Under the Tarp: Photos from Inside a Vancouver Leaky Condo

We had a look at a construction site in this leaky Yaletown condo last week. The building was constructed in 1994, and experienced major leakage of the building envelope. A Realtor took us for a tour of the remediation work – here’s some highlights:

Here we are at the rooftop. The building was 24 stories and full enclosed in scaffolding. During our visit the building was in the final stages of the project.

The wall assembly was on full display. This wall’s cladding, when finished, will consist of Georgia-Pacific DensGlass sheathing, a rainscreen cavity, expanded polystyrene boards, and stucco base and finish coats. Stucco over polystyrene boards is better known as EIFS (Exterior Insulated Finishing System).

Here the sheathing installation has been finished. The yellow boards visible are the DensGlass.

A photo of a balcony. Part of this project involves re-coating all balcony surfaces with a liquid-applied traffic coating (similar to parking garage membranes).

When the EIFS siding was originally installed in 1994, it was installed without a rainscreen. This led to water becoming trapped behind the cladding and seeping into the suites. This new rainscreen installation should perform much better.

Leakage stains visible in one of the suites. Although dry now, this suite had a number of moisture/seepage problems prior to the repairs. Even the flooring was damaged!

When the project is complete, it should provide a long-term, quality solution to the leakage.