Homes by Avi Presents: The Proposal

Well, they did deliver the project proposal on the date they indicated. Good for them, hopefully Homes by Avi can continue to meet their own deadlines.

Unfortuantely the letter was kind of what I feared in my June 13 post. They have presented a band-aid type of proposal. So lets run through the four project steps they have listed:

A) All required flashings will be installed where missing

So far, so good. This is something that definately needs to be addressed. It brings the lack of flashings on my home up to the Alberta Building code.

B) We will investigate those areas that you have now identified that water has leaked into your home and do everything necessary to fix these problems.

If I read this part correct, they will look around the front window and the back window, but that is it. So what about all the areas where there were no flashings to stop the water from moving behind the battens, stucco and building wrap? What about testing for mould? How can you only look at a couple of areas and not look at the building as whole?

C) In such cases where the color of the stucco repair may not match exactly to the existing, we will recoat the entire wall where the work was completed.

What!?! They are worried that my house looks good cosmetically. But they don't care that there has been no flashings to stop water from entering behind the battens, windows and possibly the home wrap for almost five years. I believe I can characterize this method of making sure everything looks great on the outside but completely ignoring the underlying structure and problems as putting "Lipstick on the Pig".

D) All costs for this work will be borne by Homes by Avi

Now here is a step I can get behind 100%!

Now lets look at what is missing in the Proposal presented to me by Homes by Avi.

• First, even if they pull off their four listed steps to absolute perfection, I still have a house that does not meet the Alberta Building code. Particularily with regards to the stucco thickness. My house will still have areas that are 67% less than the minimum stucco thickness as prescribed in the Alberta Building Code.
• Other Building Code issues, like caulking the vertical joints, installing stucco stops were not mentioned.
• As I talked about above, they are willing to poke around a couple of the windows, to fix the really obvious leaks, but no mention of checking for excessive moisture, mould or any other damages caused by leaks that weren't pouring through my windows.
• No steps that have them repairing those issues that aren't building code issues, but rather areas where they did not follow the stucco manufacturer's installation guidelines. These would include things like running two layers of building wrap, installing "J-trim", etc.
• And finally, no third-party inspection process. So lets see they completely messed up the original installation, now they want to come in and fix a bit of the stuff without any kind of third-party review and approval. Come on guys, get with the program here. Third-party review and approval would protect everybody involved now, and in the future, and would finally give my family and I some assurance the the issues have been resolved, and that the house finally meets building code.