POOLS
This specific chemical parameter must be kept between 7.2 and 7.6 to ensure sanitizer effectiveness and prevent skin irritation or equipment corrosion.
What is pH?
This vital landscaping practice involves cutting back dead or overgrown branches to promote healthy plant growth, improve visibility, and eliminate safety hazards along sidewalks.
What is pruning?
This federal act mandates specific safety drainage covers and backup systems in all public and homeowner association pools to prevent swimmer entrapment.
What is the Virginia Graeme Baker Pool and Spa Safety Act / VGB Act?
Clearing fallen leaves from gutters every fall or cleaning sewer lines every month to avoid backups.
What is preventative maintenance?
What type of specialized insurance policy protects board members and the manager from personal liability for "wrongful acts" related to rule enforcement or vendor selections?
What is Directors and Officers / D&O Insurance?
This term describes the process of adding high doses of chlorine to the pool water to break up combined chloramines, which cause the distinct "chlorine smell" and eye burn.
What is superchlorination / shocking the pool?
This specific type of modern irrigation controller uses local weather data or soil sensors to automatically adjust watering schedules, drastically cutting community water utility bills.
What is a smart/weather-based irrigation controller?
Replacing a sidewalk buckled by tree roots or repairing broken water lines
What is corrective maintenance?
In maintenance contract law, this specific clause legally shifts financial liability and defense costs from the HOA to the vendor if a third party gets hurt due to the vendor’s work.
What is an indemnification / hold harmless clause?
This landscaping term describes the use of native, drought-tolerant plants and efficient watering designs to significantly minimize the need for supplemental irrigation.
What is xeriscaping?
This is the standard legal term for an association’s failure to exercise the degree of care that a reasonable person would under similar circumstances, often resulting in trip-and-fall lawsuits.
What is negligence?
Picking up litter in the community park or replacing lightbulbs in the clubhouse.
What is routine maintenance?
A document that catalogs all major common elements, assesses their condition, and forecasts when they will need replacement over the next 20-30 years.
What is a reserve study?
The acronym for the national standard that sets rules for age-restricted (55+) communities.
What is HOPA?
This accounting method—highly recommended by CAI over the cash basis—records maintenance expenses when they are incurred rather than when the bill is actually paid, preventing distorted budget reporting.
What is the accrual basis of accounting?
Under the Clean Water Act, this is the specific acronym for the federally mandated permits that an HOA must obtain and comply with for discharging stormwater from community retention ponds into public waterways.
What is an NPDES permit? / National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System