One Forgotten Screw Can Cost Millions... | Fortress Building Envelope Consultants

 Water intrusion is the number one cause of construction lawsuits, and most of it is preventable. I sit down with Mark Stewart and Jeff Martin of Fortress Building Envelope Consultants to break down why roofs, walls, and windows fail and how small mistakes turn into million-dollar problems. We talk about the subcontractor gap, skipped mock-ups, poor supervision, COVID material substitutions, and why testing before cover-up can save massive future cost. If you build, specify, distribute, or insure projects, this conversation will change how you think about risk, communication, and accountability. 

Topics we covered:
• What is a building envelope, and how can it fail?
• How to prevent damage to waterproofing membranes during access and storage
• Why pre-roof meetings, protection plans, and mock-ups matter
• Who hires building envelope testing services and when to schedule them
• Practical steps to align manufacturers, subcontractors, and supervision

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I'm Stefanie Couch, the founder of Grit Blueprint. I grew up in a third-generation building supply business. I've worked inside dealers, distributors, and manufacturers. I built Grit Blueprint to solve problems I saw in our industry.

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Transcript

Field Disconnects And Subcontract Labor

Mark Stewart 0:00

What we're seeing in the field is that the labor that is being employed now is mostly subcontract labor. And there's just a disconnect between the details, maybe new innovations that the manufacturer might have or different uh processes of installation.

Stefanie Couch 0:15

How different it is when you say something in the office versus it translating to the field and how much that does get lost, even in the distribution of building products, not just even in the field, to go in from manufacturer to distributor. There's just a lot of things that can happen and go wrong. It's like that game of telephone, you know.

Jeff Martin 0:32

As Bart said earlier, there's a lot of disconnect between the contractor's office staff and the actual crews that are installing the work, teleport it to have good supervision.

Host Intro And Guest Background

Stefanie Couch 0:44

Welcome to the Grant Blueprint Podcast. I'm your host, Stefanie Couch. This is a spot where leaders talk about the stories, strategies, and systems that win in the building industry. We unpack how leaders and brands build their reputations and become unmistakable. Welcome to the Grit Blueprint Podcast. I'm your host, Stefanie Couch, and today I'm coming to you live from Grit Studios. And I'm here actually my first time ever interviewing two guests at once. So thank you for joining me, Mark and Jeff from Fortress Building Envelope Consultants. Thanks for coming on the show today.

Jeff Martin 1:23

Thank you for having us. Thank you.

What A Building Envelope Really Is

Stefanie Couch 1:25

And we are talking a lot about some of the things that y'all are seeing in the market. You guys do something called building envelope testing and consulting. You work with a lot of different industry parts, architects, you work with attorneys, you work with GCs, all different parts of the industry. But for those who maybe don't know what is a building envelope and what does a building envelope consultant do? Okay, tell me what is the building envelope.

Jeff Martin 1:51

The building envelope is code for what we consider the wrap of the building. It usually consists of roofing, walls, fenestrations, waterproofing, basically anything that keeps water out of the structure.

Stefanie Couch 2:05

Okay. And what does a building envelope consultant do? So what do you guys do here at Fortress?

Mark Stewart 2:11

Pretty much we're we are looking at every aspect from the below grade waterproofing up to the roof in terms of uh details, um damage and um its integrity.

How Other Trades Damage Roofs

Stefanie Couch 2:27

Yeah, and y'all have a roofing background. So y'all have both been in the commercial roofing space for what, three decades, a long time of experience of seeing these jobs and working on these jobs, quoting these jobs. And you guys were talking to me earlier, uh, something that kind of struck me a little bit is you're thinking about the roof and the waterproofing on a building. So many people touch that throughout the building construction, which wasn't really something I thought about a lot because you're you're putting that down, and then other trades are touching it, working with it, could be messing it up. And you guys are going out and you're testing those products to make sure they're still good to go. So tell me a little bit about how you work with people because a lot of people I don't think know all of the amazing things that could happen on a roof and how you're testing it to make sure that they don't go wrong.

Jeff Martin 3:16

Well, many times after both during and after construction, roofing, waterproofing, even the walls and other fenestrations of the uh building envelope while they're being installed and after installation, other trades can use those as a platform to install their process. Um to store materials, access to the job site, those type of uh things. A lot of them incur damage as a result of that, those processes. And unfortunately, that allows water into the systems and can be detrimental both from a short-term and a long-term uh effect on the building.

Pre‑Roof Meetings And Accountability

Stefanie Couch 3:54

Yeah, Mark, we were talking earlier about uh the importance of communication on the job site. You actually were building and doing roofs for a long time. You were talking about pre-roofing communication meetings. So tell me what does that mean and how do you think that could actually help problems not happen if you had upfront conversations?

Mark Stewart 4:13

Those meetings are so important. Once you get the meeting going, you make sure that you have everybody that's gonna touch that roof or that waterproofing system is in that meeting and that we're all communicating on what kind of protection that they're gonna use. And once once the system's in place and how important it is that they that they protect it as they're doing their own work and to protect that trade's work because it it's because it's the last protection before water gets into the building.

Stefanie Couch 4:45

Yeah, you were talking about something small like an HVAC person or you know, somebody leaving some screws on the roof, somebody else steps on the screws, goes into the waterproofing, not waterproofing anymore, all the way, it starts to leak ten years down the road, that could be a problem. That's all because one person left some screws on the roof. I would have never thought about it that, you know, in the minutiae, that little thing can really make a huge problem.

Mark Stewart 5:10

That's correct. I mean, and a lot of times those meetings that we'll have, I mean, there it's uh it's not a um a finger pointing contest or anything like that. But a lot of times those guys in the field can they know if they've punctured the roof or anything like that. Sometimes they're they're reticent to say anything because they might get in trouble or whatever. But we try to mitigate that uh it with the communication up front and that it things happen. And if if it's punctured, the best thing to do is raise your hand and I put a hole in the roof, and that you can get that trade over there to to patch it as soon as possible before we have any damage to the roof system or the interior of the structure.

Stefanie Couch 5:54

Yeah, absolutely. A little bit of water can do a lot of damage very quickly.

Mark Stewart 5:57

Correct.

Who Hires Testing And Why

Stefanie Couch 5:58

When you're talking about some of the work that you guys do, I know you have different types of clients. What type of people are you getting that are calling you to do this type of inspection or testing or what what all are you guys doing for people?

Jeff Martin 6:10

A lot of our work is for attorneys doing what we call forensic or legal construction defect work. Uh, but we also work for contractors doing infield testing of quality assurance type uh services. We also work for building owners in some manufacturers with inspections, assessments, things of that nature.

Leak Detection And Wall Testing Methods

Stefanie Couch 6:32

What type of testing? I know there is some testing that you know you have to do, like it's specified in the architectural drawings and when the building's designed, but what type of testing are you doing?

Forensic Work And Common Failures

Jeff Martin 6:42

It varies from we do a lot of what's called ELD, which stands for electronic leak detection. That's mostly on roofing and waterproofing. We have different apparatuses where we can elicit a neg uh electrical charge to the roof or the waterproofing membrane and scan the roof or waterproofing with different type of tools to find holes, voids, damage, those kind of uh defects that mostly cause from you know the construction process. We also do a lot of what we call wall testing. Uh the window test with often called the negative chamber pressure test, which the STML E1105 and the nozzle test to find out water infiltration within the windows or the storefront type systems, as well as we do a fair amount of infrared using it an infrared camera to do scans of walls and roofs and pull tests and several other app applications.

Stefanie Couch 7:42

When you guys work with attorneys and your expert witnesses, what are you doing to are you going out to jobs to help them get things for their cases? Or like what kind of work are you doing for attorneys?

Jeff Martin 7:54

Most of it is good for construction defects. Oftentimes that does result in visiting the project site, maybe some destructive type testing to figure out what went wrong. A lot of it's visual or observation or kind of a fact-gathering mission missions. And some of the legal work is just reviewing their documents to see, you know, was there a breakdown of communication, were the wrong type systems used, incorrect materials, or a lot of it just boils down to just poor workmanship uh in the field.

Stefanie Couch 8:25

Mark, talking about the things you see and what's actually happening, we talked a lot about the skills trades gaps. And I, you know, there's a lot of statistics around that. I think the latest numbers, like we need three to four hundred thousand jobs just this year to fill whatever work needs to be done in the construction industry overall. How do you see that this skills trades gaps is making people have more construction problems? And, you know, what what do you think could actually be done to fix that?

Mark Stewart 8:53

Well, I think um the subcontractors that are putting the work in have got to employ more quality assurance, either, you know, mostly in terms of supervision. What we're seeing in the field is that there's just um the labor that is being you employed now is mostly subcontract labor. And then there's a there's a bit of a disconnect. Uh in the old days, uh you would have a lot of um manufacturers could come in and do training sessions with with the roofers and their field employees. And now that they're subcontracting that labor, there's a disconnect between that manufacturer and and the subcontractors because the subcontractors don't have that connection to the manufacturer. I mean, they're working directly for the roofer. Yeah. So, or the waterproofer. And there's just a disconnect between the details, maybe new innovations that the manufacturer might have, or different uh processes of installation, and it's just not being communicated to the field employees.

Jeff Martin 9:52

We see a lot of language barrier as well, both in communication and understanding the plans and specifications. Unfortunately, what we see a lot in the field is this is the way we were taught, or this is the way we did on the last job, and that manifests in the you know future problems.

Stefanie Couch 10:09

Do you have some stories about some of the some of the things you've seen on jobs where people just aren't following directions?

Jeff Martin 10:15

One of our favorite sayings that uh we go on a job site and and speak with contractors, we we get this statement all the time. Quote unquote, I've been doing it this way for 25 years. Um we had a project that was uh actually a shingle installation that was incorrectly in the flashing was incorrectly done. Uh when I met the contractor on site, you know, they professed that this is the way they've done it. And when I show them the step flashing was was not done per manufacturers and industry standards, their immediate question, well, where do I find this information out? I've never seen it before.

Stefanie Couch 10:50

Yeah.

Jeff Martin 10:51

I simply walked over, unwrapped a bundle of shingles right there on the roof, and there were the instructions, you know, printed out right in front of their face, something they would see.

Mock‑Ups, Supervision, And Avoidable Lawsuits

Stefanie Couch 11:00

Yeah. It's really interesting because I feel like manufacturers generally do a pretty good job of covering them themselves and helping people know what should be done, how to use the products, what matters, what doesn't, even what warranties cover and things like that. But I don't think most people pay very much attention to that. You said earlier we were talking about manufacturer trainings. Do you think that that is a solution to this problem? Is like, hey, if the skill trades aren't experienced, but even if they are, they maybe aren't doing it the right way. Manufacturers could do more trainings to be able to get them to well pay attention. Do you think they're they will pay attention?

Mark Stewart 11:39

If they would just employ uh uh getting the manufacturer and the subs on the same page. You know, and then you know, part of our tagline uh of our company is inspecting what you're expecting.

Stefanie Couch 11:52

Yeah.

Mark Stewart 11:53

And I think every trade should do that same thing. I mean, just because you told the man in the field what to do and how to do it, you need to go inspect it and make sure he did just exactly what you expected him to do.

Stefanie Couch 12:08

Yeah, and we talked a little bit about how different it is when you say something in the office versus it translating to the field and how much that does get lost. And I think there is a lot of that even in the distribution of building products, not just even in the field, to go in from manufacturer to distributor to con, you know, contractor or whoever's touching it in the field, there's just a lot of things that can happen and go wrong. It's like that game of telephone, you know, and uh it hardly ever gets back the exact same way. So there is a lot of vigilance that has to happen. And we're all so busy. I think that does get lost a lot. And even lost in translation, like you said, between people that have been doing it one way, they think they're doing it the right way.

Test Before Overburden To Cut Costs

Jeff Martin 12:48

As Bart said earlier, there's a lot of disconnect between the contractor's office staff and the actual crews that are installing the work. Um, so important to have good supervision, get the project started off in the right manner, making sure that everybody's on par with what what's expected, what the manufacturer is calling for, what the specifications call for, the details of plan shown. Um we're big believers in having mock-ups on job sites. Um we just have a project that's in litigation right now where the plans and specs call for a mock-up, the contractor skipped that process, the mason installs a lot of the brick in an incorrect manner and it mushroomed in into a major lawsuit. Um so that a mock-up and better communication could have certainly uh avoided that issue.

Stefanie Couch 13:41

Mark, you were telling me about a really large job that you guys had, and and that job has actually been under construction for over two years. And then you were talking about how eventually something else gets put on top of that substrate, the roofing, the waterproofing, whatever it was. Why is it so important that they make sure and test before they do that?

Mark Stewart 14:02

One of the largest expenses, if there if there is a leak in the future, is the removal of all the overburden. And this this particular project has uh an enormous amount of terraces. And um all of those terraces, it's water it's a waterproofing system, so it gets covered with insulation, a root barrier or root barrier insulation, and then whatever overburden they're gonna put. Either it's gonna be pavers or it's gonna be uh a green roof, which is a lot of soil, or grow growing media, as they want to call it, and then plants. If they have a leak in the future, the immense amount of labor it takes to remove all of that stuff to actually find where their leak problem is, is is enormous. And so the idea is that we're gonna once we have all the trades off of that roof, all the equipment off the roof, and we're ready to install overburden, we make the test, make sure all the repairs are made, and then they can proceed. You know, but if it if it's missed, if that if the testing part is missed and and they do have an issue later, it'll be quite expensive.

Stefanie Couch 15:12

Yeah.

Jeff Martin 15:13

Even on roofs that don't have overburden, your standard commercial type roof, if you have leaks uh due to damage or holes or any any other reason, water can infiltrate the roof system, you have a loss of R value in the in your insulation. Um leaks can obviously do interior damage, you know, microbial growth uh within within both the roof assembly or in the interior, which um obviously is uh the the old dreaded M word that nobody wants to say. But um so testing it, as Mark said beforehand, can eliminate so many of those issues, you know, both for the short term and the long-term life of the system.

COVID Substitutions And Delayed Failures

Stefanie Couch 15:53

Yeah, a little bit of water and a lot of time is usually not a good thing in a building. So, and if you don't know it's leaking and it's behind a wall for years and years, it can be very, very bad.

Jeff Martin 16:05

Even um AIA has published a paper for the past 10 years. Water intrusion is the number one construction litigation in our industry. Wow. I believe, according to their data, it's been 70% of all lawsuits are as a result of water migration into the building.

Stefanie Couch 16:24

Wow. That's a big portion of the lawsuits. And you guys actually are seeing some things now from COVID was a time, unlike any other, I've been in the industry a long time. You guys have been too. People couldn't get the materials they had always been using. They couldn't get the windows they liked, the doors they liked, the substrates they like, the roofing they liked. So they started using different products out of necessity. The labor pool started to get, you know, a lot more ballooned with people who had never done things before. They're doing roofs they've never roofed before, they're putting in windows they've never done that before. Are you seeing effects from that? Because it's now been five years really since a lot of that has happened, maybe six in some cases. What's happening with litigation on that side of things now that those effects are coming to fruition?

Dew Point Mistake Case Study

Jeff Martin 17:15

I believe that the material shortages, and while today we've kind of mitigated that you know, we everyone could get the proper material now. But there was a good two-year period where there were substitutions, there were uh start and stop delays in a lot of construction projects. That resulted in different crews coming in to start the work and maybe a different crew finishing. Um some of the products being exposed to weather longer than they should have, those types of instances. And we're seeing now a little bit more of the the effects of that and long-term ill effects of the building, of water intrusion that's the result of poor practices back then or poor material selection, poor labor. Um sometimes leaks in a building, whether it's roof or walls, sometimes they uh occur immediately and it's see them within just a few months. Other times they leak for years before someone exposes that or or they expose themselves only to find now that we've got serious damage. So as time goes by we're seeing we're seeing more and more litigation that's gonna happen as a result of those.

Mark Stewart 18:23

An example of that was uh we had a uh recent project that they had material shortage, they couldn't get the correct roof insulation in time, and it got to a point where it wasn't a matter of cost of ha because the materials were being escalated uh daily. I mean they just couldn't get them, and if you could get them, the price was going through the roof. So they were looking for other options. And so this particular structure, it was a wood structure, apartment building, and then the insulation was specified to be above deck and they couldn't get it. So what else could we do? Well, the designer of record decided to use uh bad insulation underneath the deck to insulate it. Well, what that did was it moved the dew point, and now water is condensating on the underside of the membrane and then coming back and it destroyed the framing of the building.

Stefanie Couch 19:20

Wow.

Mark Stewart 19:20

And it created a lot of microbial growth on the upper floors of the building, and um they ended up having to do a fair uh uh they had to tear them off. They had to tear them off to the deck, and a lot of deck had to be replaced, a lot of structural members had to be uh reinforced, affected the um the tenants of the building as well.

Jeff Martin 19:39

Yeah, the entire top floor had to be vacated while this work went on.

How To Work With The Consultants

Stefanie Couch 19:44

So yeah, and that sucks because in that case, that wasn't anybody's wrongdoing. Like no one didn't cut any corners or anything. They tried to do the right thing and they just couldn't get the product. And I do think you guys are right. I think that's gonna happen a lot more because it is gonna take some time for these some of these problems to show themselves. And I do think there's probably a lot of really short-cutted work that happened, unfortunately, because of the demand and because of the lack of products during those years 2020 to probably 23, I guess. And it's gonna come back to roost for sure. Well, if someone wants to work with you guys, uh, an attorney is working a case, they need an expert witness, or maybe a manufacturer needs testing done, or or someone needs testing done. How do they contact you and and how do you work with people?

Jeff Martin 20:27

They can always contact us via email or phone call.

Stefanie Couch 20:29

Yeah.

Jeff Martin 20:30

Um, both of those on our website. And we're pretty upfront about what our services are and our cost for the testing. It it varies for the day or for the week, those type of uh it's all job specific. Um for attorneys, it's usually more of a uh hourly basis.

Stefanie Couch 20:46

Yeah, and you guys travel, right, to go test. You're out of North Carolina, but you travel.

Travel, Pricing, And Closing CTA

Jeff Martin 20:51

Correct. Um Mark's in the Raleigh, North Carolina area. I'm in the Greenville, South Carolina area, but um I think we were at 27 states last year, and we've um been as far as Alaska. Um, even had a case that we reviewed in Hawaii, so we travel wherever's necessary.

Stefanie Couch 21:08

Nice. Well, thank you for joining me on the podcast today, guys. And if you're interested in chatting with these guys, we will link all of their information in the bio here. So thank you for joining us on this episode of the Grit Blueprint, and we will see you on the next episode. Thank you for listening to the Grit Blueprint podcast. If this episode helped you think a little differently about how to show up, share it with someone in your building world who needs it. If you're ready to turn visibility into growth, then head to gritblueprint.com to learn more and book a call to talk to us about your remote strategy. Until the next time, please, unmistakable.