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https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a44128093/what-caused-iowa-apartment-collapse/
The exterior center section of a 100-year-old, six-story building in Davenport, Iowa collapsed on May 29, leaving its apartment interiors exposed to the elements and three people dead. In its previous life, the Renaissance Revival-style brick-and-steel structure was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
[...] Some residents said they had been experiencing water damage, and several tenants were afraid of the building collapsing. One resident said her bathroom caved in last December.
[...] Inspectors and a private-sector structural engineer discovered on May 23 that the brick façade, painted scarlet red in recent years, was separated from the interior wall and appeared "ready to fall imminently," according to a CNN article about the report. The interior wall was losing stability and causing deformation. A beam possibly bearing down on the affected wall needed a steel column for extra support, the structural engineer recommended. City inspectors took photos on May 25 showing a void between the façade and interior wall; the gap contained crumbled bricks.
Bricks were falling off the building's facade as early as August 2020, so the sidewalk around this area was closed, according to an analysis by The Architect's Newspaper.
"The collapsed wall is the only wall that was painted, and while the brick was clearly damaged prior to this painting, many types of paint that are not breathable can trap moisture in brick," the newspaper reported.
Moisture normally passes through a building's walls. Bricks are like sponges; their porous structure is great at both absorbing water and drying out completely. However, if moisture beneath the brick surface is unable to evaporate—say, because it hits a layer of paint—then the water builds up. Eventually, water erodes brick over a period of years. "Painting over brick is essentially a death sentence for brick," according to McGill Restoration, a repair and restoration company based in Nebraska.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 13 2023, @07:50PM (1 child)
I've been following this out of curiosity, and blaming the collapse on painted bricks is similar to blaming a rusting bridge collapse on a pigeon. The building had moisture intrusion issues, crumbling brickwork, and an upper facade that was falling away all before the brick was painted. The real problem was the crumbling brickwork was a hodge-podge of modifications and repairs. A structural engineer wrote up a repair procedure to fix it, and the owner shopped that around until they found a lowest-bidder contractor willing to do it. They didn't shore the wall properly or reinforce the structural beams properly, so when they removed the supporting brickwork everything shifted and down it goes.
The $64,000 question (or however much they ask for in the civil suit) is "Did the contractor see the engineer's report and agree to follow that repair procedure, or did the owner hide it to save money?".
(Score: 2) by Username on Wednesday June 14 2023, @08:32PM
Yeah, I have a suspicion that this wall was painted to cover the damage, and did not cause the damage.
I'm not sure that even the most expensive contractor can save something that is past a certain point.