At the June board meeting, the board reset the deadline for sealing our balconies to Aug 1, and committed to send clear communications to all owners about the work we might still need to do to meet that deadline. We’ll hopefully be hearing about these requirements soon, but in the meantime, I want to give you advanced notice:
If you think you’ve already fulfilled the requirement for sealing your balcony, that might not be the case.
The reason is that there are actually two jobs that need to be done: the sealing of the bases of the posts that hold the railing in place, AND the sealing of the entire surface of the balcony.
Some owners might not know about the second requirement, because while clear do-it-yourself instructions, including a how-to video, were sent to the all the owners about sealing the bases of the posts, no such instructions were ever sent about how to seal the balcony surfaces.
At the meeting, board president Ray Aguirre claimed (in a harsh, blame-casting motion that was rejected by a 3-2 vote) that owners have known all the requirements “for three years,” but this is not true. I noticed early on in 2025 that the DIY instructions being sent in the management company newsletters were incomplete, and sent repeated emails to Ray, the board at the time, and the management company about it. I even spoke with Ray in person about it, and he assured me he’d get right on it.
I never saw balcony surface instructions sent to anybody — if you did, please let me know and I’ll correct this post — particularly the required products to use for every part of the job, as I’ve heard that one of them is tricky to obtain for non-contractors. Complete DIY instructions are essential not only for people who want to do the work themselves, but for those who need to explain the job to a contractor so the contractor can bid on it.
This is pretty important work. It will keep the balconies from deteriorating over time. (And we’ve already seen how expensive balcony maintenance can be when it’s put off for too long.) So I’m glad the board seems ready to finally start communicating the need to us clearly and completely.
Full disclosure: I’m one of those owners who hasn’t done his balcony, but that’s because I was waiting for the full DIY instructions so I could find a contractor willing to give a volume discount if a bunch of us scheduled our work at the same time. Hopefully, one or both of those options can now happen soon.