I wrote a letter a couple of days ago to the Calgary Herald. They had a story in recently about leaky condos in Fort McMurray and what various Conservative leadership candidates were saying about building envelopes etc. The Herald published my letter today!
Here is a link:
http://www.calgaryherald.com/opinion/Leaking+Tuscany/5265842/story.html
And a copy of the letter:
Re: "Tory hopefuls target crumbling condos," Aug. 12.
This article highlighted issues with building envelopes on condominium buildings. This is also a major issue with singlefamily homes.
We have a 13-year-old house in Tuscany, built by a major Calgary home builder who is still in business.
We have had several leaks over the years, but only recently discovered that they are due to the building envelope being installed incorrectly when the house was built. The building paper was lapped incorrectly, and our stucco thickness does not meet the Alberta Building Code.
Unfortunately, our house is past the one-year warranty, and there is no recourse against the builder for breaking the building code. We have serious water damage in our home. We are having to pay to redo our entire building envelope and re-clad our entire house, which should not be required on a house of this age.
The Alberta government needs to make changes to building inspections and the home warranty program to hold builders accountable for their errors.
We have started a blog detailing our experiences: http: //leakyhouse.blogspot.com/.
We have heard of many other homes with similar issues, and according to our engineer and contractor, this is a major problem affecting hundreds, if not thousands, of homes built in the last 15 years.
We hope the Alberta government takes immediate action to deal with this issue.
I'm glad to see you taking some action here. I read your letter in the Herald and can relate. I live in a Jayman-built home in Springbank Hill. Every single home around us has a leaky basement. Our problem is fairly minimal compared to a lot of people around us (mostly water coming in a window well), but when we brought in a contractor to fix the problem it was discovered that, despite a high water table and clay soils, no weeping tile was installed under any of the houses. This definitely doesn't meet the requirements of the building code in effect in 2001; our house was built in 1999 though and I'm still trying to find out about requirements for weeping tile in effect at that time.
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