WOOHOO!!! Finally!

It's been over 2 1/2 years since we first noticed the flooring troubles. The original installer claimed he had done everything right and the problems we were having (floor humping up, and large cracks) were because we weren't dehumidifying or humidifying the house properly. Well, it's impossible to control the humidity in a house to the extent he needed. He actually had told us to turn on the floor heat at the same time as the air conditioner (floor at 26C and air con at 22C). Besides wasting energy, it was only a temporary solution.

Finally, the manufacturer, TORLYS, acknow;edged the floors were improperly installed and agreed to provide replacement flooring and cover the labour to remove the old flooring and install new stuff.

The new flooring was delivered this morning. The installation starts tomorrow. The first phase will cover the master bedroom and kitchen and family room area. The we get to move all that furniture back and empty the dining room and spare bedrooms.

Hopefully this will go smoothly (cross your fingers!).

Fixing up the caulking (part I)

One of the big problems we had with our terrible builder was the caulking which was incredibly poorly done. Since we were forced to take responsibility to correct the deficiencies, we had to fix the caulking problems too. I have been working on it a little bit at a time, when I am able. I haven't posted hardly anything to the blog for almost two months so this represents work that has been done in that time. This doesn't show the six weeks of running around and back and forth it took to get the right brand and colours of caulking. (You have to use the same brand/colour to do any patches otherwise it will be very obvious.)

This is the base of the laundry room door. I don't know why the caulking failed so dramatically here. If we had rain with wind, we would sometimes get water on the laundry room floor - not sure if it was from this failed caulking or from the poor caulking that runs underneath the threshold (it had holes/gaps in it).

You can't put new caulking over old otherwise your new caulking is no better than the old stuff. So I had to remove the old caulking (wasn't too hard), clean out the area (there was a lot of sand and other dirt/debris in there which would prevent the caulking from sticking), and then apply the new caulking. Believe it or not, the original caulking that I removed was white, as I could tell when I peeled it off.

This is the outside of the doors to the family room. I applied a small bead of white caulking between the green brick mold and the white door jamb. There is not supposed to be a gap there, but obviously the brick mold was loosened when the door was installed.

This was one of the cracks that I had complained to Tarion about. There was just a small crack at the time and Tarion said it was a normal shrinkage crack. I thought it was a bit bigger than I would have expected for that, but since Tarion's inspectors are supposedly experts, I had to take their word for it (had no choice, actually). Clearly the mortar was too dry and it had just fractured and disintegrated.


This is what the crack looked like after I cauked it. I would have preferred it if it had straight edges and was neater.

That's all the caulking fixups that I have been able to do so far. There will be a part II, stay tuned but don't hold your breath.

Of course, I have to end with a picture of the doggies. Sadly, none of the pictures of Tawny were very good so I have chosen this one of Taz enjoying his rawhide "bone".

October 4 - Panorama

We were going for a walk and Tawny took off to take a dip in the water, and grab a stick while she was at it.

Some kind of critter had obviously been in the grass here at the lookout as Tawny and Taz spent a couple of minutes sniffing around here. I cut the grass here after the walk, so it looks much nicer. It was a bit tricky as I had to avoid the frogs as they were jumping around, being scared by the mower.

This is one of those wacky panoramas - the road is straight, not a 90 degree turn as you might guess from this photo.

An interesting rock

Two tired doggies.

An interesting rock I saw when walking the dog this morning. Looks like pink granite with these large black streaks and sections in it. The rock around here is limestone so this was carried here by glaciers in the ice age.

Sept 29 - Pano

September 29, 2008

Brilliantly coloured maple tree in our side yard. It just glows when the sun hits it.


Some wild turkeys crossing over the end lot. The people who own this lot are planning to start to build their house next spring.


Panorama of our house. Can you make out the pretty maple down the road (one the left side)?


Panorama of the lake, near the lookout.

Repairing eavestrough overflow damage

This is the AFTER photo which shows the repaired steps and the downspout that caused all the problem. The elbow that caused all the trouble was at the top bend where the downspout first attaches to the wall.


When we had heavy rain (which was several times last year and a lot this year), we would get water cascading over the gutters. Of course, this caused damage to our front steps.


I called the eavestroughing company numerous times and they didn't call, or else someone would call and I would say where our house is and then he would answer, "Oh, that's Frank's area - I'll have him call you right back". Of course he never did call back.

Frank finally did call back when I asked this other salesman for the owner's name and phone number. Frank came out and said he thought the problem was caused by a blockage due to leaves. I didn't think so (because the leaves blow all over and don't even really get on our porch) but he said there would be a service charge if it was blocked. So I hauled out the ladder to check it out and found that there was no blockage, but the elbow had been pinced to make it fit into the downspout. I straightened the pinched downspout elbow and waited for another rain to see if the problem had been fixed. And yes id had been resolved, so I could fix the step damage.


I took off the top two stones on the first/top row, as well as two stones on the next, and one stone on the 3rd. I then used a crow bar to lift up the bottom stones and put crushed gravel under it all. I then put the stones back and put some polymerized sand over it all. (That stuff is amazing by the way.)


The paint was peeling off a couple of small spots on our front door. I thought that I must not have cleaned the door properly before I painted it. Then I looked closer and found that the paint and the primer had peeled off. That meant that the primer had not adhered to the aluminum moulding properly, so the manufacturer had caused the problem! To repair it, I will have to give the aluminum a light sanding to scuff up the surface, then prime and paint. I hope the paint is still good. I love that colour!!!

Great Blue Heron, and dogs playing

September 24, 2008

This is a juvenile Great Blue Heron with an injured wing. I was about 4 feet away from this bird when I took this photo, which is absolute proof that it was injured. You can see that its wing on the far side seems injured in some way. I called the wild bird care center and they said they are a small charity and cannot pick up birds. I called the Humane Society and they said that their rules do not permit them to go into water to retrieve any bird or animal. (I asked, "not even one inch of water", and they said yes.)

Wounded herons are dangerous because they use their beak as a spear, their neck is like a spring, and they aim for the eyes. We noticed the heron because Taz saw it and ran down to it, but fortunately left it alone. It was clearly being very defensive but didn't attack Taz.

We saw an adult Great Blue Heron (with its massive wing span) slowly flying over the lake the following day (Sept 25) but not since. I have gone down to the lake several times looking for the injured bird but haven't seen it since. Freda saw it shortly after we initially saw it, but not since.

This is the best bird photo I have ever taken (because I could get so close).


Tawny and Taz swimming after fetching some water toys. Taz has a yellow Wubba and Tawny has a kong that is made out of tennis ball material, but shaped like a hot dog. Taz is chasing Tawny because he wants her toy - he's such a toy hog!


Getting close to shore, you can see that Taz has his toy-hog eyes on Tawny and wants to get the Kong from her as well.

Tawny just drops the toy without a fight (knowing that Taz will drop it in a minute or two anyway), and Taz trots off triumphantly with both toys.

September 14 was a busy day

On the morning of September 14th, there was mist on the lake -- warm water and cold air collide.


Mum and Dad had been visiting, and they left on September 14th. This photo was taken just before we left for the train station.


Later in the day, we went out for an errand and took the dogs. Taz and Tawny were anxiously waiting for us in the car. Taz was doing a lot of "talking". We think he has separation anxiety. I took this photo as we returned to the car - it is a bit blurry because I had been taking some macro photos earlier in the day and forgot to turn it back to normal... Whoops!


Freda's car got dinged in the parking lot, by the wife of one of Mark's co-workers! Here you can see the broken signal light, and maybe you can see the black smudges on the bumper. Small world.

Sep 9-12

dogs Sep 9

Taz anbd Tawny

Aug 31-Sep4

Aug 31 - wild turkeys

Aug 31 - BARK prize winnings

Sept 4 - unknown caterpillar