Clever of the British to give a posh name to a common problem: Regent Street Disease. But there’s no mask requirement in London’s West End—this disease affects buildings, not people.

London’s prestigious Regent Street lends its name to a form of facade deterioration common to the neighborhood’s proliferation of 19th-century buildings.

The phenomenon is the same on either side of the Atlantic: When structural iron or steel corrodes, it expands (up to eight times its original size) causing cracks, spalls, or wholesale failure in the surrounding masonry and calling into question the member’s ability to sustain the load it was designed to carry.

Compounding the problem in New York City, our buildings are also subject to more freeze/thaw cycling than their English counterparts, exacerbating masonry deficiencies with time and the seasons.

While there’s no panacea for Regent Street Disease, early, proactive detection and restoration can mean the difference between a building that’s right as rain (though resistant to it) and one that ends up on life support.