SIRS reports
What's actually in a Structural Integrity Reserve Study.
A SIRS is an engineering firm's assessment of the building's structural components — roof, load-bearing walls, waterproofing, electrical, plumbing, and more — paired with a funding plan for replacing each one. Florida law now requires most condo associations to have one and to fully fund the plan it produces.
The parts that matter and the parts that get skipped
Every SIRS we've read has the same structure: an executive summary up front, then a long component-by-component schedule in the back showing remaining useful life and replacement cost for each item. The summary is usually one or two pages. The schedule is usually fifteen to thirty. Almost everyone reads the summary. The number that changes what you should pay is almost always in the schedule.
Three patterns we keep finding
A clean headline, a buried number
The summary reads fine. A footnote or a side schedule reveals the real cushion is smaller — money counted as reserves that's actually tied up somewhere else, or a reserve fund that's effectively at zero despite what the top-line balance shows.
Repairs clustering in the next five years
Several components hit zero remaining useful life inside a normal ownership window, even when the total dollar reserve looks adequate on its own. The per-unit share of that work is never stated; it has to be calculated.
A reassuring contribution number over a bad balance
Next year's dues are only going up a few percent. Reserves are 23% funded. Both numbers are in the report. Only one usually gets repeated out loud.
If you have the SIRS, send it. We'll check free whether it holds enough to calculate your unit's five-year exposure, and if it does the full report is $49.