One response so far!

There has been a lot in the news lately about leaky condos. 

This article was in the Calgary Herald on June 28th, 2011, about some leaky condos in Calgary.  It quotes Calgary Liberal MLA Kent Hehr speaking out about this issue.
http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/Shoddy+workmanship+blamed+Calgary+condo+owners+crippled+huge+repair+bills/5021566/story.html

This article was in the Calgary Herald August 12th, 2011, about PC leadership candidates at a forum in Fort McMurray, about condo issues in that city. (this is not just a problem in Calgary!)
http://www.calgaryherald.com/business/Tory+hopefuls+target+crumbling+condos+Fort+McMurray+forum/5245107/story.html

Of course, this is an issue for single-family homes too.

Yesterday and today, I emailed ALL of the PC and Liberal leadership candidates, as well as Calgary Liberal MLA Kent Hehr.  I haven't heard back from any of them yet, but it has only been one day, so I am still hopeful that I will hear back from at least some of them!

I also emailed our MLA, Minister Lindsay Blackett, since we are in NW Calgary.  I was pleasantly surprised to hear back from his assistant only 8 minutes after I sent the email!!!  After she had the chance to actually speak to Minister Blackett about it, she was able to arrange for a phone meeting with us and Minister Blackett for Monday afternoon.  So, someone from the government is actually willing to talk to us about this!

I would strongly encourage anyone else facing similar issues to also contact the government about this.  Please let me know if you can think of anyone else I should email!
If anyone else wants to contact any of these same people, here is the contact info:

PC leadership candidates
Doug Griffiths	info@betteralberta.ca
Doug Horner	info@hornerforalberta.ca
Ted Morton	info@tedmorton.ca
Gary Mar	info@garymar.ca
Rick Orman	info@voterickorman.com
Alison Redford	info@alisonredford.ca
Liberal leadership candidates
Laurie Blakeman	laurie4leader@gmail.com
Bill Harvey	http://www.electbillharvey.ca/contact-bill-harvey.html
Hugh MacDonald	http://www.votehugh.ca/contact
Bruce Payne	info@87strong.ca
Raj Sherman	info@electraj.ca
Liberal MLA
Kent Hehr	calgary.buffalo@assembly.ab.ca
PC MLA for Calgary NW
Lindsay Blackett	Calgary.NorthWest@assembly.ab.ca

Letter to the editor - Calgary Herald

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.

Reno plans - advice needed!

We have been busy the last few weeks choosing things for our reno.  We have chosen new colours for the outside, new windows, etc.  But the biggest issue we are having is what to do with the interior window sills, casing etc.

Right now, our window sills, window casings, baseboards, interior doors, stair railings, fireplace mantle, etc. are all oak.  We were not planning on doing an interior reno right now - partly because we want to wait until the kids are older and less likely to wreck things, and partly because now that we have to do the exterior it will be awhile before we save up enough money!

The contractor, designer, and window salesman are all trying to convince us to go with painted window sills and possibly re-use our oak window casing.  Well, originally they were trying to convince us to go with painted window sills AND casing, but we weren't sure of that because it totally wouldn't match the oak in the rest of the house.  Their reasons are:
- paint grade would be cheaper than oak
- oak is apparently not "in" anymore
- they think we should set ourselves up to do an interior reno in the future

But we're still not conviced.  So today I got some paint that is about the same colour as the window sill colour they are recommending, and painted one of our windows.  (since they will be getting replaced in a few weeks, it doesn't really matter).  I have attached some before and after photos.  We're really not sure.
What do you think?

Have you ever seen this type of white / off-white and wood combo before?  Anyone else have this?
Looking for some advice!!!  Thanks :-)

BEFORE: (all oak)

AFTER: (off-white/oak combo) 

Breathing easy...

Whew....the guy just called about our indoor air quality tests and all is normal!

Insurance?

A lot of people have asked "Doesn't your insurance cover that?"
Well, yes and no.  They will not cover anything due to negligence, which is how they define the builder's mistakes.  So they will not help to pay to fix the building envelope.  They will cover for damages to things inside the house due to the water infiltration.  Luckily we have had really no damage to flooring, furniture, etc.  I did have an insurance adjustor out, and he said they will help pay for repairs to the drywall etc.  However, we don't want to repair the inside until we fix the outside, so we will be in touch with the insurance company in October or November once we get to that stage.

Alberta government

Aside from the obvious responsibility of the home builder to produce a quality product, much of the responsibility for issues with leaky homes rests with the Alberta government, since the Alberta Building Code should ensure that homes are built to a reasonable standard.

At the recommendation of our "friends of friends", we wrote a letter to Ivan Moore, the Assistant Deputy Minister for Public Safety.  We got basically a form letter response, here it is:

Thank you for your June 28, 2011 email regarding problems with your home’s building envelope installation.  A home is the largest investment most of us will make and it should be built to the quality Albertans expect and deserve. I am able to provide you with the following information regarding the approach we are taking to mitigate similar issues in the future.

On June 7, 2011, the Government of Alberta announced the development of a regulatory framework for mandatory home warranty to address issues associated with residential construction practices.  A framework proposal is being developed for consideration by government later this year.  The standards for warranty will be more robust than current programs in Alberta, including longer coverage terms, while balancing the needs of industry and consumers.  Government will also consider increasing the fines and limitation period for violations under the Safety Codes Act, which would improve accountability in the construction industry.

In addition to these initiatives, work is underway in other areas that will further address these issues.  A building envelope training course has been developed that will be required for all building safety codes officers (inspectors) to maintain their certification.  This training will help ensure that safety codes officers are well equipped to identify issues with the building envelope at the time of inspection.  Further to this initiative, the Safety Codes Council is also conducting a review of the inspection regime to improve the inspection system throughout the province.

I am confident that these changes will help protect Albertans and improve residential construction practices in the future.  We will take your experience into consideration as we move forward on development of these initiatives.

Thank you again for writing. 

Sincerely,

Ivan Moore

Assistant Deputy Minister

Public Safety Division

This doesn't help us at all, although it *may* help some people in the future.  I am not sure that the government is doing enough or doing it quickly enough.  We have heard about a lot of people with similar issues to us, but I am not sure that the government realizes how widespread the problem is.

If anyone out there has a similar issue, please also send an email to Ivan Moore:

ivan.moore@gov.ab.ca

In future posts, I'll be making some other suggestions about people to contact.

Indoor Air Quality

With mould in our home, we are obviously concerned about the indoor air quality.  So we had a guy out yesterday to do some testing.  He has a machine that basically sucks air in and catches "stuff" (mould spores etc) on a little slide, and then they send it to a lab to be analysed.  He took one sample on each floor of our home and one outside as a reference.  We should have the results on Thursday or Friday, but his initial thought was that we don't have a big problem.  Hopefully he is right!