Rehabilitating a leaky condo

The last thing that condo owners want is to have the leaky condo label slapped onto their home, but once a leaky condo does not mean always a leaky condo.

There are several architects, building engineers and construction companies in Calgary that remediate condominiums with building envelope problems and they say buildings they have remediated are often in better shape than when first constructed.

Unfortunately, the process is very expensive.

Larry Fournier is the owner of NVR Construction in Calgary, a company that does new builds but also works on the remediation of leaky condominium buildings.

He said the problems start when water gets trapped between the outside finish of the building, such as the stucco, and the plywood sheathing.

"It gets trapped because of the way the outside finish was done," said Fournier. "There’s supposed to be a drainage plain. In many cases, the contractor didn’t install it properly, or at all."

Condo owners with water problems will begin to see bulging or water stains on the exterior of the building, around windows, or decks.

Inside the unit, black spots are a warning sign, said Fournier.

"If you see mold, black spots inside your wall, that’s an indication that there’s moisture behind the wall,"  he said.

Experts say to fix the problem start by taking off the exterior, right down to the sheathing and even further if necessary.

"The worst case scenario I’ve ever seen, the whole bottom two feet of the building was completely rotten," said Fournier.

"The studs were rotten and had to be replaced. You have to rip it apart in segments. It’s time consuming and labour intensive. But we work with a qualified building envelope specialist and we don’t do anything without running it by them first.

"So are they fixable? Yes. But for a price. It’s expensive and that’s the sad part about it. The people who buy these properties are not necessarily aware of the issues unless they do some really thorough investigation, and there's no protection for them."