Repairs can cost thousands

Times staff writer

© St. Petersburg Times, published June 27, 1999

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The cost of adequately bracing a gable wall during its construction might be as high as $1,000 or as low as $200, depending on the system that is used.

But fixing that wall once it has been built is cumbersome and costly.

The most practical repair on a gabled home is "putting a reinforced concrete column inside or outside the gable wall," said Ronald Zollo, a structural engineer and a professor of civil and architectural engineering at the University of Miami.

"I'd suggest that it's done from the outside, so you don't disrupt the interior finishes. . . . You need one every 20 feet."

According to Zollo and other engineers, each column would cost $2,000 to $4,000. If the gable wall has a large window or door, a column may have to be installed on each side of it.

"The costs vary depending on the length of the (gable) span and how aesthetically pleasing you want it to be," said Dennis Barton, executive director of the Florida Board of Professional Engineers.

"There's some question about whether you want to spend that kind of money to fix it. I'm sure that's a question banks and insurance companies are going to ask. And that's a question I don't know the answer to."

There's no way of knowing how many of the 478,742 homes built outside South Florida since Hurricane Andrew struck in 1992 have inadequately braced gable walls, so calculating the cost statewide is at best an exercise in guesswork.

Among the unknowns are the average price to fix each house, the percentage of all homes built since 1992 that have gable walls (estimates from county building officials and local building associations contacted by the Times ranged from 20 percent to 80 percent) and, in those homes with gable walls, the percentage that don't meet code.

The Times, seeking a conservative figure, made these assumptions: 50 percent of new homes built outside of South Florida have gable roofs; of those, 85 percent don't meet code (which is a smaller percentage than was shown in the Times study); and the average cost to fix each house is $5,000. That leads to a total statewide repair cost of more than $1-billion.

Homeowners who choose to act, Barton said, will likely look to the builder for repairs; if the house plans were approved by a design professional, which is usually the case, the builder will look to the architect or engineer who sealed the plans. And the design professionals will look to their insurers. If the builder did not use a design professional, he will look to his own insurer.

"That's why (architects and engineers) carry insurance," Barton said, "so when they make a mistake and have to go back in and fix it, it's covered."

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