It’s not the “Donald Trump for President” Phenomena that is sweeping North America that I am really talking about these days.
Brexit manifested within the void that is “politics today”.
I see the same kind of dysfunction in our Provincial Government.
We haven’t seen enough of Justin Trudeau’s delivery to comment I feel, but he certainly has put a very positive “face” and image on Canada in the international market, and that’s a good thing for Canada.
His taking us out of a “combat roll” was a sound one in my opinion as well.
As a country we should not follow blindly where America chooses to go.
They are are major trading partner and I get the economics of that, but over the past decade or so (actually potentially since his father was Prime Minister) I’ve watched Canada chase after America as if it was our “long lost cousin” or at least something along those lines.
Vietnam was a black eye for America, and everything into which it has stuck its nose since have been catastrophes!
They seem to have successfully swept the illegitimacy of invading Iraq under the rug.
They seem to have an intellectual persuasion of following the “say it enough times loud enough and eventually you can walk by it“.
As a Buyer’s Agent, I always had time on my hands to fill my intrigue with global news, and the illegitimacy under which all things appear (to me) to be dealt with, is actually an intellectual plague!
Now that I’ve semi-retired (I still have my real estate licence but handle mostly long term clients) I have the time to share my views.
It is no secret that I fear Condoland is actually a mine field for consumers.
Trump beleaguers the “it’s all rigged” justification for his impending loss.
I kind of sing the same song, as Condoland is totally rigged against the consumer, and now that I’ve got the time and life situation that will allow me to address the many areas within Condoland that I feel must be fixed, my findings are all being rolled out here.
My intention is really to achieve what I see as “the unachievable“, in that my efforts don’t end up in the shredder that most unfortunately face.
I’m not an academic, nor am I a product of the industry, (I was for years) nor do I have a vested interest (I’m not chasing commission income here).
I am an “industry insider” with intimate knowledge of absolutely everything that is wrong in Condoland, from the Condo Act itself, through Tarion, through to the Building Code, on-sided Agreements of Purchase and Sale, through unacceptably “poor quality” construction, inexperienced volunteer management, to the likelihood of a catastrophic undisclosed financial tsunami!
I have always been somewhat of a savant in that academically I was a wash out but my math skills could compete with straight “A” students.
alluminum on curing cement – no insulator
I see everything mathematically and looking at the Window Wall reality (for one example) that I’ve exposed here at simplycharles.com, where we’ve allowed developers (Municipalities’ “Poster Children“) to turn to glass wall construction on their “lowest bidder” building approach for residential building.
These “Window Walls” carry a “15 – 20 year published life span” set out in their brochures and marketing material.
They consist of two pieces of 1/4″ glass that are “vacuum sealed” (air taken out of the void with gas pumped in), for my lay-man’s description.
The 15 – 20 year “life cycle window” is the future time that the sealing material will remain sufficient to retain the “heavy gases” within the void.
When those seals fail and the gases escape, the residence behind the glass loses its insulation and becomes exposed to outside air temperatures.
Take a look around your condo and imagine all that floor to ceiling glass losing all insulation factor.
Glass carries almost no insulation factor so it is reasonable that one day within 20 years you may, or “will (according to the manufacturers) need to replace those windows“.
I’ve seen lots of Condoland “Budgets“, it was a service included in my Buyer Agency, and I have yet to see one that carries a line item “to replace the entire envelope of the building“!
The best stop-gap would be sealing unit by unit but this would prove only a short term remedy and would certainly negatively impact “value of units in the building“.
Seal the enveloper or sections of it, would prove at best a short term stop-gap and a visible “flash point for buyers“. Sales would stop, owns may go bankrupt, insurance companies would stop insuring threatened buildings, owners may walk away from mortgages, and well, yu can see he house of cards that we have built Condoland on.
Aluminum on curing concrete
The only way that I can hope to have a legitimate impact on influencing our Governments to act, is to have a tsunami of consumers at my back!
With enough numbers, I will at least have the government’s attention.
So please turn you entire network onto this worthy cause.
And the flashpoint of Window Walls don’t stop here!
That 15 – 20 year life span is based on “proper installation“.
I just said that residential developers build based on “lowest bid contractors“.
There is literally no over-site built into Condoland’s idiotic structure (you are allowing unskilled and/or unlicensed trades people to build residential sky scrapers!).
The Ontario construction industry has a booming Underground Economy according to a Province of Ontario bulletin I recently got my hands on, and it is indisputable that a major portion of this falls directly into Condoland.
I’m not trying to reshape the industry!
Just build in some good old common sense, something that appears to be lost when attending institutions of higher learning!
To at minimum require developers to employ “Licensed” professional construction workers should not be seen as a stretch!
What happens when these Window Walls are installed improperly (as shown in the photos today)?
That 15 year to 20 year life span should be discounted all together.
The questions start with “how long it takes for moisture and chemical reaction to aluminium interacting directly with curing poured concrete (as shown in the photos of actual Condoland residential condo buildings being built today) to break down the sealants enclosing those heavy gasses”?
I am told by industry engineers that building built “dating back to 2000 are the major threat” so even if the “lowest bidder contracts” did, in fact get installed properly we are in the threshold period and will be every year going forward by upwards of 300 buildings per year!
Are you getting what I mean when I say that “there is a Tsunami threatening Condoland“?!
And the more I gig into this, the more dark the picture gets.
Do the math.
If the high rise condo that you just bought falls into the dateline set out above and your windows and/or your entire building’s windows fail, there will be a huge fight over “who is going to pay for the replacement“.
Law suits will explode.
And the house of cards that I’ve touched on above will come tumbling down.
Should this happen, you won’t be able to continue to live in the unit as energy costs will be a killer and the glass walls must be removed so you will be moving out for a while and have your mortgage plus new rent to pay!
So, yes . . . as today headline suggests, my confidence in the integrity of Condoland, of our “society“, and our “global societies“, has been materially shaken of late.
I will admit to being “blind-sided” into thinking that “all these highly educated and highly paid for having that education people running things really had the answers“.
I’m not convinced that they even “know the questions“!
I’m Charles
