Spotlight on: Whether a Walkthrough Inspection Is Right for Your Building

The walkthrough inspection is like the little brother of the full-scale reports co-op and condo boards use for capital-reserve planning, mortgage refinancing, and the like — with a bonus. It costs much less and takes up significantly less time and effort, so much so that they are also a viable alternative to full-scale reports during economic downturns. So what's the difference between the reports?

In a full-scale building-conditions report, the architect/engineer typically has residents complete a questionnaire asking about apartment conditions. This is done to help discern patterns indicative of larger building problems. He or she then spends days doing a comprehensive physical survey — from top (roof) to bottom (basement), and from exterior (façade and building envelope) to interior (plumbing, electrical, and other systems). This kind of full-scale inspection may involve invasive tests, such as masonry probes, and often requires scaffolding. In the end, the board gets a thick, maybe 100-page report complete with new architectural drawings.

In a walkthrough, conversely, the architect/engineer spends a few hours noting obvious conditions or telltale signs of problems. For example, the inspector may start at the roof, walk the fire escapes, walk through the common hallways looking for things like smoke detectors and emergency lighting, look for any obvious deficiencies in mechanical rooms and equipment vaults, visit one or two sample apartments, and look over the façade with binoculars. In the end, the board gets a shorter, less comprehensive report — and generally pays between a quarter and half the price of a full inspection.

Walkthroughs are most effective for buildings up to six or seven stories, with two to four apartments per floor. Buildings larger than this get exponentially more complex physically, and management gets more complicated. It's not really practical for an engineer to try and do a breezy walkthrough of a six-building, 4,000-unit complex.

Both types of reports have their place. But a building with a history of lax repair policies or poor upkeep is more likely to have major issues that a walkthrough won't catch.

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