hunter: it's a continuum. at one end, you have your regular maintenance that you do every day on the system, and at the other end, long-term planning so that every year we're repairing, replacing the right things, and we don't have to do it all at once, which is, quite frankly, what we're having to do in atlanta now. griffin: we have thousands of assets that we have to keep track of. we have to always know their condition and continuously plan for their refurbishment at the right time. one of the things we're required to do under the consent decree is inspect our system. we're trying to find where there's leaks. so we blow smoke into the sewer pipe. man: we're locating places where water from the surface to the ground is running into the sewer pipe and overloading the system. hunter: we have 1,600 miles of sewer. we are evaluating every linear foot of that system. is the pipe leaking; are you having a lot of infiltration or inflow?

thornell: every time it rains, water will come down, go into the pipe, enter the sewer system. it's very easy to repair this defect and get all that water out of the system. griffin: with our closed-circuit tv inspection, we record cracks, holes, pipes that are partially collapsed. hunter: we literally will have a digital video of every foot of our sewer that in the future, we can go back and do a comparison. what's changed? is it degrading? what do we need to do? at what rate is this happening? griffin: to really improve these systems, you need to deploy the latest technology. woman: the pipe bursting process is designed to replace an old pipe without digging an entire trench. the old pipe has cracks and displaced joints and openings in it. we try to stop, not only infiltration, but exfiltration, where sewage would actually leak out of the pipe.

the head is larger, so it breaks away the old pipe and allows the new pipe to come in behind it. griffin: we are saving about 67% of the cost of actually digging old pipe up. clyne: it's less invasive than an open-cut process, where you would open the whole trench up and replace the pipe. it's called "trenchless" technology, so... that's as good as it gets. griffin: we don't have to dig up everyone's yard, and we refurbish that pipe at a much-reduced cost. another technique, the cured-in-place lining. it's equivalent to putting a large sock through the existing sewer. we form a new pipe inside the old pipe, and therefore we seal up all of the defects that allow rainwater to come in. hunter: we repair about 730 leaks a month in our system. griffin: the improvements that we've made

will make the environment better. we had approximately 1,000 overflows occur in 1999. today, we've reduced overflows by 45% to 50%. and it's going to continue to improve as we go forward with the rehabilitation program that's required under the consent decree. narrator: an important piece of the program is the construction of an 8-mile-long storage tank that will significantly decrease combined sewer overflows. man: right now, we're at the bottom of the rockdale construction shaft. we're 310 feet below grade, deep under atlanta in hard rock. in the downtown area of atlanta, the sewer system and the stormwater system are combined and there are overflows during storm events, and so the purpose of this system is to relieve that flow, take it into the tunnel, transport it to a brand-new treatment plant,

clean up the chattahoochee river. narrator: instead of the combined sewage overflowing into the river, it will flow into this tunnel that acts as a storage tank. the water will then slowly empty into the new plant for treatment before it's released back into the river. man: the system in total is about 8 1/2 miles, 27 feet in diameter. most of the time it will be dry. the only time it will fill is when the sewer system is overwhelmed by the storm. it is a massive project. our budget was $210 million. we've worked about a million and a half man-hours. hunter: it is an incredible amount of work. our capital program right now is $3.9 billion. over a period of less than 10 years. franklin: so it's very expensive. the bottom line is, we, as atlantans, as georgians,

don't have a choice to protect the river. we need to leave it better than we found it, and it's really been a political advantage for me, not a disadvantage. people laugh about me being the sewer mayor, but they remember what i'm doing. griffin: we want people to understand, when they see one of our work crews out working on the mains, that that work is necessary in order for them to have good clean drinking water or to have a good, functioning wastewater system. franklin: you don't put a roof on the house one time. you don't fix the plumbing one time, any more than i get my hair done one time. if we don't continue to invest for the next 20 years, we'll find ourselves back at the same point that we were in the late '90s. if we don't protect water, we will be without water. we will be without industry, we will be without jobs, we will be without a healthy economy, and our people will be sick.

so we don't really have a choice. we're going to find out why that's important. it's a question of, who's going to pay, how much you're going to be willing to pay in order to ensure that your children live the kind of life that we as americans have promised them. woman: and what we're going to do is get a marble to travel through your pipe. child: keep still! keep still! woman: aw, there's a clog in the drain. oh, there it is. [ laughing ] narrator: in the 19th century, foresighted leadership and innovative engineering established drinking water, wastewater, and stormwater infrastructure that supported the growth of the nation. through much of the 20th century, we continued to invest, to ensure our public health, safety, and economy. but now, in the 21st century,

we face the need to revisit our commitment to the buried assets and infrastructure that for so long have provided for our way of life. johnson: infrastructure across this country needs to be addressed and it needs to be addressed now. hunter: what we need is responsible stewardship. we just can't turn a blind eye and say that they're going to continue to work for another 50 or 100 years. franklin: we can't be embarrassed to tell our congresspeople that we want something different. kelly: it's going to take state officials, it's going to take federal assistance, it's going to take all of us to get this united states back where it belongs. we're not there yet, but we can be there. grumbles: water is america's greatest liquid asset. and citizens and governments all need to be reminded of that from time to time. woman: what can individuals do to make a difference? allbee: we need to accept the responsibility that future generations need to be able to rely on those assets to have the same quality of life that we have. oberstar: all the water there ever was or ever will be

is here on earth today and it's our responsibility now, at this time, in this generation, to protect it. that must be our legacy to the future.

>> good afternoon and welcome to the department of building inspection's brown bag lunch. we depo this every third thursday here at the department of building inspection. we have an interesting topic today about preventative home maintenance. and we'll talk about what that means a little bit. i have two great guests, extremely knowledgeable folks, anthony wong who is a contractor here in the city, thanks for joining us, anthony. and dan, also a contractor and both of these gentlemen do a lot of small, medium and some, i guess you do some large size jobs as well. but also have maintenance and home prevention, damage prevention and maintenance issues built into the work they

do. in fact, i know dan brought along a list of maintenance check lists that they actually use in their business to help people. so what do you use that mapet nance check list for? -- maintenance check list for? >> for every project we finish, we sign a service agreement or offer a service maintenance agreement and then when we go back to the house a year later we go through this check list and we go through the whole thing to make sure everything's being maintained, that, well, it's a very detailed check list. but every house in san francisco needs to be maintained and you can see through lawrence's slides what happens if you don't maintain them. >> in my experience, often people do wonderful design work and excellent construction but stop at that point when the construction is finished and think they're done. but that's not the case. you have to maintain it. you have to have a program

first to evaluate it. is this what we wanted? pick up the stuff that's not quite right, you thought it was ok but not. so we have to do post construction evaluation and then we have to have a maintenance program. you've got to maintain them. these houses do not maintain themselves. and much of the work that we see coming in for small permit work in the department of building inspection are things that are related to maintenance. people want to rebuild a deck or they need to fix the bathroom and put new materials and tile and so on and a lot of that work is work that could be -- extend the life of what you have if it had been properly maintained. not to say we don't like you to do bork in your homes, we -- to do work in your homes, but maintenance will help home repair. i have some slides here. let's take a quick peak here -- peek here. we'll look at the outside buildings first and inside buildings next. outside buildings are typical

maintenance issues. a whole plethora of maintenance issues. the siding, the windows, the doors, the stairs, the sidewalk, the landscape. so let's just look at a couple different kinds of buildings and the typical problems they might have. so, for example, here's a building with final siding. what kind of maintenance do we need with the vinyl siding? we have to wash the thing, that's for darn sure. what do you think? >> it's got to be washed, caulked, checked to make sure water is not getting behind the siding. >> caulking is not a replacement for good flashing. caulk something sort of a -- an interim waterproofing material that has to be maintained. if somebody says, we have a leak, let's caulk it, what that means is we've got a temporary solution that's going to leak some more unless you maintain that caulking constantly. the way that leaks are prevented and by the way leaks and water intrusion are pretty much the number one problem in buildings. that's my experience. is that what you see as well? the way to really prevent that is through proper flashing, typically metal, and then counterflashing over the top.

complex flashing solutions. we're talking about washing buildings by the way and every year or two it is really a good idea for to you put a ladder up on your long weekend and get a bucket of soapy water and a big long handled mop or brush and get up there and scrub it and hose it off. you don't need a pressure blaster, you don't need to do anything more than just wash it off and hose it down. that's my speernls. what do you think? -- experience. what do you think? >> it's really important. also, when do you the water testing you have to make sure you test around the windows and then go back inside to see if there's any dampness around the sheet rock, to see if there are areas you need to do additional flashing or caulking which again is a temporary measure. but that's a good time to check to make sure that your windows are waterproof. >> so don't be overly aggressive about water testing, though. if you take a hose ass and squirt it at something, water will -- hose and squirt it at

something, water will go in. when you wash it off and hose it down gently and carefully, it gives you a chance to look for problems as well. >> yeah. the main thing is wash around all the windows. the water will go inside your house,ed siding. >> so don't be overly aggressive with your hose. if you go to a window an start squirting it, it'll get wet. let's look at another style of house. here's wood siding with stucco in this pattern of masonry and then a solid wood garage door. how do we maintain wood siding? >> wood siding needs to be painted, it needs to be maintained. if it's a clear finish and you -- there's some shingles and siding that you can let go gray in that instance you're really depending on all the flashing to do your water proofs. >> by the way, stucco, people say, oh, i got stucco like this blue area of the house. stucco is taking care of the waterproofing.

stucco is not a waterproof material. stucco always cracks. stucco combracks and in fact -- cracks and in fact unless you put a waterproofing membrane on top of it which is paint or something, when it gets wet, water's going to pass right through the stucco and what happens when it passes through or gets behind your wood siding? what happens then? a few things happen. first you get wood rot from the sheathing underneath. but secondly something really important in our earthquake-prone areas is that you can rust the fasteners, the nails, the nails that are holding the sheathing and other types of metal as if ners which are always underneath -- fasteners which are always underneath the siding, you lose the sheer connections between the sheathing and the framing of the building. and we saw that in earthquakes. especially in that lower few feet close to the sidewalk where you have a lot of water splash. we see rusting of connecters, a

serious problem and a reason for to you make sure you're keeping that stucco painted and coated. do we have to seal the grout and the masonry around brick? >> if you don't, if you don't seal the brick, then water penetrates through and you have the same problem as you have with stucco. most of the dry rock that we come across is either in stucco or brick because the water gets in and gets trapped and can't get back out. where the wood breathes better. so, wood gets -- water gets behind stucco. the worst dry rot is always behind a brick or a stucco facade. >> brick has a special problem and a special reason for you to make sure that it is waterproof and that's because it has metal fasteners that keep the brick attached to the building. if the fasteners rust, the brick is just sitting there and in an earthquake the whole brick can fall off.

>> you should always have a six-inch separation between the lowest shingle or piece of siding and ground contact. and that should be a concrete foundation there. >> so it's probably -- there probably is a foundation but they figured out a way to extend those all the way down to the ground which is a problem. so the reason you want to have it up from the ground is that we have a lot of water splash in heavy rain and they're going to get wet and also that what happens is water through capillary action and other methods will actually get sucked up through -- behind those shakes and shingles, if they can go all the way down to the ground. dan mentioned a topic that i think is really important. it covers not just building maintenance but generally new buildings and everything. and that's that the building is made of a system of components and the problem is that not all of these components have the

same life span. so we build a building and the life span of a building in san francisco is essentially unlimited. we don't say we expect buildings to last 30 years and then we're going tear them down and build a new building like they do in japan and other places. we say, once a building is built we expect that it will be able to be maintained. and once it's 50 years old, it's likely to become a historic resource of some sort. the problem is then that buildings might have shakes and shangele -- shingles that are good for 30 years but the paper underneath it might be, you know, have a 10-year or 15-year or 20-year warranty or life expectancy and the fasteners mible own -- might be only reasonably good for 15 or 20 years and the window might have a 20-year warrant and this stuff does not align. and we see this especially as a problem with new buildings where we have a new building that -- where we have a facade that we expect to be secure for

30 years to 40 years before it needs to be reteared but underneath it has -- it has some membrane that's a 20-year membrane. that's an issue that we're all wrestling with it as part of this new sustainability overview. how do we align all of the components so that we have a durable building? you can't have a durable building if the stuff that's behind those shakes is not as durable as the shakes themselves basically. one of our big issues right now. here's a stucco facade with a wood door. it looks like it might even have new vinyl windows, hard for us to tell from this distance. >> wherever you have two dissimilar materials coming together, you have an opportunity for a leak. so we're stuck -- where stucco but thes up to -- butts up to brick or wood or to vinyl or -- those are the areas that you have to be -- where two materials come together, that's the area that you really have to maintain and that's where

the leaks happen. that's where cracks occur. there's differential settlement, over time the materials pull apart and that's where you really have to be concerned about maintaining a water proof seal. >> so if you look at a picture like this where we see the stairs which are probably concrete and the building which is a wood frame building, they separate. they will separate. they are not made of the same materials. and the reason that we have a gap that will ultimately occur between the stair and the building is they have different rates of expansion and contraction from the sun and just from temperature change. they have differential settlement in san francisco. everything settling a little bit. doesn't have to be settling a lot but if it settles a quarter of an inch over 10 years, part of it is going to settle more than another part and the inherent materials actually

have different properties that allow them to shrink and swell. for example, a wood building when it gets humid shrinks and swells. here's an interesting building. it has three different construction types, materials on its finish. it's got this brick -- what do they call that? clinker brick? is that what it's called? yeah, clinker brick, where it's sticking out. when i was young i used to climb on buildings to practice my rock climbing skills. clinker brick buildings. and then above it we have, i think that's shingles and then above that we have a wood siding. so three different types of material makes it a little more challenging even to maintain this building. and we're talking about painting. you've got to maintain your building and paint it. here's a building that is painted up to the height of their ladder, i think. so, i think they'll be finishing soon. i hope. >> if they get a bigger ladder. >> i'll loan them my ladder.

ok. so now let's look a little more detailed at exteriors of buildings. an exterior door, it has exterior door hardware and we can see it needs maintenance. peeling paint, we see windows where the caulking is exposed. typically do you have to paint over caulking or on glazing around windows? or is that snok these windows are grazed -- ok? these windows are glazed. >> the glazing compound doesn't have any u.v. protection. you have to put paint on them to protect them. >> so we see -- >> or they'll crack. >> we see painting coming off where the windows are glazed into the door. so that needs to be painted and maintained as well. i was talking about durblet. this is a new environmental window about 10 years ago. replaced an old wood frame window that was 100 years old. and this 10-year-old window you

can see it is damp inside and the reason is that the seal between the two sheets of glass, it's a double-pained glass. the -- paned glass. the seal has failed. you say, i'm going to put double-paned windows in and put environmental windows and save a lot of time and energy and money. it turns out it's in many cases more expensive because the cycle of replacing dual glazing, you have to pull this out and replace it again. the overall life cycle cost is quite high. dual glazing is getting better but we still see a lot of failures of seals in glazing. do you see that? here. looking up close you can see. that moisture in there is not going away. what do you have to do to fix this? >> take it out to reseal it.

so take it out, either reseal it or replace -- yeah. here also along the same lines, dan mentioned that u.v. resistance issues, you know, sight in degrades a lot of material -- sunlight degrades a lot of materials. it's going to degrade caulking and paint and it's going to degrade the vinyl on the sides of windows and this is once again part of this dourability conundrum. how long is this environmental going to last that supports this new window? and what do we do to maintain that? i brought along some armor ol. it has a u.v. resistant compound in it. so i think as part of your home maintenance, if you have exposed vinyl you should think about not only armorol but some material that provides u.v. resistance so you can make the plastic last longer.