Units 215 to 218 at Excalibur Motor Condominiums, Fort Myers, with black sectional garage doors and glass entry doors

Construction

What is behind the walls, the roof and the doors.

Wind design
170 mph
Roof membrane
60-mil
Under the second floor
14 ft
Garage door, width × height
16 × 14 ft
Electrical service per unit
220V, 150A, 1 or 3 phase
A/C units, smallest to largest plan
Up to 3 × 3-ton

Whether a building holds comes down to how the roof is attached, what happens at the doors and windows, and whether the parts were specified together. This page goes through each one, with the figures.

Top-down aerial of the finished first building at Excalibur Motor Condominiums, Fort Myers, showing the white TPO roof, one HVAC unit per bay and the Excalibur sign

The roof

A commercial roof, rated for 25 years or more

The roof is a 60-mil TPO membrane rated for 25 years or more. Sixty mil is a commercial thickness: it is the difference between a membrane that tolerates ponding, foot traffic during service visits and two decades of Florida ultraviolet, and one that is chosen because it costs less per square. The roof is also the largest single surface on the building, which is why it is specified first and not last.

Membrane
60-mil TPO
Rated service life
25+ years
Coverage
Both buildings, full roof area
60-mil TPO membraneRated 25+ years
Insulation boardContinuous over the deck
Structural deckSpanning the frame below
Evening aerial of the bay doors along Building 1 at Excalibur Motor Condominiums, Fort Myers
The bay doors along the first building, each set into the same engineered envelope.

02

The walls

Every wall is specified to one whole-building wind design.

The buildings are engineered to a 170 mph ultimate design wind speed. That figure is a whole-building design criterion, not a rating on one component, and every part of the envelope is specified to hold it.

Ultimate design wind speed
170 mph
Construction type
Concrete construction with an integrated concrete mezzanine
Sectional cutaway drawing of an Excalibur motor condominium bay showing the concrete mezzanine above the parking floor
Bay cutaway: the concrete mezzanine, with 14 ft of clearance beneath it and the full 25 ft interior height above.

03

The second floor

A concrete second floor with 14 ft of clearance under it

The mezzanine is integrated concrete, cast as part of the structure rather than hung off it as a steel deck afterwards. It is the most differentiating specification in the building and the one worth measuring against a competitor before you decide anything.

Most motor condominiums run a mezzanine about 10 ft above the slab. Florida's legal height limit for a vehicle on the road is 13 ft 6 in, so at 10 ft nothing road-legal fits under it: the mezzanine costs you the floor it stands over. At 14 ft, everything road-legal drives beneath it and parks, and the floor above is still yours.

Three separate heights appear in this building and they are not the same number. The door opening is 14 ft high. The clearance beneath the mezzanine is 14 ft. The total clear interior height is 25 ft.

Mezzanine construction
Integrated concrete, poured with the structure
Under the second floor
14 ft
Garage door
16 ft wide × 14 ft high
Ceiling height
25 ft
Excalibur Motor Condominiums sign and canopy over a bay door, Fort Myers
Excalibur Motor Condominiums sign and canopy over a bay door, Fort Myers.

04

The doors

Doors and windows fail first, so these are impact-rated

In a wind event, buildings usually do not fail because the structure was overwhelmed. They fail at a hole. A door panel deflects, a piece of debris goes through a window, and the building goes from sealed to pressurized in a second. The wind that was pushing on the outside is now also pushing on the inside, against the roof deck, and the roof is the thing that leaves.

That is why the openings here are specified to the same standard as the structure rather than treated as a finish item. All openings are impact-rated for Lee County's wind-borne debris region, and the overhead doors are 16 ft wide × 14 ft high insulated segmented units carrying a wind-load pressure rating consistent with the building's design criteria. Insulated matters twice over: it stiffens the panel, and it keeps the conditioned air you are paying for on your side of it.

A door is also the part of the building you operate several times a week for twenty years. Segmented doors on a properly specified track are serviceable, panels and springs are replaceable items, which is not true of the roll-up shutters used on cheaper facilities.

Garage door
16 ft wide × 14 ft high
Door type
Insulated segmented, on track
Openings
Impact-rated for Lee County's wind-borne debris region
Ceiling height
25 ft
Cutaway drawing of an Excalibur motor condominium unit showing the full bathroom and second floor above
Cutaway of a unit: full bathroom below, second floor plumbed for a wet bar above.

05

Utilities

150-amp one- or three-phase power, its own air conditioning and a full bathroom in every unit

Every unit has its own 220V, 150A, 1 or 3 phase service, individually metered. Individually metered is the part worth reading twice: you pay for the electricity you use, not a share of what the building used, and nobody is subsidizing the neighbor running a paint booth. One hundred and fifty amps at 220V is enough for a lift, a compressor, several battery tenders and a coach on shore power at the same time.

Each unit has dedicated HVAC, its own system, not a zone off a shared plant, so the temperature and humidity in your bay are set by you and do not depend on anybody else's habits. Every unit also has a luxury full bathroom with shower, and the second floor is plumbed for a wet bar.

Coax is run to every unit for internet and television, and the property is gated with camera monitoring and 24/7 owner access.

Electrical service
220V, 150A, 1 or 3 phase service per unit
Metering
Individual, per unit
Climate
Dedicated HVAC serving one unit alone
Plumbing
Luxury full bathroom with shower in every unit; second floor plumbed for a wet bar
Data
Coax to every unit
Access
Gated, 24/7, camera monitored

Questions about the construction

The buildings are engineered to a 170 mph ultimate design wind speed.

A 60-mil TPO membrane, warranty documented over the insulated deck, detailed and fastened for the same design wind pressures as the walls.

Each bay has a 16 × 14 ft insulated segmented overhead door. Doors are the weakest point of any large-span building, which is why they are specified and anchored as part of the structural envelope rather than bought as a finish item.

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