Metro Vancouver homeowners turn to U.S. advocates for help

Christina Montgomery
Province

Wallboard is widely used in both new-home construction and renovations. Now imports to North America from China are making people sick.

Homeowners from Surrey, Richmond, Burnaby and West Vancouver have joined a flood of callers to a U.S. consumer group investigating highly-toxic Chinese drywall that has sickened North Americans.

Thomas Martin, president of America‘s Watchdog, said yesterday that in the past two weeks about a dozen Metro Vancouver callers have all reported experiencing the same nosebleeds, breathing problems and allergy-type symptoms that have affected homeowners across the U.S.

Continued exposure could result in severe health problems, says Martin’s group.

“It’s scary, it’s a nightmare,” said Martin. “We think we are looking at the worst case of sick houses in U.S. history. Toxic Chinese drywall is the worst environmental disaster ever to be faced by U.S. homeowners.”

A copy of one home-inspection report obtained by The Province on a Florida home where Chinese drywall was installed reads:

“This type of drywall was produced with materials that emit toxic hydrogen-sulfide gas and other sulfide gases alleged to cause serious health conditions and illnesses, such as shortness of breath, dizziness, headaches, fatigue, insomnia, eye irritations and respiratory difficulties.”

Martin said he likens the effects of the drywall “to the problems you find in a meth house [where an illegal drug lab has been operating].

“If you’ve had any experience with a meth house, you know it will have to be bulldozed. Like in a meth house, the emissions permeate everything, the two-by-fours, the tresses, the fabric in your furniture, your clothes.”

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said last week it was investigating complaints about the Chinese-made drywall.

Martin, whose California office phones rang constantly during a Province interview, said the group has also fielded calls from worried Canadians who bought property south of the border — such as in Blaine and the Skagit Valley in Washington state — some time ago when the Canadian dollar was higher.

At issue is drywall imported from China between 2001and 2007.

According to Martin’s research, at least 929,000 square metres were imported through the port of Vancouver between 2001 and 2006, all bound for Canadian destinations.

So far, research shows some appears to have landed on the Prairies and some in Toronto.

The Chinese drywall appears to have been made using gypsum that was first used in slurry containing carcinogens to de-sulphur coal. It was later used in making wallboard.

Chemicals remaining in the wallboard are sufficiently toxic that as few as three sheets of drywall may be enough to contaminate a home sufficiently that it requires bulldozing, Martin said.

All houses affected have shown a common symptom — blackened, scorched wiring behind switchplates and wall plugs.

Martin said supplies in the U.S. can be tracked where they were used by licensed builders, and insurance may pay for the damages. But anyone using small firms or paying for renovations under the table will be difficult to help.

Few Canadian labour or industry officials contacted by The Province yesterday were aware of the issue.

Tiziana Baccega, public relations manager for Home Depot in Canada, said the chain has never sold Chinese-made drywall in any of its Canadian or U.S. outlets.

Several lawsuits, including one by a group of Florida homeowners, have been filed against German drywall maker Knauf Gips KG, its Chinese plasterboard units and several U.S. homebuilders.

© Copyright (c) The Province

Fiona Anderson
Sun

Housing starts in February were down 70 per cent in Vancouver, and as much as 98 per cent in other parts of the province compared to a year ago, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. reported Monday.

Last February, builders started 2,446 homes in the Vancouver area, which stretches from Langley to Lions Bay. This year there were only 701 starts. In Abbotsford and Chilliwack the drop was even more dramatic, with decreases of 84 and 80 per cent respectively, but on much smaller volumes.

But nowhere in the province fared worse than Kelowna, where only 11 single detached homes and no multiple-unit dwellings were started in February, down 98 per cent from 79 detached homes and 379 multiple units last year.

Kamloops also suffered, with its starts down to two units from 46, a 96-per-cent decline.

A large part of the market in Kelowna is “discretionary housing,” people buying second residences and resort properties, and the demand for those properties has definitely cooled because of the economy, said Paul Fabri, CMHC market analyst for the area.

Richard Sam, a CMHC market analyst for the Lower Mainland, says the percentages are exaggerated because housing starts a year ago were high.

“So we’re coming off from a high to a low,” Sam said.

Part of it may be seasonal, since it is more difficult to build in the winter, he said.

But the main reason is that the supply of both resale houses and new unsold houses remains high compared to demand. Until that supply gets absorbed, housing starts are likely to continue to be slow, Sam said.

Tsur Somerville, director of the centre for urban economics and real estate at the Sauder School of Business at the University of B.C., said the drop in starts “is about time.”

The number of sales starting dropping a year ago, and prices peaked in mid-2008. So Somerville would have expected housing starts to drop dramatically in the fall, which they didn’t.

But now that they have, Somerville won’t predict how long they will continue declining.

The bright side to the slowdown in starts is that “if it wasn’t [slowing], then we’d have real serious potential problems,” Somerville said.

Growth in supply has to slow down so the real estate market becomes more balanced and prices can, in theory, stabilize.

“But it’s the kind of good thing that leads to unemployment, lower income, that kind of stuff,” Somerville said. “So it’s a good thing for housing market balance, [but a] bad thing for the economy.

“If the economy was calm and not tanking, we’d see this step back in real estate as a breather from overexcitement, just letting everything come back into balance,” he added. “The problem is, the definition of what’s in balance right now is getting weighed down by what’s going on in the economy.”

In the Lower Mainland a number of high-profile condominium projects have been put on hold, including the Ritz-Carlton in downtown Vancouver and the 16-tower Sun Tech City in Richmond.

Across the country, housing starts fell 12.3 per cent, “the sixth consecutive monthly decline and the slowest pace of residential construction activity in about eight years,” Robert Kavcic, an economist with BMO Capital Markets Economics, said in a note.

“The Canadian housing correction is in full swing with starts now well below the rate of household formation, offsetting the overbuilding of the past five years,” Kavcic wrote.

Delta, with an increase from 25 to 65, was the only Lower Mainland area that bucked the trend.

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Vancouver drops 70 per cent; Abbotsford, Chilliwack figures worse

Province

A scene from more productive times. The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. sees a 33-per-cent fall in housing starts in the Vancouver area this year. Photograph by: Wayne Leidenfrost, The Province; with files from News Services

Housing starts in the Vancouver area in February plunged 71.3 per cent from a year earlier, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. said yesterday.

The sharpness of the decline reflects “unusually strong” starts in the area in February 2008, CMHC market analyst Richard Sam said.

“However, low starts data for the first two months of 2009 are an indication that developers are pulling back until some of the supply of new and resale homes on the market are absorbed,” Sam said.

“In turn, home buyers will benefit from current buyers’ conditions that exist in the resale market.”

CMHC predicts that starts in the area will fall by more than a third this year.

Year-over-year starts in the Abbotsford area dropped 84.1 per cent in February, while Chilliwack‘s fell 79.6 per cent.

Urban starts across the province sank 12.8 per cent between January and February, compared with drops of 19.4 per cent in the Prairies, 14.4 per cent in Ontario and 19.6 per cent in Quebec.

Nationally, housing starts fell by a greater than expected 12.3 per cent between January and February, marking a sixth consecutive monthly decline and their lowest level since June 2000.

Groundbreakings on new homes dropped to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 134,600 units last month from 153,500 in January, with declines seen in the single- and multiple-dwelling sectors, CMHC said.

The number of starts in February was below analyst forecasts for 145,000 starts.

But there was a silver lining in the weak numbers. While it suggests builders are responding to weaker demand, which could have a short-term negative effect on economic activity, it also indicates there may not be a severe oversupply of homes.

“As an economist looking at this, it’s good news that the markets are working. They’re taking their cues from the price signals and those signals are telling them not to build right now,” TD Bank economist Pascal Gauthier said.

Economists continue to describe the Canadian housing downturn as a correction that will last the better part of 2009. Few predict the sector is facing a U.S.-style meltdown.

Recent statistics show broad weakness within the housing sector as existing home-sales activity has slowed, home prices have eased and building permits have fallen.

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Designs adopt ‘Japanese minimalism’ and ‘New York-style loft’ to recreational or infill property purposes

Kim Pemberton
Sun

Tony Robins in front of a Preform Construction home at last month’s spring home show. Ease of construction and ‘precision’ are the competitive attributes of the home, he says. Photograph by: Steve Bosch, Vancouver Sun

Vancouver architect Tony Robins has been active in the city’s architecture world for 30 years, winning international awards and critical acclaim for his designs, one of which is the much lauded Watermark Restaurant on Kits Beach.

These days the design Robins has been most interested in isn’t for a city landmark structure but rather modernist, modular residences ideally suited for recreational property or laneway housing.

His passion for designing prefabricated homes is such that Robins and two business partners, Mac Isaac and Ryan Spong, have created a new company called Preform Construction Ltd. with a 20,000-square-foot manufacturing plant in Surrey. The site was specifically chosen to be close to the river for barging and to the road for shipping the units.

The first prefabricated house to roll out of the plant’s assembly line was showcased last month at the spring home show at BC Place.

What visitors saw there was a slick, one-bedroom, 500-square-foot residence that emphasized light, with large industrial windows, and despite the small footprint enjoyed a sense of spaciousness with 10-foot ceilings. The detail-rich home had custom kitchen and wardrobe cabinetry, built-in bed tables and surprisingly ample storage.

The linear home also had all the “bells and whistles” that define luxe living from stone countertops, to high-end bathroom and kitchen fixtures, stainless steel appliances and a green roof.

A basic home this size would sell for about $150,000, but with all the upgrades the price would be about $220,000, says Robins, bringing the square footage price tag to $300 to $400 per sq. foot.

“These (Preform homes) are much easier to build in a factory and you can have precision (with the building).”

Robins says the company also has its own high-end mill shop to provide custom cabinetry on site.

Workers at the new plant, under the guidance of builder Mike Dykstra, could make 12 of these smaller homes at the same time and have them ready to be shipped within four to six weeks.

In this these tough economic times it’s unusual for a new business to get off the ground, but Preform Construction already had guaranteed work of four large custom homes that will be pre-fabricated in the factory and orders are now coming in for the smaller, 500 sq. ft. model.

“It’s a turnaround time. That’s why we did the tiny house at the home show. People before would build a $1 million home on their recreational property. Now they think why not build a $200,000 home instead and have it ready to live in within weeks,” he says.

Robins, who like many architects has been influenced by the simplicity of Japanese homes, worked between 1993 and 1998 designing 12 restaurants in Japan. That experience of “Japanese minimalism rubbed off” when it came to designing his latest project, he says.

But despite the Japanese influence Robins believes these homes could be best described as a “New York style loft.”

“I love the simplicity of the interiors. It’s a lovely way to live. I’ve always been curious about living in small spaces and 10 years ago a Canada Council grant allowed me to look at mobile architecture,” says Robins.

His fascination with the architecture continues, and although he and his wife who raised their two children, ages 20 and 26, in a large 3,000 sq. ft. home he can envision the day when the couple downsize to one of his preform homes.

“I could see living in a lane way home and spending six months of the year in Europe. But we’re very busy doing this so that idea is in the future,” says the 57-year-old British born architect.

In the meantime, Robins is busy designing and building four, large custom homes for clients that will be prefabricated in the new factory, right down to the drywall and painting. The first of these homes is a 6,000 sq. ft. home that is destined for Tofino. It will be ready in June. Two of the other custom homes will be shipped to Pender Island and one on the Sunshine Coast.

These large, sculptural homes have been designed so they can be cut up and are boxes that would fit a 60-foot long truck and then assembled at the site.

“That’s the value (of the preform homes). If you have a remote location it costs a lot more to do construction (of a typical building). It could also take up to a year to build and you have to put your trades up in hotels,” says Robins.

He estimates the construction time for the larger homes would be halved to six months.

Once on site Robins and his team would be responsible to ensuring the steel frame structure is sited properly on the four points where it rests, whether that’s drilling a hole in rock or having concrete fittings made in soft ground. The cost of siting is additional and would start at $2,000 and go up depending on the difficulty.

One of the advantages, Robins says, of these homes is their “higher overall quality” because they are built with a steel frame that can stand up better in an earthquake.

He adds should a family want to expand their homes they can easily be achieved simply by adding other “units.”

The homes are both “green” and “smart” with features that include a green roof to help increase insulation and lessen energy consumption, uses reclaimed wood products, has a warm board in-floor heating system that runs at a lower temperature then regular in-floor heating and has an instantaneous hot water heater. At a touch of a switch it turns from natural gas to propane hot water heater for those areas where natural gas is not an option.

One of the “smart” components include heat and light regulation. A remote temperature and lighting adjustment allows the homeowner to alter the heat and lighting from their own computer at another location.

For more information go to www.preformconstruction.com

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