Tag Archives: retrofit

Apartment Building Stucco Renovation With Plaston

Posted by Admin on October 2, 2009 1 comments

Driving through Ottawa, I suddenly noticed a high rise apartment building that looked to be under construction. It had the green tarps up you see with stucco / masonry products and there was EIFS everywhere. My first thoughts were “oh no, another building from the 80′s that they are repairing because of faulty installation”. Then I realized it was being retrofitted with EIFS (Synthetic Stucco). It’s something that logically makes sense – decreased heating bills, lower client turnover, and the ability to increase rent (and MURB valuations are based on income). Though not visible from the photos, a sign at the top of the building read “Plaston”, so I thought, who better to give some insight into the project?

Apartment East Side Stucco Renovation - Covering

Apartment Stucco Renovation - East Side Covering

TSC: What’s the approximate square footage of the project?

Plaston: The approximate square footage of this project is 18 000 square feet.

TSC: The project looks almost finished, how long has it taken?

Plaston: The project took approximately six months to complete. The reason for the delay is due to the fact that the engineers wanted to completely strip off the old exterior façade (brick) They were looking for an exterior façade that not only had creative aesthetics but also moisture management and energy efficiency. The brick was not able to meet all these criteria. They found this through EIFS. The net time for the application of the Plaston EIF Drainscreen System was one month.

South Elevation of Plaston Stucco Renovation

Plaston Stucco Renovation- South Elevation

TSC: What were the client’s reasons for wanting to renovate with EIFS?

Plaston: In most high rise building projects such as this one, our clients are looking for energy efficiency, design flexibility, moisture management, aesthetics and maintenance free exterior facades. Plaston’s EIF Systems covers all five aspects. Our Plaston Drainscreen EIF System (CCMC 13232-R) guarantees a 100% water tight system.

TSC: Was there any difficulty in getting permits/approvals to re-clad the building with EIFS?

Plaston: Keller Engineering Associates Inc. is one of the most respected building envelope engineering firms in Canada. Teaming up with a well established engineering company allowed Plaston no difficulty in receiving permits/approvals to re-clad this project. Furthermore, the NRC’s CCMC evaluation report grants Plaston Municipal, Provincial and National approval in conjunction with its EIFS products on any type of building structure.

TSC: What is the approximate cost and how much money on labour/materials do you figure the apartment owner/architect saved by specifying Plaston’s mechanical-blueskin system over conventional EIFS?

Plaston: The approximate cost cannot be disclosed at this time, however the Plaston EIF Systems can save the applicator a minimum of 48 hours time per wall section compared to conventional cement based adhesive products. This can be advantageous to the applicator as well as the client: as we all know time is money.
The air/vapour barrier – Blue Skin or Soprema’s Sopraseal 1100T – is a peel and stick membrane. There is no curing time needed (compared to cement based liquid barriers) in order to mechanically fasten the Plaston vertically grooved Drainage Boards.
Plaston has solved the penetration problem with mechanical fasteners by introducing the air/vapour barrier peel and stick membrane. Once the mechanical fasteners enter the substrate, the air/vapour barrier automatically self seals around the fasteners, guaranteeing a 100% water tight EIFS. This meets all requirements introduced by the Ontario Architects Association Rain Penetration Control Practice Guide.
Since Plaston’s Drainage Insulation Boards are already vertically grooved, time is shifted from manually grooving the flat insulation boards with cement based adhesive products and notched trowels to completing other advanced aspects of the EIFS such as the Base Coat or Finish Coat.
Not only is Plaston’s EIF Systems less time consuming, they are also superior in quality. Plaston has created the most advanced EIFS products in the Canadian market that are guaranteed long lasting facades.
Comparing Plaston’s EIF Systems by price per square foot to the leading competition, our price is guaranteed to be lower.

TSC: Thank you very much for taking the time to respond. We look forward to seeing more projects from Plaston in the future.

Federal Government Offers Eco-ENERGY Retrofit Program

Posted by Admin on June 12, 2009 None comments

Point of the incentive is to get homeowners to reduce pollution

By Mike Holmes, Canwest News ServiceJune 12, 2009

If you could do a renovation on your home that cost you a fraction of what it’s worth, and that continued to save you money as long as you owned your home, wouldn’t you do it? That’s what you can get with the eco-ENERGY Retrofit program.

This program is offered through the Federal government, which has increased the amount of grant money for energy efficient renovation retrofits. There’s an extra $300 million being invested over the next two years. Most provinces — and now some even local governments — are stepping up as well to match the available money, dollar for dollar. For example, you can get up to 5K in federal and up to 5K in provincial rebates on work you’ve had done to improve the energy efficiency of your home.

The point of the eco-ENERGY retrofit grant is to get homeowners to do renovations that effectively reduce greenhouse gases and air pollution. It’s a great way to improve the energy efficiency of your home, reduce consumption and the impact on the environment. So you save money and reduce your carbon footprint.

The money is non-taxable and is available for upgrades on heating systems, ventilation, air conditioning, windows doors and even toilet upgrades. You can: Replace old inefficient furnace/AC or water heaters; improve insulation so your house isn’t leaking heat; replace drafty windows and doors. To take advantage of it, you need to first have an energy audit or evaluation of your home, by a certified auditor. The energy audit will show you where your home is losing energy through air leakage, drafts and areas of heat loss and where you can improve its performance. (**If you don’t have an energy audit BEFORE you do the upgrade, you will not qualify for the rebate.)

You can even get a rebate for some of the cost of the Energy Audit, as an incentive. And with some improvements, you have an incentive to do better than targets.

For example, if you seal your house and do 20% better than the target, you can get an additional $150. That’s in addition to the $300 you’re eligible for in the first place. You’d be crazy to not apply.

And, that’s on top of what you’re going to be saving every year in heating and cooling or water and energy consumption costs!

The energy auditor uses the blower door test to measure the rate of air leakage in your home. An energy-efficient home will have very little air leakage.

To do the test, all windows and doors are closed and into one of the exterior doors an adjustable panel is fitted with a fan. The fan is turned on, drawing air out, and the interior house pressure is reduced. This allows exterior air to leak in through unsealed openings or cracks. The rate of that flow, or air infiltration, is measured and those calculations tell what your home’s energy efficiency rating is.

Auditors are able to locate draughts and they’ll note the locations of leaks and give that information to the homeowner in the energy audit. Now the homeowner knows what they need to fix, and where the leaks are so they can do the repairs and upgrades.

After your initial audit, you’ll get an evaluation report, and a rating. Then, you can think about what kind of energy upgrades you want to do, and what you can afford.

Then, after you’ve had the work done, you have to make sure you get another evaluation to verify you’ve made the necessary improvements. This will prove you have a higher rating and the improvements you made have increased the energy efficiency of your home.

After your first audit, you have 18 months of complete some or all of the work, then book your post-retrofit audit. Then, you can apply to your provincial and federal — and in some cases, municipal — governments for the rebate.

You must make sure the work and the post-retrofit evaluation is done before the program ends (March 31, 2011). And of course, keep all proof of work done (work orders, receipts). You need documentation. The work will need to be verified during the final energy audit. You can do simple jobs to take advantage of the rebate, it doesn’t need to be very complicated. Replace a toilet or your furnace.

Obviously, upgrading your insulation is a bigger job as it involves tearing out drywall and plaster and replacing it. Windows are a bigger job than doors since you have more of them.

Some fixes are cheap, like caulking your windows. Some will cost a lot more, like buying new EnergyStar appliances or replacing your windows with EnergyStar rated ones. But everything you do to improve the energy efficiency of your home will help.
For more information on home renovations, go to makeitright.ca.
© Copyright (c) Canwest News Service

Original: http://www.canada.com/Federal+governement+offers+ENERGY+Retrofit+program/1688480/story.html

The Ontario Home Energy Audit provides $3,000 Towards an EIFS Retrofit *UPDATED*

Posted by Admin on January 2, 2009 1 comments

For details on the program, visit: http://www.homeenergyontario.ca/
A more detailed guide will be available in the “Advanced” section at a later date.

UPDATE: The people behind the Retrofit Rebate Program saw the huge potential, and to further encourage home owners, raised the rebate by 25% to $3,750. Exterior Insulation Rebates.

Stucco Vs EIFS

Posted by Admin on November 3, 2008 4 comments

EIFS (pronounced “eefs”) stands for Exterior Insulation Finish System. The cladding is also referred to as “Synthetic Stucco”, “Acrylic Stucco” or just “Stucco” (the latter being ambiguous with plaster stucco). Although initially developed around the ’40s to retrofit war-torn WW2 buildings, it is among the newest and most attractive styles of cladding available to homeowners today. EIFS differs from traditional Stucco (cement) in that it is applied using different materials — in multiple layers, providing greater flexibility and benefits.

At Toronto Stucco Contractor, we only recommend and install EIFS. We believe that it is a superior system to cement stucco because it incorporates drainage to prevent mould, has insulation (in toronto insulation is important) and provides a more attractive finish.

So what are the differences between EIFS and traditional stucco (plaster)?

  • EIFS is softer and sounds hollow when tapped
  • EIFS has a finely textured finish coat
  • EIFS provides insulation and water management
  • Cement stucco is solid and cement-like
  • Cement stucco is typically rough and contains large swirls
  • Cement stucco may trap water behind the wall

Not a DIY (do-it-yourself) Project
Contrary to conventional wisdom, EIFS actually contains 4 layers:
- An Air/Moisture or Vapour barrier depending on the requirements of the building
- Insulation, fastened either chemically (using cement) or mechanically (using screws)
- A polymer-modified base coat with an embedded fiber glass mesh
- A beautiful, durable acrylic finish coat
While a skilled drywall plasterer may not find the various trowel-applied layers difficult, it takes a certain knowledge of the finer details to ensure the system is installed 100% correct.

The Long and Winding Road
In the past decade EIFS has come under fire for “moisture problems”. While the issues were real, the biggest problem was arguably the quality of the installations in a fledgling industry without any real guidelines or enforcement. EIFS Manufacturers were quick to update their “recommendations” and have gracefully pulled their industry out of a downward spiral. Among the changes are:

  • A continuous, trowel-applied moisture barrier which goes over the substrate to keep water/moisture away from the substrate
  • Removal of recommendations to use mechanical adhesive methods (screws) as it punctures the moisture barrier, thereby allowing moisture penetration
  • The use of flashing above windows and other openings and caulking around wall penetrations
  • The most dramatic improvement — the specification of a “drainage channel”. The styrofoam is adhered to the air/moisture barrier in vertical channels of cement; allowing water to drain out of the system.

The Verdict
There’s an old saying that whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger – and nowhere does this hold more true than in the EIFS industry. EIFS has undergone more scrutiny than any other cladding product and as a result has a mountain of research and technology backing it and supporting it. It still has a stigma to lose, but is currently a safe and attractive alternative to classical brick and mortar siding.