All Forum Posts by: Jordan F.

Thank you all for responding.  The insurance company says that installing a laundry room in the basement won't add to the cost nor would they impose any requirements.

Thank you for responding, Rick.  I will ask my insurance agent and post his response.

Hi there.  I co-own a Bldg in the Los Angeles area.  Many if not most apartment buildings in the area have laundry rooms.  The building used to have one in the basement but the machines were removed a long time ago.  The point of this letter is what are the liability issues regarding having a laundry room in the basement (we have nowhere else to put it)?  How do we mitigate them? Tenants would be accessing this space through a side alley to which they never had access before.  How do insurance companies see these basement laundry rooms?  Is the additional revenue worth the additional liability?  There is a laundromat a few blocks away (less than a 5 minute drive).

I've already thought of a few things: put additional lighting outside and in stairwell, treads on stairs, and install railing so that there is a handrail on both sides.  Basement already has sump pump.  What do you all think?

Hello BP.  I have an apartment where the tenant of record died in July of 2021 but her unauthorized roommate continues to live there without paying rent.  The original tenant's credit was bad so her mother signed as a guarantor.  Subsequently the mother was declared incapacitated and her son is now exercising the power of attorney.  My question is whether we can hold the mother/son liable for the unpaid rent that has accrued since September to date or did their responsibility end when the tenant of record died.  We don't have the illegal tenant's name or social security number.   We are attempting to evict her based on a name we found that matched first and middle name, age and ethnicity.  I look forward to any help you can give me.  Thanks.

Hi Everyone,

We are thinking of installing a laundry room for a 20 unit apartment building that has no laundry onsite.  We have a basement available but would need to install a sump pump or some other pump to pump the water into the drainpipe which is in the crawlspace.  There is already a sump pit but I'm wondering about what kind of pump and the durability of a pump that might have to pump water 12 feet up and 5 feet across for 3 or 4 washing machines at the same time.  Any ideas?  Thanks.

I just spoke to a city electrical inspector.  He says 40 amps per apartment, 100 amps for the house and 400 amps for the building is more than enough.

Thanks for responding.  Insurance requires 150 amps/unit but I was wondering about how many amps for whole building.  We'd have to rewire because most of our wiring is original copper with cloth insulation from 1950.

Dear BP,

We are in the process of researching an electrical upgrade for a 1950 apartment building with 8 one bedrooms and 2 studios, taking into account the following:

• We have no dishwashers or garbage disposals and won't install any,
• Stoves, ovens and heaters are gas,
• We are in Southern California,
• In one bedrooms: 10,000 BTU a/c for living room and 6,000 BTU for bedroom,
• Central water heater is gas,
• We'd like 2 electric vehicle chargers connected to house circuit (currently only has LED lights on it),
• We have no washers/dryers currently but might get one of each or a pair in the future,
• Our insurance company states each unit should have 150 amps.

How many amps should we put in the main breaker?  The current electrician wants to keep it at 400 amps max because if it goes above then we have to higher an engineer or something like that.  But we also want to "future-proof" the building over the next 40 years or so.  Nothing's been done to it; we still have fuses and original wiring inside metal conduit.

Thank you all for your help!

Hello,

We have a 10 unit property in the Los Angeles area and are wondering if now is the right time to get a loan to update the electric.  All apartments are one bedrooms or studios and are on two 15 amp fuses each.  There are also newer circuit breakers in each apartment and three-prong and gfci outlets have been installed where required.  All wires run through flexible metal conduits (BX? Greenfield? I'm not sure) and when a new outlet is installed and tested, the tester says that it's grounded.  

The last electrician who came to give an estimate regarding electrical upgrading for installing washers and dryers (another post) said that it was urgent that we replace the fuses and main breaker which, he said, had evidence of "chuckling" or something like that...meaning some green colored corrosion.  He also said some wires were aluminum and the fuses installed were higher than circuit could handle.  He said the upgrade would cost around $30-35,000.  This is quite a lot but we have about $26,000 in reserve.  To date, no tenants have declared a financial hardship and everyone has paid the rent.  Nevertheless, we think it might be a good time to get a low interest loan (U.S. Bank has some appealing products) and eventually pay it off when the pandemic passes.

We expect to keep this property indefinitely and we have never had an electrical fire to my knowledge over the decades that we've had it.  The city might force us to move all of the electrical panels from the basement to the back wall for easier access.  How urgent is this issue and what would you do?  Thanks for your input!

Thanks for responding.  Cameras would be an option but I'd just need some sort of wifi service which we don't have right now.  It would be difficult for us to wall it off since the stairwell descends to the back wall where all the fuse boxes and water heater are and then you step left off of a landing...but we could install some sort of security accordion door that could be pushed against one wall like this: https://www.foldingdoorsandroo....  How many machines would you get for 20 units?  I was thinking 2 washers and 2 dryers.