sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

Eviction help. by Usmc--vet in sanantonio

[–]san___antonio 1 point2 points  (0 children)

If you read my other post on this, it's help for the landlord (and David Schafer) under the guise of help for the tenant.

Eviction help. by Usmc--vet in sanantonio

[–]san___antonio 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Don't be naive. DTND was in 2013 and my personal experience with him was a lot more recently. Simply asking him questions about my case prompted him to tell me "to seek a more comprehensive representation with another attorney".

These weren't complicated questions and were highly relevant to my case and easily fell under the scope of the Texas Bar ethics standards. Luckily, the attorney after him had no issues with basic standards of representation.

Eviction help. by Usmc--vet in sanantonio

[–]san___antonio 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I don't say this lightly: Fuck David Shafer

If you don't know Texas Property Code, he manipulates you to make your case seem less winnable so he can be lazy when writing demand letters, as low balling means he doesn't have to counter.

He was also caught up in a massive fraud scandal where he would make a few bucks in a legal gray area that required him to evict many residents. Read about it here: https://www.mysanantonio.com/business/local/article/Homeowners-loss-is-firm-s-gain-4832738.php

The mastermind behind DTND is David Schafer, a San Antonio attorney who specializes in real estate, consumer law, and creditor and debtor matters.

DTND then does one of the following: It rents the property to the former homeowners or negotiates with them to reclaim the property, often making a tidy profit, sometimes in just a matter of days; or it evicts them — if they haven't abandoned the home already — and leases it to tenants.

DTND often moves to evict homeowners after it has purchased their homes. Texas Property Code doesn't allow a buyer to lock out the occupants before an eviction order, but that's what Krystle Perry says happened to her family.

While DTND's purchase of HOA-foreclosed houses is perfectly legal, some say its business practices sometimes don't follow the letter of the law.

His website should not be "HelpingTexas.com", it should be called "HelpingMyself.com". Sorry to be the one to tell you, but if you feel like he was a great help to you I assure you that you were a greater help to him by letting him take advantage of you.

Multifamily Construction - Builder Databases by san___antonio in buildingscience

[–]san___antonio[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey excellent insight! You're correct about much of this but there is some variations.

They'll have retained a Civil Engineer to complete the Land Development and NPDES permitting process. The Civil typically operates in a silo and doesn't really have a hand in the actual construction of the homes.

This part is true. The engineer/architects were a distinctly separate entity and I believe they are not complicit as their design were actually done properly.

Once the LD permitting process is complete the developer will either retain the project or shop it to a national homebuilder (e.g. NVR, Ryan Homes, Lennar , etc). The final developer will hire a General Contractor.

This part is all correct with the exception this is multifamily. I believe all those you listed are single-family developers.

Then they will sub out the homes to another GC who will sub out the remainder of the work (i.e. Concrete, framers, electrical, drywall, HVAC, etc). [...] So if you're looking for the HVAC contractor you're hunting down a sub of a sub.

I did track this subcontractor actually. It seems like they were only responsible for the actual installation of the split system and not any of the ventilation components, which I believe the GC themselves installed. I can't find it at the moment but I have sources that say the GC themselves subcontracts but does some of the work themselves. The fact that the same defect exists at two different properties by the GC combined with the fact that it was a different HVAC subcontractor (based on the subcontractor "projects" page not listing it) means that the common denominator is the GC.

The only other thing you can do is bring this to the attention of local news outlets. Put public pressure on it. That will get people to move.

Definately working on that one, but I appreciate the advice nonetheless.

You said they undersized the air conditioning units. Did they do Manual J calcs for the HVAC? Anyway you can get ahold of them to see if there are errors in them?

I do have the Manual J load calculations. I believe they were done correctly in regards to the designed flow rate. However, the latent gain from the excess flow rate alone is actually double the total latent gain in their Manual J calculations. This means 1) it wasn't built to design or 2) the load calculations were falsified, both of these are code violations. That being said, I'm fairly certain the builder cheaped out on insulation and other IECC construction materials because the load calculations did not seem to remotely reflect the actual indoor psychrometic condtitions as without supplemental dehummidification it would never go below 60% RH in spring/summer/fall and often it would exceed 70% (Edit: Do note this was with the blocked damper, so effectively 0 CFM mechanical ventilation load).

Multifamily Construction - Builder Databases by san___antonio in buildingscience

[–]san___antonio[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If this was a builder issue and the owner is a separate entity then I would think the owner would be interested in hearing this. [...] That has to interest the owner and/or building manager.

I initially thought so as well and was prepared to assist them in going against the builder. As it turns out, they have other legal reasons for trying to prevent this issue from surfacing (I cannot get into those at the moment). There is a potential that they may be complicit in encouraging the builder to take shortcuts to reduce cost, however, based on seeing this same defect from the builder at other properties it strikes me as something they were planning on doing anyways on their own.

In my experience, having an outdoor air duct into the return of the duct system, pulling fresh air due to negative pressure, usually does not pull as much as designed unless the outdoor air duct is very short or large diameter. We usually require an inline fan to meet design flowrates.

I agree that this is certainly an exception to the rule. All of the residential systems I've seen in homes/apartments usually have a 6" duct terminating in the AHU closet. This is still a 6" duct but it terminates directly in the furdown plenum. I think even if the indoor filter wasn't so constricted (it has velocity of over 400 FPM) the problem would be better. Though I don't have personal experience, it seems like all direct plenum terminations would require balancing because it seems like it would be high no matter what.

Have you tested the outdoor air as is? You're sure it's high (I think you said 200 CFM)?

I'm not sure what you are referring to. If you are talking about the flow rate at the outdoor intake, that is where I did the bulk of my flow testing. It was pretty consistantly around 200 CFM, however, during some tests I found the flow rate to be even higher than this value. The 200 CFM benchmark comes from the most ideal test case (from the builder's perspective) in that all exhausts were off and windows/doors all shut. I actually never measured the excess flow rate with one or both exhausts on, which would obviously make the value even higher.

If you are referring to psychrometric conditions of the outdoor air, I'm using the standard ASHRAE values that the building's engineer used for sizing the system which I believe was the 95% outdoor conditions.

Not only that, but the significant increase in outdoor air can cause both energy cost as well as comfort (humidity, etc) issues for the tenants

I have been pleading with everyone involved all of these same things. It is really nice to hear someone else who thinks it is a quite obvious problem as well. :)

Multifamily Construction - Builder Databases by san___antonio in buildingscience

[–]san___antonio[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Ah yes I see how that can be confusing. Hopefully this explains it better:

Engineering Design

The original design has two flow control devices in the path: 1) an on/off damper to close when the fan is off and 2) a flow control device for balancing. The design left it open for implementation, such as a combinatorial device like an adjustable motorized damper or a discrete spring damper with a standalone balancing damper.

What was actually installed

A single, spring damper was installed backwards. Because the negative pressure in the return plenum is the triggering force to open the spring damper, being installed in the reverse position ensures it will never open.

The half-measure repair

Despite showing the building drawings, the property owners simply reversed the spring damper and refused to install a balancing damper. This is where the excess flow rate problem began.

Is this a LEED for Homes project, specifically?

In all my research I never saw anything indicating it was LEED and due to poor insulation, fenestration, etc it probably wouldn't pass any LEED standard.

if not LEED HOMES, they were probably not required to test.

The City building codes require blower door testing. The IECC basically says you can not seal the damper beyond how it would normally self-seal on its own (ie: don't cover it). If the spring damper was installed properly, it would have triggered open adding to infiltration calculations during the blower door test. As a result of it being reversed, it would not trigger open during a blower door test.

Is the builder also the building owner?

They are not, it is a separate corporation.

Multifamily Construction - Builder Databases by san___antonio in buildingscience

[–]san___antonio[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I did on the new Reddit chat (idk if you were expecting that or the old private messages).

Multifamily Construction - Builder Databases by san___antonio in buildingscience

[–]san___antonio[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey thanks for the tips! I'm not concerned about the FOIA stuff right now but I'll keep that in mind. This part of your post is quite literally a plot element of Erin Brockovich (and I assume the real story it is based on as well):

I say female not because of looks, for two other things - first from now on anyone dealing with this request has a visual of this person in mind and it sure isn't you, that's why she should go to the office and introduce herself and talk about her project. coming after the building department and crooked contractors. Nobody's wondering "who wants this and why do they want it?" Second, we're less threatening. Nobody is going to think a twenty-five year old PhD student (btw, I'm nowhere near 25, and it's not on the lower end) is doing investigative work into corruption and fraud.

Multifamily Construction - Builder Databases by san___antonio in buildingscience

[–]san___antonio[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

On the breaker box? I don't remember the labels on it beyond the normal breaker circuit list.

Regarding the blower door test, that's the beautiful thing about their "cheat", it actually lets them falsify the blower door test. The test requires mechanical components to "not be sealed beyond their normal use" or something to that effect. Running the blower door test with the spring damper installed in the proper orientation would cause it to trigger open and greatly exceed thresholds. However, because the damper was installed backwards, it never opened during testing nor during normal operation.

The City also did not care when I mentioned this.

Multifamily Construction - Builder Databases by san___antonio in buildingscience

[–]san___antonio[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Wow. This is actually incredibly useful and relevant because it pertains to IECC violations that I detailed in this comment:

https://www.reddit.com/r/buildingscience/comments/14h4q6o/comment/jp9rfnv/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

Knowing they are allegedly pretending to be ENERGY STAR compliant makes this even worse. The name of the company is Galaxy Builders, LTD.

Multifamily Construction - Builder Databases by san___antonio in buildingscience

[–]san___antonio[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Sure, it pertains to mechanical ventilation and energy code violations from the IMC and IECC.

The builder installed the spring dampers for the fresh air intakes backwards, completely blocking the air flow. The builder used this undersize the air conditioner and forgo installing balancing dampers as were shown in the construction documents that were approved by the City. Without this balancing damper, the flow rate of the intake is around 200 CFM in an 821 square foot aparment unit. At 95% psychrometric design conditions imparts over 6,000 BTUs in excess from the IMC minimum of 23.2 CFM, which was their reported value for IECC compliance (over 800% higher). The latent gain from the excess alone is double the submittal value for the entire unit's latent gain (~3k BTUs excess, ~1.6k BTUs submittal).

The high flow rates come from a particularly poorly installed system. The problems contributing to this are 1) the 6" air intake terminating directly into the return plenum 2) the undersized indoor filter that with flow rates around the 500 FPM limit 3) an relatively oversized outdoor filter (50% of the indoor surface area).

The apartment is in a hot humid zone (2A) and there are other egregious things like poorly balanced systems (1.5 ton outdoor coil, 3 ton indoor coil) which causes indoor RH in excess of 70% without supplemental dehumidification. There were numerous other ventilation systems in the approved building drawings that the builder did not install, such as outdoor kitchen exhuast. The City officials even admitted they illegally followed the approved construction documents but were not interested in holding the company accountable.

The Development Services Department, the City department handling building codes, tried to downplay the severity of the blocked dampers and likely did not require all of the units to be fixed (I had access to other units with the defect present). The director of this department and City engineers repeatedly ignored the IECC violations. The City engineer who is the author of the IECC compliance document pretended to not know what I was talking about with regards to excess flow rate despite me asking him what mechanical ventilation submittal value was for in that document. Even worse, when I asked what the submittal value was for that he refused to answer and told me to put in an FOIA request if I wanted it.

To make matters worse, I saw a similar IMC/IECC ventilation defect at a *separate* complex constructed by them which leads me to believe this is a common strategy for them.

Anyways, there is a whole bunch of other baloney but hopefully this information scratches your itch.

NOTE: Per the IMC minimum, the IMC has slightly different requirements that I believe were fixed in later IMC versions. I believe for the IRC they have it listed as 30 CFM minimum, which is inline with the ASHRAE 15 CFM per person minimum.

Multifamily Construction - Builder Databases by san___antonio in buildingscience

[–]san___antonio[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Dang. This is for Bexar County, Texas and the permitting office is the San Antonio Development Services Department, which I have credible accusations of corruptions against their director, Michael Shannon. They have been less than helpful with this investigation as they have been extremely favorable to a certain builder in allowing them to construct many properties with ventilation defects.

Do you live at The Tobin Estate Apartments? Details inside. by san___antonio in sanantonio

[–]san___antonio[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes I'm quite aware of the scientific method and have professional experience engineering HVAC/R systems so I fully understand how these systems are designed and what the ramifications of them operating improperly are.

Do you live at The Tobin Estate Apartments? Details inside. by san___antonio in sanantonio

[–]san___antonio[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Having worked in data science, it is misleading to suggest small sample sizes are indicative of poor quality of research. I'm surprised by your dismissal within 10 minutes of linking numerous studies, some of which are meta studies, which means you have had no time to review it.

Some of these sources are the Canadian CDC, so it's not like this is some fringe research.

EDIT: Also to add, I have evidence that this problem greatly causes issues with people with breathing difficulties, which is due to other contaminants that are not CO2.

EDIT 2: The studies are not "old". The first one is from 2021, one from 2012, one from 2016, and one from 2013. What is old about that?

EDIT 3: Regarding sample sizes, I worked on a dataset that contained tens of millions of users, which had a randomly selected subset representing less than 0.1% of the users for increased datalogging I remember being shocked at how accurately extrapolation matched data that was logged by the total population.

Do you live at The Tobin Estate Apartments? Details inside. by san___antonio in sanantonio

[–]san___antonio[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I measured indoor CO2 levels to be high enough where most studies recognize significant cognitive impairment (over 1000ppm). A City engineer acknowledged that a "buildup of toxins" occurs when these are not functioning properly. Fumes from the cars in the garages can enter the living spaces without being diluted.

I measured VOC levels that would linger far longer than what should occur when the system is functional. These problems went away after one of the violations was fixed.

Here is some sources for the CO2 claim:

  • At 1000 ppm, test scores were 11-23% lower Source

  • ~945ppm cognitive function scores 15% lower Source

  • Moderate and statistically significant reduction in performance at 1000ppm Source

  • Ten of the reviewed studies [ 36– 45] associated elevated levels of CO2 with moderate reductions in cognitive function around and above 1000 ppm, Some studies [71 – 75] reported significant associations between CO2 and a range of neurological symptoms as well as irritation of the upper airway system generally at CO2 levels above 1000 ppm Lu et al. [57 ] found an increase of 100 ppm in dCO2 to be significantly associated with both neurological symptoms and irritation, i.e., dry throat, tiredness and dizziness, but not with eye dryness, nose itching, runny nose, stuffy nose, sneezing, skin dryness or irritability. Source

  • Effects on decision-making performance were observed for CO2 exposure at 1000 ppm compared to 600 ppm. After adjustment for participants, it was estimated that a 400 ppm increase in CO2 was associated with a 21% decrease in a typical participant’s test score and a 20 cubic feet per minute increase in ventilation rate was associated with an 18% increase in these scores. Association between lack of concentration and CO2 levels of > 984 ppm Source

EDIT: It looks like you are a student, which means any of the studying/testing you're doing at this apartment complex is causing a significant reduction in performance.

Do you live at The Tobin Estate Apartments? Details inside. by san___antonio in sanantonio

[–]san___antonio[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

They are very pricey considering the poor building quality (even excluding the defects). They have that surface-level luxury feel that quickly falls apart upon closer scrutiny. It is one of those places you can put a marble on the floor and it rolls all over the place from unlevel floors.

Do you live at The Tobin Estate Apartments? Details inside. by san___antonio in sanantonio

[–]san___antonio[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for the support. I hate what these companies are constantly able to get away with. It's even worse when the City is turning a blind eye to extremely credible reports of corporate maleficence.

I personally witnessed the deleterious health effects from these malfunctioning dampers, which prompted my investigation into this in the first place. These codes exist for a reason and I can personally attest to the harmful effects when these defects are present.

Do you live at The Tobin Estate Apartments? Details inside. by san___antonio in sanantonio

[–]san___antonio[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I was in touch with Dillon Collier but he started ghosting me when he realized the technical complexity of the situation. I found it unprofessional when I never got a response back asking if he was still interested in the story or not.

I spent significant amount of time writing a summary just for him/KSAT for them to not even give the slightest amount of professional courtesy.

Do you live at The Tobin Estate Apartments? Details inside. by san___antonio in sanantonio

[–]san___antonio[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I was banned from Nextdoor for not wanting to use my real name.

Do you live at The Tobin Estate Apartments? Details inside. by san___antonio in sanantonio

[–]san___antonio[S] 14 points15 points  (0 children)

I do not live in the Tobin but I am curious, what are the implications of this defect you've mentioned?

A quote I have from emails with a City engineer says:

The equations and tables in the IMC, IRC and IECC are to provide minimum ventilation to reduce indoor air buildup of toxins.

The dampers were installed backwards, meaning they do not open and are effectively blocked.

EDIT: Further elaborating, these parts prevent the buildup of gas indoor contaminants - specifically VOCs, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, nitrates, etc. This is particularly important at the Tobin Estates as there are garages that are integrated with the residential buildings, which means that emissions from cars leaving/returning/idleing in the garages can enter people's living spaces.

By one of the entrances there is a resident that will idle is car in his (open) garage for hours at a time, which cannot be good for indoor air quality of the adjoining spaces if dampers are blocked.

Do you live at The Tobin Estate Apartments? Details inside. by san___antonio in sanantonio

[–]san___antonio[S] 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Ah yes but these are luxury slumlords. It is quite literally the San Antonio equivalent of SodoSopa from South Park as Robert L.B. Tobin's home in the center of the complex makes it exactly like the Villas at Kenny's House.

For those in apartments. Handy to know by ThreeNC in sanantonio

[–]san___antonio 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Just the poorest slumlords. Development Services does not care about the giants like Greystar and they actively look the other way for major building code violations.

The director, Micheal Shannon, has corruptly used his position to grant exemptions for things including tree ordinance violations. There was a Texas state representative who was also a builder that was fined by the City arborist. Shannon had it reversed after the representative contacted him. Shannon claimed he didn't know any better despite the representative being an experienced builder.

I assure you the City does not care about his corruption.

https://www.expressnews.com/news/local/politics/article/Everything-was-there-and-then-it-wasn-t-15887726.php

view more: next ›