► Major Problems on Ohio School Facilities Commission Projects
 Conflicting Allegiances Create Quality Problems: The OSFC pays the construction manager’s (CM) fees so it’s no mystery where their allegiance lay. The primary function of the CM is to schedule, not observe quality. Although the architect is retained by the district, quality of construction is not a primary function of the architect. Consequently, trade contractors are often left to police the quality of their own work. But low bid contractors have to turn a profit and their boss is the profit margin. Add it all up and it’s no wonder there are quality problems surfacing at many school districts across the state.
The OSFC reassures a district going into a project that quality is important when it is plainly not. Low bidders will always cut corners and architects are weak at building exterior design mechanics. This all culminates in new but leaking buildings which are prone to mold growth.
Ability: The OSFC is not providing the expertise necessary to design and construct buildings with a functional weather resistant shell. But the OSFC assures school districts that Commissioning is the answer to stop the repetition of new but chronically leaking buildings. The problem with the OSFC’s Commissioning program is that it is administrated by people strong at internal building systems, not building exterior issues. The OSFC offers districts a list of pre-qualifying for commissioning roofing, for instance, but the OSFC staff clearly does not have any expertise in the subject at hand, so how can they possibly be relied on for such a specialized matter as the quality of design and construction. The answer is they can’t and building exterior issues will flow through as usual, despite any OSFC assurance.
Responsibility: In the words of one school official that participated in a large OSFC project, the OSFC appears only interested in throwing up the buildings with cheap materials that won’t last. This individual said the OSFC presented his district with a take it or leave it attitude. In the end, the OSFC is a political agency that has little accountability for mistakes. They know that school districts who participate in the program are not construction savy – but in the end the OSFC doesn’t appear to be either!
Accountability: For the districts left with new but leaking buildings the choices available to fix them are all bad. New building problems are expensive problems that no one involved in a project wants to own. That often leaves a district fighting with all involved, including the OSFC, to get a new building fixed. The lack of accountability for design and construction defects in new schools is vexing.
Knowledge: The OSFC, architects, construction managers and very often the construction tradespeople themselves are commonly short the knowledge and understanding of what it takes to make a new building’s exterior function in a weather-resistant manner.
My Strength: I have thirty years of experience working with school building exteriors. That work often required me to re-design building exterior components and elements that were poorly designed or constructed from the start. Curing building exterior problems has grown my ability to recognize a problem in the design stage of a project and solve it before it as become embedded in the permanent construction. Interjecting the right bit of advice during design and construction during a new school project can make the difference between a new building going decades without roof or wall problems or a new building that leaks right after completion and won’t stop.
Blind Faith: The biggest mistake a school district can make is placing a great amount of faith in the OSFC, construction manager or architect. If you can’t trust them then who are you to trust? Let me put it to you this way: The record of new but leaking buildings is there, I didn’t have anything to do with creating those stats. But I sure can help you from becoming a statistic if you engage me. In the end, if your building leaks that is the most basic failure for any building – a flaw which puts everything inside the building at risk. If there is one single element of a new building to get right, it is the roof.
Click here to email the name of your school district and learn if your architect or construction manager has been involved in a previous OSFC project that made the list of 60 school districts with roof or wall leak problems.
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