The Main building at UTSA is undergoing repeated exterior repairs due to water penetrating through roof-lines and outside stones.
BFW Construction Co., Ltd. constructed the Main building in 2002, but the company was bought out by Skanska USA Building Inc. (Skanska) in 2003. Skanska is a multinational development/construction company based out of Sweden with numerous offices throughout the United States and a local office in San Antonio.
Even though the one-year warranty of the building has expired, the defective nature of the initial construction means that Skanska is responsible for all costs and repairs to the Main Building.
“The construction is disruptive to UTSA but at no cost to UTSA,” Director of Engineering and Project Management Paul Goodman said. “We’re unhappy with the original project but happy with the response.”
Current construction is a result of the rain from earlier this year, which resulted in numerous leaks throughout the building through the walls.
“Generally there isn’t a serious problem within the building unless there is a torrential downpour,” Associate Vice President of Communication and Marketing David Gabler said. “The problems are exacerbated if there are strong winds that push the rain closer to a horizontal direction.”
The current repairs involve removing lines of exterior stone in order to fix the water-proofing detail of the stones and to prevent future water penetration.
“We asked the contractor to come back and look at the work that they had done,” Assistant Director of Engineering and Project Management Robert Espinoza said. “[Skanska] took out some stones and on the interior face of those stones there was some water-proofing detail that was not correctly done when the building was built.”
Skanksa has addressed all issues of water intrusion, Espinoza explained.
“I have been here for three years and this is the second time that [Skanska] has had to come out,” Espinoza said.
Despite multiple instances of water leaks, there has been negligible water damage, and the degree of any damage depends on what part of the building is affected.
“The damage can range from touching up paint to needing the wall surface to be taken care of,” Gabler said.
In the past, water penetration has occurred around the exterior corners of the Main building and around roof-lines.
Water penetration around the windows has also been a problem in the past, and approximately three years ago, testing was conducted to check for leaks around the window edges of the building.
“We did some water-blasting testing on window conditions to stone conditions for leaks and fixed most of the window conditions,” Espinoza said.
Repeated construction on the Main building has posed an inconvenience but has not resulted in cancelled classes or relocated offices.
“The Main building serves a lot of functions to UTSA, and I will be happy when this project is finished,” Gabler said.
Construction is expected to be completed in late December or mid-January.
