because I have seen many like reserve studies of buildings, but never have I seen them mention storm drains

So they're there, they're always working, or slabs, know, entryway slabs or planters. Typically, a reserve study has facades and the mechanical systems, and the fire escapes that are rusty, but they don't really have all of these other systems that should be really investigated.

Emily Myers (10:33)
Okay, so

the reserve study needs a few more additions to it probably in most cases. What's the timeline for this co-ops project and when did it start and when will it finish?

Tina Larsson (10:39)
Yes.

So, it depends on when you consider when they started, because they started way before they. Got us involved, so we expect that it's going to be a 3 year project from what we started.

Emily Myers (10:57)
given everything this board has gone through, how are they thinking about future building maintenance and upgrades and their electrification project?

Tina Larsson (11:06)
So one of the things that we are doing is that any system that we encounter, we're making basically our own reserve study of every single system with serial numbers when it was installed, et cetera, cetera, for all the systems that we encounter. And they appreciate that.

I think that the most important takeaway is really to take a proactive approach because boards very often, they don't treat their building as a business and they don't bring in the professionals, this board did, but bringing in the professionals who truly understand that there are so many aspects to the same end goal.

I think that that is very valuable. we basically act as the quarterback. We're not engineers. We're not contractors. We're not specialists. We are quarterbacks. We are tying everything together and making sure that everybody's communicating. All the different professionals, contractors, board, staff, et cetera, and the property manager, of course. We're keeping the property manager in the loop the whole time.

so that they don't have to do it, but they know what's going on. They have to show up at board meeting. They have to arrange board meetings. So they need to be informed and in the loop on this whole process.

Emily Myers (12:27)
So ultimately, this building will electrify their domestic hot water and then install individual through wall heat pumps, is that right? Thereby electrifying, heating and cooling. So also touching the facade, I imagine.

Tina Larsson (12:39)
That's correct. That's correct. Yes,

Facade will be touched too. Lots of touch points on this project. It's a very challenging and exciting project.

Emily Myers (12:47)
Wow.

Gosh, and lots of valuable information there. Thank you, Tina, so much.

Tina Larsson (12:58)
Thank you very much, Emily. Thank you for having me.

Emily Myers (13:00)
That's Tina Larsson, CEO at the consultancy firm, The Folson Group.