What the milestone law requires
The law is Section 553.899 of the Florida Statutes, and it covers condo and co-op buildings three stories or taller. The building needs its first inspection by December 31 of the year it turns 30. Near salt water it can be 25. After that it's every 10 years. That's all laid out in the state's OPPAGA report on milestone inspections.
Phase one is just a licensed engineer or architect walking the building and looking. If they find real deterioration, it goes to phase two, which can include destructive or nondestructive testing and has to list the repairs. Then the owner has 365 days from that report to get repairs started.
That last part is the one contractors should pay attention to. A lot of repair work is about to be on a deadline.
What the first two years turned up
The OPPAGA report came out in July 2026 and looked at the 2024 and 2025 inspections. Across those two years, 8,736 phase one inspections and 1,575 phase two inspections got done. Repair costs ran anywhere from under $1,000 to $30 million, and concrete was one of the most common repairs. 54 buildings were found unsafe or uninhabitable.
Most of the phase two inspections were along the coast, mainly Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach. That's high-rise country, and high-rises down there are mostly post-tensioned.
Why post-tension is the big risk in Florida repairs
Most high-rise condo buildings in South Florida are built with unbonded post-tensioned slabs, according to STRUCTURE magazine. The steel cables inside are stressed after the concrete cures, and they carry the load. When one gets cut, it can release suddenly.
Salt air is what wears these buildings down. Chlorides get into the concrete and corrode the steel, and then the concrete cracks and breaks off. That's spalling, and balcony slab edges get it worst. The Concrete Repair Bulletin calls balcony slab edges one of the most common problem areas in coastal South Florida, and the tendon end anchors sit right there in the edge.
So the crew is working right where the tendons end, with chipping hammers, core bits for railing posts and a saw to square up the patch. And tendons don't always sit where you'd guess. In the PT slabs I scan they tend to bunch up in bands over the column lines and spread out everywhere else, and the depth changes as they drape. You can't eyeball that from the top. Here's what a post-tension scan looks like on a real job.
Where scanning fits into the repair job
| Repair task | What can be in the way | What the scan gives you |
|---|---|---|
| Phase two testing | Tendons, rebar, areas the engineer wants to look at | A layout of the steel so test spots and openings go in the right place |
| Chipping out spalled concrete | Tendons, end anchors, slab-edge rebar | Marked tendon lines so the crew knows how deep and where it's safe to go |
| Coring for railing posts and drains | Tendons running near the slab edge | Clear spots for each core, and spots to move |
| Saw cutting patch edges | Tendons and rebar near the surface | Depth, so the blade doesn't go too deep |
| Anchoring shoring or new equipment | Tendons, rebar, conduit | Anchor spots in clear concrete |
With a 30-year-old building, good luck finding drawings. And when they do turn up, they show what the engineer planned, not what got built, plus whatever older repairs changed since. I've had plenty of slabs where the drawings said one thing and the scan said another. The scan's the one I trust.
How a scan works on a restoration job
GPR stands for ground-penetrating radar. The scanner sends radar pulses into the concrete and picks up what bounces back off steel, conduit and empty spaces.
It's pretty simple. You or the engineer mark where the repairs, cores and anchors are going. I roll the GPR over those spots and around them, which only takes access from one side, and mark the tendons and rebar right on the concrete with depth notes as I go. Your crew works in the clear spots, and anything that lands on a tendon gets moved. The written report goes out within 24 hours.
No radiation either, so nobody has to leave their unit while we're scanning their balcony. In an occupied building, that matters.
Before you call: a quick checklist
- The phase two report or the engineer's repair drawings, if you have them
- The repair areas, cores or anchor spots marked out
- Whether the slab is post-tensioned, if you know
- Access to the balconies, walkways or garage levels we need to scan
- Any old drawings, even if you don't trust them
Scanning across Florida
We scan for restoration contractors, engineers and property managers statewide: Miami, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach, Orlando, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Jacksonville, Fort Myers, Naples, Sarasota and everywhere in between. Concrete scanning in Florida.
Common questions
Does a milestone inspection require GPR scanning?
Not by name. Phase two can include nondestructive testing, and it's up to the engineer what testing they need. GPR is one of the main nondestructive ways to map tendons and rebar, so engineers and repair contractors use it a lot on post-tensioned buildings.
Can you find post-tension tendons near a balcony edge?
Yes. Tendons usually run out to anchors at the slab edge, and that's right where a lot of the spalling repairs happen. We map them before anyone chips, cores or cuts there.
Do residents need to leave during the scan?
No. GPR uses no radiation, so people can stay home and other work can keep going.
How fast do I get results?
We mark everything on the concrete while we scan, so the crew can get started the same day. The written report follows within 24 hours.