Robotics Firm Helps Co-op Resolve Water Damage Dispute with Contractor

Sometimes building improvements are defective, and getting the contractor to come back and fix the problem can be challenging. Before taking the step of suing the contractor, a 50-unit co-op in Astoria consulted with Akaash Kancharla, founder of the robotic inspection and maintenance firm aRoboticsCompany, to figure out exactly what was wrong.

Trouble Below Deck

The co-op had used a contractor to remodel a 2,000 square-foot deck at the building, but a year later the apartment units beneath the deck were dealing with leaks. “The water was causing ceiling damage and furniture damage, and obviously a lot of inconvenience to those unlucky shareholders,” Kancharla says. Although it was structurally sound, the deck had started to become discolored. “What was originally a pretty beautiful space gradually showed a lot of mineralization, a lot of mold, a lot of grime,” he adds. This required more cleaning and more maintenance, and the co-op believed the contractor was at fault. 

Mapping the Space

The first step in investigating the problem was to do full surveys of the co-op units below the deck and the floor of the deck itself from above to determine the scope of the problem, which affected about 300 square feet. The company uses a range of custom machines, including robots, and in this case used radar and ultrasound tools as well as thermal imaging to get the necessary information. “We used multispectral imaging to basically get the data that we felt was sufficient,” explains Kancharla, adding that one of the main challenges was to identify the specific areas that were causing the problem. “The water leaks were all over the place, with a dozen or so leaks that were 25 or 30 feet away from the defective areas,” he says. 

Evidence Leads the Way

Once the board was presented with information about the defect, it needed to decide what steps to take. “It was clear the cause of the water infiltration was a material problem in the installation of the membrane. So the contractor did not install the membrane correctly, and we gave the co-op that evidence,” Kancharla says. The options were to do a limited repair at the board’s own expense, which would be cheaper than a full deck replacement. Or it could contact the contractor and try to get repairs done through a warranty claim. The contractor was adamant that it was not its responsibility. “The contractor was worried they would have to redo the whole deck,” Kancharla says. “The co-op board was worried that it would have to pay twice for the same job.”

 Spending to Save

The cost of gathering the evidence of the defect was around $15,000, which Kancharla says is typical for a situation requiring a battery of tests. Once the contractor was provided with the evidence, however, it ultimately did limited repairs, replacing the 300 square feet of damaged deck. “The co-op did not need to go to court because the evidence we provided was sufficiently obvious, and the contractor just realized it was not going to win this,” Kancharla says. A full replacement of the deck could have been a multi-million dollar project, but the detailed analysis of the deck provided the contractor with information about the smaller square footage that needed replacing. “We neatly became a pretty high-value intermediary, saving both sides money and getting to a resolution within a year,” Kancharla says. 

Time Crunch

In this case, the co-op was almost at the end of the deck’s three-year warranty that it began looking for solutions to the leaks. If defects are addressed after the warranty has expired, the repairs are unlikely to be handled by the contractor. It’s therefore important to act quickly if you notice a defect or incorrect execution of a project, either from a design or contracting perspective. “We do see both intentional shortcuts as well as accidental errors in this kind of work frequently,” Kancharla says. So much so, he even recommends taking detailed scans at the conclusion of an expensive renovation job. “It just makes sense to ensure that the work is done correctly,” he explains. This problem at the Astoria co-op did not end up in court, but Kancharla is familiar with providing litigation support when a board files a lawsuit for defects. “The board is better off having a thorough, full suite of data to further its case,” he says.