My favourite painter is Osuman. He’s a hard working guy and isn’t afraid of sharing an opinion on bad builder tactics. He’s got a lot of experience so I tend to listen to what he says, plus I don’t want to get on his bad side.
I ordered some paint matched to the graphite color of the window frames. He’s rolling them in our newly cleaned garage that also functions as a work shop. This will be an interesting exterior detail we will install soon.
Osuman is applying the graphite tinted paint.
The Richmond project is a rare attached garage model for me to undertake. We’ve decided to spray foam the garage ceiling to seal out vapour from the garage and to make the upper floor warmer. This uses a lot of foam but the job is at least easy to do when it is completely accessible.
Garage spray in progress
The dropped ceiling used to frame the main duct runs is now fully encased in foam
Hard to seal joist butt ends are foamed against the rim board. Many hard to insulate areas are done this way on the lower levels. The skylight frame is also foamed.
the trade installations are wrapping up at the site. Electrical, plumbing, gas, building, development permit inspections are complete and we’ve got vacuum roughin ongoing. Preboard phase is one of the largest construction milestones.
Ready for insulation.
With bid plebiscite day quickly approaching there seems to be a really unpredictable mood within the city. There are hard core elements both for and against the bid, and it seems like this issue has galvanized the large and growing curmudgeon contingent in this city like no other has before. The angry middle aged white male, the demographic most able to fund this type of non-core service, really detests the IOC, mayor, and, for lack of a better name, the ‘elites’ that drive and benefit tremendously from a taxpayer funded largesse such as an olympic games.
On the other hand, the use of the games to leverage other investments in infrastructure and to access pots of money the feds have but otherwise would not bestow on Calgary is really attractive. The games could help overcome the economic morass that we have suffered through since 2014, and there is a strong sentimental attachment to reliving hosting the games, the glory of ‘88 and other such nonsense.
The no side has a counter argument to every possible benefit the yes side put forth, and we move from point to counterpoint, while both sides release economic information or ‘weaponized disinformation’ depending on your point of view. The reality is the two pieces of most needed infrastructure, an airport train connection and a new sporting arena, remain unfunded. Is it worth pursuing a games when much needed infrastructure wont be catalyzed by the games?
Tough questions, and I don’t know for sure how to vote. Currently leaning yes just because I don’t want to vote against my home town. May have to hold my nose while casting the ballot, a familiar experience.
The ‘olympic’ saddledome, a Calgary icon. Still a great place to watch a hockey game, but an archaic venue. Will the most loved legacy from the 88 games need to be bulldozed?
Following the engineer inspection of the tall wall install, a metal strapping detail was required. Remarkably, in 2013 I had a project where two spools of the heavy gauge strapping were needed for the cantilever reinforcement. Only one spool was ever used and I was left with a full roll. This went on to occupy space in my garage and eventually in a closet in my house for 5 years until it was called for re use. Countless occasions had passed where I had cursed the existence of the strapping and vowed to toss it in the trash. My wife also had cursed me for permanently warehousing this strapping, especially once it appeared in her closet. The reason why the strapping was relocated from the garage to the closet is lost to me now, but I remain pleased that the hoarder tendency finally paid off.
The strapping is unfurled.
And the strapping is finally repurposed on a new building after 5 years of hoarding.
the prep crew arrived to prepare the garage slab. This was a multi step process, first we scraped the fill to the proper height. Next we augered middle support holes. Gravel was distributed and compacted. Styrofoam and rebar applied. Finally, as a cost saving measure we installed the network of pex pipes to allow later install of slab heating.
Ready to pour
The machine was back to make window install possible. Many of the larger windows are very heavy when assembled so come with the glass out and are site glazed.
Large windows going in. One of the many benefits of new construction vs renovation.
Once the frame is in place the window company can come back and install the glass.
Hopefully the next blizzard will come after the windows are installed and we won’t have to shovel out the master bedroom floor.
With Calgary thawing out from a massive early season blizzard, we can report some ongoing progress at the Richmond site.
Windows are delivered and ready to go, and the plumber is working on the drainage network.
Fortunately we had most of the membrane and 2/3 of the shingles installed the day before the blizzard. The warm days later in the week have resulted in a massive amount of meltwater draining off the back of the roof rather than soaking the inside of the framing. This is a nice advantage of having familiarity with the trades as they can offer me a little better service and flexibility.
The all Albanian crew is on site to clear off the flat section of roof so it can dry out and the torch product be installed later. Windows are ready to go in.
By the end of the third quarter of 2018 it seems like the story of the year could already be written. A Slow spring market, rising mortgage rates, punishing cost increases, terrible mortgage policy where the wagging tail of Toronto determines the fate of the western Canadian dog, and a NAFTA and pipeline fiasco with a net of blame so wide that hardly anyone escapes its shame are 2019 lowlights.... where are the highlights? The desire for government change is palpable among my industry contacts, but little respite is on the horizon from the people in charge and the incredible damage they do.
How these societal conditions are impacting the inner city housing market is much more clear than it was during the optimism of late 2017. A fair bit of supply has come on the market and sales have slowed. Building material cost increases have been significantly higher than expected and many builders are feeling the squeeze of stale inventory and poor margin. I toured a $1.2M showhome that featured, much to my horror, basic carpeting upstairs and low end master bath fixtures. This stingy spec list is a reflection of cost increases elsewhere. Somehow I was able to put together a similar house with hardwood floors everywhere, nicer appliances and fixtures, and air conditioning and infloor heating operating for $400k less. I must be a building genius. Land sales have really slipped as well and are not likely to recover unless sentiment swings the other way, which, based on recent observation, it can quickly. Let’s hope the land sellers get a little market discipline too.
All of this sounds like it is a great time to buy a house by locating the nearest desperate home builder and making a lowball offer on an unsold show home. The problem with this strategy is it will be hard for a bankrupt builder to provide much after sale support. Any buyer who enters into this sort of arrangement should be extra careful their new house was built well or be prepared to be responsible for dealing with the consequences. Remember the false government security blanket of a mandated insurance program masquerading as a warranty will do little to deal with the imperfections in a newly built home.
2018-19 could be a hard time for builder survival and the intense competition should shake out the weaker players. I’m wishing this year would be over and we could celebrate New Year’s Day instead of thanksgiving!
The framers were braving another damp and overcast day to begin roof install. Once again, this project features a simple roof line that will vent well in winter and be affordable to repair in the future. My paranoia about complex roof lines, parapets and scuppers has been well justified over the years, especially last winter during the horrible conditions we encountered.
Roof is going on before the interior walls and front face of the building. This allows better access for the lifting machine way down below.
Update - the lot featured below wasn’t sold and has now been cut in price again to 590k.
Summer is over and with it the remainder of optimism in the market. Some sellers are just so stubborn in their refusal to accept reality about changing market conditions. The theme of our report is to hire a realtor (if you are going to pay the enormous transaction cost to sell a house) that actually understands where the market is going rather than where it was or based on wishful thinking.
Down markets have a way of enforcing discipline on irrational sellers. In the case study below, it took 4 months for the seller to really understand that the property was over priced, not in a high demand location, and it needed to be below $600k to attract interest. Back in May if the seller listed it at the current price it would likely be sold and the deal complete. This kind of real estate is not particularly liquid because the only buyers (the builders) are a temperamental lot. Even a group that behaves as self destructively as the builders will eventually start acting sensibly. I wonder what is different about the market now vs the irrational exuberance of 2017 other than pure sentiment.
4 months and a $70k reduction. Will it sell now ?
Another example of a tough market and horrible strategy is found in overpriced new homes. These new builds are all done to a different standard, some that were not particularly well built. In a slow market these just appear to sit vacant forever.
In the example below a new build in Killarney is absolutely languishing on the market. The cumulative days on the market is actually misleading because it doesn’t reflect how long it was under construction and sitting finished without being listed while the attached side was being marketed (and sold).
428 days on the market and the price has only dropped by $45k. It has been closer to two years this house has been finished and unsold regardless of the realtor stats. I wonder what it will take to get it sold now. Maybe drop it another $90k to get an offer. It isn’t easy to calculate the monthly carrying cost here but it has to be substantial in just the time value of the trapped invested capital before we get to utilities and taxes.
after some lengthy production delays the garage doors were painted and sent to the installer. At this point in the project I can conclude this is the most interesting and unique garage I’ve built to date. While pricey, there is some real durability built into the slab, walls and exterior. Check back in 20 years to see how it has held up.
Having the indemnified crew arrive on site to hook up the underground utilities is always a nice project milestone to overcome. With the water and sewer crew digging up the road we are organizing a lumber delivery for Wednesday. I’ve found that it is best to just allocate the space to whatever crew is the priority and then adjust everyone else to suit their needs works best. The framers were able to continue working without any access to the street so both crews were enjoying a productive day.
The framers pushed through some ugly weather and managed to build up the second floor subfloor plus many of the remaining exterior walls on the main. No doubt the lifting machine has contributed greatly to the progress of working at heights. Overall this new plan appears to exhibit many of the strengths of my key design principles, bold lofty spaces, efficiency, and appropriately sized rooms. The heights, subtle angles and a few massive windows add a lot of drama and even a clear peakaboo across the valley and into downtown. This could be my most fun and aspirational layout to date. Future clients will be lucky to live here.
Gerry and crew are a productive bunch of framers and have a lot of know-how. The perfect combination
In a very strange development, I had wondered why my old post of April 2017 on Why the Alberta New Home Warranty Program is Unnecessary ...has continued to receive such continuous random web traffic over a year after publication. Upon closer scrutiny, the post is featured by Google in the fifth position among almost 15 million search hits, just after the governments own home warranty home page, and, most amusingly to me, above the websites of some of those insurance companies selling home warranty products.
Having reviewed the post a year later, I stand behind the fundamental premise of the article, which are as follows;
Based on the feedback I have received, and random media reports of unhappy home buyers infuriated by the warranty system, I don't see my views being quite as controversial as some may have expected. It appears buyers feel that the warranty program is for the benefit of builders, and intended to largely refuse claims. I don't have that perspective, but it interesting to see that others who have serious warranty claims do.
What I want to feature today on this post, is a focus on item 3 of my dislike of a mandatory warranty program, how the premiums paid by the builder take too much money away from the builder, so less building budget, all else being equal, is available to either fix problems, or build a better product that wont fail.
Firstly, I had my own hideous run in with the program. I ‘invested’ $4000 on premiums paid to my own building! Of course I absolutely detested this waste of money, and fought it until I had to capitulate. If my building fails, I guess I will call the a**hole who built my project to demand satisfaction, only to find I'm dialing my own cell. Unbelievable that I had to pay that much money to get a warranty on my own building that I would have to fully fund any defects out of my own pocket, with no imaginable scenario under which I could file a successful claim against myself.
Another interesting development has recently come across my desk. A couple of aspiring builders had called me to ask if they could 'use my warranty to register their projects'. My reaction to this was obviously less than complimentary as I told them both where to go with that idea. There is zero chance I'd take on the future liability of a major defect in a project I had no involvement in, even if the builder was doing everything right. When examining the situation further, it seems that the premiums and obstacles to registering as a new builder have become quite onerous and costly. One provider asked the builder to show an income of over $225k per annum to qualify. The other demanded a large premium. I asked for a copy of the premium and it was sent to me. The bill came to $6570 to register a new semi detached, a price that to me would have been $2800.
So what we have is an aspiring builder having to drain $6570 from his budget, in cash up front before work begins. This directly harms his ability to go ahead and build his project. And, as mentioned before, once he finishes it he will have that much less money to make repairs to keep his clients happy. I think this situation is absolutely terrible. Sure it benefits me to have barriers to entry to the business, as these fees can really kill the motivation of new builders, yet I can't help but be sympathetic. I wasn't aware of how much damage these fees and charges would begin to accumulate to when I entered home building, but I can see now the way the industry is going, and it isn't healthy if the established builders can enjoy a predatory advantage over new ones.
There is a real double standard in this province where such barriers to starting a business can be legislated by government, but minor user fees imposed on a parent for school lunch supervision or bussing can cause an uproar. The government seems ideologically opposed to assisting small business to be successful, or at the first sign of a business growing, it wants to jump in and micromanage and tax away any of the success. The mandatory warranty program remains another example of how government needs to be restrained and shrunk (at all levels I have encountered, particularly municipal), in Alberta, if we are to overcome this economic malaise we seem permanently mired in.
Here is a copy of that nasty $6570 bill to the insurer for the warranty premium. That has to hurt!
The crew got off to a slow start with the holiday Monday but definitely picked up the pace as the week progressed. material was hoisted up to the main floor on Saturday, and they started the second floor structure.
I like this crew because they are fast and efficient and skilled. That is a great combo to have when you need a large project framed. We lost a lot of time in dealing with the city over the summer, so we need to push hard and get some serious exterior work done before it gets cold.
Second floor joists are being placed before the first floor walls are complete. I like this approach to framing because with a larger crew there are more locations to work from so they guys aren't tripping over each other. On Monday the joists and walls will continue to push forward and part of the crew can start nailing down the floor sheathing. One more lumber order needs to be dropped off and then we can wait for the trusses.
The Landscape crew is onsite to do some of the hard to reach work in the back yard. We've decided to go with a wood retaining wall to maximize back yard space and deal with the grade change. This is an interesting project because the lack of an alley makes the rear work much more difficult.
Posts are embedded in concrete and ready to finish tomorrow
And the job is done. We've now maximized the useful space in the back yard.
The Richmond project is getting underway nicely and the six man crew will return tomorrow. Hopefully we see some walls go up tomorrow.
Main floor subfloor almost complete.
We've now prepped for the basement slab pour with a combination of gravel, poly, Styrofoam and rebar. Next up the plumber will be back and we will get the heat pipes laid in. After another inspection we can pour the slab. All of this is intended to stay ahead of the framers so that once the roof is on they can frame the basement walls immediately. It makes the job of every trade yet to come much easier when we can accelerate the slab and basement buildout.
We have modeled an r5 insulation under the slab. Beyond this we find diminished returns on heat loss. The code currently requires an r16 level of insulation and I've never understood why. Apparently radiant installs have decreased dramatically since the code change. Another of many examples of government meddling that wasn't needed and now is actually a counterproductive force in how homes are heated.
With the plumber back from another vacation, it was time to get some work done at the new location. First up is the basement level plumbing install known as the 'groundwork'. In a new install the plumbing code requires a back flow preventor, and this is the first piece installed on the new 4 inch abs pipe that leaves the basement.
Many clients in the past have filled out a questionnaire for their homeowner insurance and called me to ask if there was a sewer back up valve. The answer to this is always yes, unless there is a lift station in the basement due to a shallow sewer service in the street. In that instance there generally isn't a back flow preventer in the basement slab.
Easy digging, for once, and the back flow preventer box is going in. Next up is having this work inspected and we can proceed with the basement slab pour.