In 2009 we hired Lucan Construction to perform a complete, major renovation of our 1951 house, which included adding an addition on the back and a full second story to the entire house, which turned a 1.5 story 2 bedroom home into a full 2 story 4 bedroom home. Everything went fairly smoothly, although there were a few issues along the way, I was on site every day, so they were looked after fairly quickly. Happily, things were completed on time and on budget. Unfortunately, since we moved back in we have encountered some problems which I feel were completely avoidable. The first major issue was a month after moving back into the house we noticed mold growing on the new baseboards in the basement. I contacted Stefan and asked him to come take a look. He said I should just take some bleach and clean it off and then I should try to run a dehumidifier to help dry out the air. I immediately purchased a dehumidifier and started it running. It began removing about 12 Litres of water every day. As we didn't have any mold problems before the renovation I hired a mold detection specialist to determine where our problem originated. After a thorough examination and collecting air samples, he was able to determine that the moisture wasn't due to any water penetration into the house, but that the water was coming from the materials that were used in the house - the concrete foundation and new drywall throughout were releasing water into the air. He said that the builder should have told us that we should run a dehumidifier for a minimum of two years after this size of renovation to deal with the moisture levels. He also advised us to never use bleach on the mold as that will only cause the mold spores to be released into the air. We then hired a mold remediation company to clean and decontaminate the basement. When I approached Stefan about splitting the cost of the mold removal, he suddenly remembered telling me I should have been running a dehumidifier all along. I can categorically tell you that never happened. If I was prepared to spend $200K on a renovation do you not think that I would have spent $200-300 on a dehumidifier to prevent this if I had been told (in fact, since it was so important he should have just put one in himself). Nonetheless I wasn't going to get into a legal situation whereby I was going to end up spending even more money to get a verdict against him and try to collect. So we were out of pocket an additional $6000 when all was said and done. Recently we noticed a leak coming from an upstairs bathroom vent fan. I checked in the attic and couldn't detect any signs of water, so I hired a roofing repair company to come in to make the necessary repairs (thumbs up to Mr Roof Repair). Their repair specialist said that the previous roofers hadn't used any roof cement around the bathroom vents and that's why they were leaking. Another $400 bill to pay because someone didn't spend 2 minutes and a couple of dollars worth of materials to do it right. In all honesty we had some issues with a few things that were done, but I would have easily overlooked them and I would have rated Lucan a 9. However, the mold issue and the way Stefan handled that situation, plus the obvious deficiency in the roofing leads me to conclude that they're not as good as they would like you to believe.
- Approximate cost of services:
- $200,000.00