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$3m lawsuit alleges four year old home is a write-off

I

Inspector Gadget

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Mar 5, 2020
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New Brunswick
"Mayers and James allege the town failed to ensure the home was designed and constructed in a way that meets provincial building standards before issuing building and occupancy permits.

All defendants deny responsibility and the allegations have not been proven in court.

Lawyers for Zone and the town declined to comment as court proceedings are ongoing.

In her statement of defence, Zone said while she provided architectural designs, the builder didn't construct Mayers's and Durban's home as she'd advised."

 
Well, that window (3rd photo) is installed wrong. It would be interesting to see the actual engineering report.
 
Naturally the builder is blaming the designer (who probably is a "home designer" rather than an architect), and the designer is blaming the builder.

The scary part is that it's 100 home subdivision. Makes you wonder how many other homes in the subdivision have the same or similar problems.
 
Yankee Chronicler said:
Naturally the builder is blaming the designer (who probably is a "home designer" rather than an architect), and the designer is blaming the builder.

The scary part is that it's 100 home subdivision. Makes you wonder how many other homes in the subdivision have the same or similar problems.
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In that province, even home designers require licensing. They have to take a code education course and pass a test in order to produce plans. Obviously, this does not mean they are immune from making mistakes.

I would be also interested to hear the position of the municipality.

I also wonder how much of the foundation work was subbed out. Even big builders here have a tendency to sub that aspect of construction out.

It would be nice to see what the outcome is, but it is rare to see these go fully through the court system, so we may never know.
 
tmurray said:
Well, that window (3rd photo) is installed wrong. It would be interesting to see the actual engineering report.
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It certainly appears that way. And if'n that's the case, the municipality and builder are already starting from a bad position.
tmurray said:
I would be also interested to hear the position of the municipality.
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And what their inspection regime was.

tmurray said:
It would be nice to see what the outcome is, but it is rare to see these go fully through the court system, so we may never know.
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There have been a few that did, so there's a potential. Speaking of which, I haven't seen anything regarding that one where a Mike Holmes company landed in hot water.
 
Inspector Gadget, Thanks for sharing this story.

I always enjoy reading these so I can share it with the builders in my area and hopefully prevent problems here.

The wise learn from the mistakes and failures of others and their own mistakes. The fools will not.
 
The foundation is not strong enough to support the house, an engineering firm hired by the couple determined earlier this year.

It's a tract of 100 houses. If this one house is deficient the rest might be also. Of course, without seeing the engineer's report that is speculation.
 
ICE said:
The foundation is not strong enough to support the house, an engineering firm hired by the couple determined earlier this year.

It's a tract of 100 houses. If this one house is deficient the rest might be also. Of course, without seeing the engineer's report that is speculation.
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This actually baffles me a bit. In Canada, engineered foundations are only required if the truss/joist span exceeds 40' or you're dealing with a Part 3 building. Otherwise, everything can be calculated.


I have a spreadsheet that I have "programmed" if you will, to automate those calculations. I often find (though less now) that people under-spec foundations. This has become a big problem with all these "open concept" designs, where the loads to the footings can produce some pretty beefy requirements under prescriptive Code.

Plop a 34-foot joist span and 4' of masonry veneer (the structure in question had some brick fascia which would require additional support), and you're looking at more than doubling the footing width from code minimums ... and I've seen folks try to specify something like a 16" wide footing for something that required way the heck more.

Of course, I'm speculating. But this will be interesting to observe.
 
The comments on the water table have me wondering if it has to do with the requirement to double the footing width when the water table is less than the required width of the footing below it.
 
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