Vancouver's Real Estate Market

[donk.]

Originally Posted by mc.

Brutal flooding at a building on the corner of Gilmore and Dawson. Stuff of nightmares for those of us living in apartments.

https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/c...ght_fun_times/

Seems like strata did not do proper maintenance on the storm sumps. Or the mechanical contractors are lazy and never check them

The fact that the water got THAT high, is actually impressive.

[Great68]

Sounds like the incoming DCW main blew out, if that was a 6" main it could be something like 800GPM.

Sump systems aren't designed for that level of water flow.

A duplex storm sump pump system for a building like that might do 30GPM. It wouldn't have a hope.

[donk.]

Your probably right, I was thinking 1" riser or something

[whitev70r]

Sux ... I wonder what the insurance will be like the following year. There was already this hoopla about insuring condos a while back ago.

[JDMDreams]

I wonder what happened to the Vancouver house, this is the opposite from the ground up instead of the top down

[Alpine]

https://www.burnabynow.com/local-new...ewalks-6656951

Likely related… same building…

[PeanutButter]

Oh man, I wouldn't want to deal with ICBC for this.. Hopefully the process isn't as bad as I think it would be.

ICBC: So this water damage, are you sure you weren't responsible for it...

[Tapioca]

Originally Posted by TOS'd

How are the neighbourhoods in Coquitlam around Austin Heights or Coquitlam Town Centre or even Port Moody? Been looking at some listings lately but not too familiar with living in those areas.

All of those areas you mentioned are going to redevelop or become more dense over the next 10 years

If you want peace and quiet with little prospect of densification, you'll want to look at Heritage Mountain/Woods in Port Moody or Westwood Plateau.

[Gerbs]

What does a flooding like that cost?

Also read there's a MKIV Supra that's sitting in that parkade too lol. Luckily my friend just moved her summer car outta that unit as it turned to rental.

[Eff-1]

I bet the damage to the building alone could be 7 figures. Plus the repairs to the watermain. Plus the vehicles.

This is one of those losses they call "catastrophic"

I feel really bad for that strata council having to deal with this. Honestly, the worst part isn't going to be the process of getting it fixed (insurance will deal with it), or the massive costs, it's going to be dealing with the very upset residents who at the best of times are rarely pleasant.

[Hondaracer]

Dealt with the strata and management of that building many times. A lot of dick heads

[Alpine]

Repairs to the parkade/pipes/electrical/hvac are the easy part… wait until the lawsuits start to determine liability (ie. the construction of the new building next door). To make matters worse, this is likely the beginning of continued ground/earth related issues with this tower.

[mc.]

Realistically, is there any recourse for the strata/owners vs. Onni? Bet the developer will fight tooth and nail saying this has nothing to do with them and the owners are now in a notorious building and lost a bunch of value on their homes.

Is this the next "leaky condo"?

[Alpine]

Originally Posted by mc.

Realistically, is there any recourse for the strata/owners vs. Onni? Bet the developer will fight tooth and nail saying this has nothing to do with them and the owners are now in a notorious building and lost a bunch of value on their homes.

Is this the next "leaky condo"?

This is going to be stuck in court over the next 5-10 years.

The next leaky condo? No, this is an isolated incident. The next leaky condo crisis will likely be the condos with floor-to-ceiling windows (gasket/sealant/caulking/etc nightmare).

[Gerbs]

What's the issue with floor-to-ceiling windows now?

Tandem is going to be a hard sale in the upcoming weeks, a 7 figure damage will likely result in a $3-10K levy rip.

[Alpine]

Originally Posted by Gerbs

What's the issue with floor-to-ceiling windows now?

Sealing out moisture/water...

[Hondaracer]

I don’t really think the curtain wall systems will be such a big deal

The issue with leaky condos etc. was the details around windows and flashings. There mostly were none. So here you have water penetration into stucco etc. that cannot breathe and over time rots or water penetration damages other units

With the curtain wall windows these systems (as far as my knowledge of them goes) are basically bolted into the structure of the building, concrete buildings.

Penetration of these systems isn’t really the end of the world because it may just be a architectural detail it’s effecting or over time you may get some cosmetic damage, but it’s not likely to be so bad it’s going to degrade the structure of a concrete high rise

[waddy41]

Originally Posted by Alpine

https://www.burnabynow.com/local-new...ewalks-6656951

Likely related… same building…

That's a swampy area and it was already sinking, but seems like the new Onni development exacerbated the problem

I sold my condo there around 7 years ago as I was scared about the sinking issue. Back then, 1-2x per year a TH pipe would break under the pressure, it was like 50k a pop to fix and the contingency fund was not even 500k

[mikemhg]

Hmmm who would've thought cramming a bunch of massive condos into a little tiny area would cause problems? We're not even halfway through some of these new developments.

City of Burnaby are a bunch of idiots, living around Brentwood has become a total shit show.

[radeonboy]

Originally Posted by waddy41

That's a swampy area and it was already sinking, but seems like the new Onni development exacerbated the problem

I sold my condo there around 7 years ago as I was scared about the sinking issue. Back then, 1-2x per year a TH pipe would break under the pressure, it was like 50k a pop to fix and the contingency fund was not even 500k

One of my friends worked with a developer and they did a hard pass on that that new Onni spot. They thought the ground was too unstable to be worth the risk - guess they made the right call...

[Hondaracer]

Do you guys think they just plop a tower down on mud? Lol

There’s so much engineering that goes on on a development like that. Not to mention there are dozens of towers closer to still creek..

It’s pure speculation this leak was even cause buy the adjacent construction?

[westopher]

Normally I'd say "of course not" but when onni is involved it muddies the water a bit, so to speak.

[inv4zn]

Originally Posted by Hondaracer

Do you guys think they just plop a tower down on mud? Lol

There’s so much engineering that goes on on a development like that. Not to mention there are dozens of towers closer to still creek..

It’s pure speculation this leak was even cause buy the adjacent construction?

While you're absolutely right, you have to remember that developers are cost driven. Some are far worse than others.

Most construction documents will allow the contractor to set up its own QC for various things, and the Owner hires an independent firm to perform QA. For those that don't know the difference, essentially QA's role is to make sure QC is doing their job properly. There's often disagreement between the two, and arguments between the contractor and QA happen all the time.

Contractors usually hire the cheapest QC because they earn more $ that way, and the "firms" that win QC work often do so by hugely underbidding more respectable firms. Those are made up by paying poor wages, poor training, and generally poor work. I've had a QC technician show up to measure air in concrete with the entire dial gauge missing. Like imagine measuring tire pressure with a hose, and then writing some magical number down on the report. The respectable firms that are outbid are the ones that usually do the QA work; owners obviously trust them more, but QA covers roughly 10% of QC's work, if that.

So yes, there is huge engineering behind large projects such as these. Geotechnical reports alone are hundreds of pages, and recommendations are made so things like sidewalks shifting doesn't happen. Yet they do all the time, because at the end of the day, shitty people who work at shitty developers will do shitty things all for profit.

[Alpine]

Originally Posted by Hondaracer

Do you guys think they just plop a tower down on mud? Lol

There’s so much engineering that goes on on a development like that. Not to mention there are dozens of towers closer to still creek..

It’s pure speculation this leak was even cause buy the adjacent construction?

Well it is pure speculation, but the city is already suing Onni/architects/engineers/contractors/etc over the sidewalk and streets directly in front of this condo over the settlement of soil and reduction of groundwater nearby. So it’s not a stretch to imagine the damage has extended past the street and sidewalk..

[Simplex123]

Originally Posted by inv4zn

While you're absolutely right, you have to remember that developers are cost driven. Some are far worse than others.

Most construction documents will allow the contractor to set up its own QC for various things, and the Owner hires an independent firm to perform QA. For those that don't know the difference, essentially QA's role is to make sure QC is doing their job properly. There's often disagreement between the two, and arguments between the contractor and QA happen all the time.

Contractors usually hire the cheapest QC because they earn more $ that way, and the "firms" that win QC work often do so by hugely underbidding more respectable firms. Those are made up by paying poor wages, poor training, and generally poor work. I've had a QC technician show up to measure air in concrete with the entire dial gauge missing. Like imagine measuring tire pressure with a hose, and then writing some magical number down on the report. The respectable firms that are outbid are the ones that usually do the QA work; owners obviously trust them more, but QA covers roughly 10% of QC's work, if that.

So yes, there is huge engineering behind large projects such as these. Geotechnical reports alone are hundreds of pages, and recommendations are made so things like sidewalks shifting doesn't happen. Yet they do all the time, because at the end of the day, shitty people who work at shitty developers will do shitty things all for profit.

Who would you say are one of the better developers in town? Doesn't even have to be great, but just less shitty than the rest of the pack lol


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