Joe Salazar's Blog

R-2000 is a voluntary standard administered by Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) and is delivered through a network of service organizations and professionals across Canada.

Developed in partnership with Canada’s residential construction industry, R-2000 is one of the initiatives offered by NRCan‘s Office of Energy Efficiency. This initiative’s aim is to promote the use of cost-effective energy-efficient building practices and technologies. Through the use of third-party evaluators and a government of Canada supported certification process homeowners are assured of real value and consistency.

What is the R-2000 Standard?

The R-2000 Standard (R-2000) is an industry-endorsed technical performance standard for energy efficiency, indoor air tightness quality, and environmental responsibility in home construction.

Houses built to the R-2000 Standard typically exceed the energy performance requirements of the current Canadian building codes and are recognized by meeting a high standard of environmental responsibility.

Since its introduction over 25 years ago, the R-2000 Standard has become the benchmark for energy efficient new home building in Canada. The Standard is continually upgraded to include new technologies as it becomes established in the marketplace furthermore it is flexible enough to apply to any type of home.

An evolving standard

Government and industry manage R-2000 technology through consultations. They involve researchers, home builders, product manufacturers and other housing experts.

These partners meet regularly to review new housing research and determine if the R-2000 Standard should be upgraded to reflect new developments. Whenever changes are made to the standard, R-2000 home builders receive additional training and technical information to help them incorporate these new improvements in the houses they build.

Ottawa Real Estate

What if water suddenly starts leaking through your roof or the furnace breaks down in the middle of a cold winter night? Call the landlord!

Emergencies often cause a panicked reaction and if the landlord is not instantly available, tenants might react hastily. Before going ahead and ordering major repairs, tenants must understand what constitute emergency repairs and which situations warrant action on their part.

• What Are Emergency Repairs?
• What if I Cannot Reach my Landlord?

Insure Against Surprises If a tenant’s belongings are damaged or destroyed because of a problem in the residence, such as a leaking roof, normally the tenant, not the landlord, is liable for the replacement of the damaged belongings. For full protection against these situations, tenants should carry their own rental unit contents insurance.

What Are Emergency Repairs?

An emergency repair is required when something in the rental unit has broken and the health or safety of the tenant is in danger or the building or property is at risk until repairs can be made. By law, the landlord should handle and pay for emergency repairs.

What if I Cannot Reach my Landlord?

You should try to contact the landlord or the emergency contact at least twice, leave a message if no one answers and record the date and time of the calls, faxes, or e-mails and allow a reasonable amount of time for them to respond.

In some situations, repairs must be performed immediately to reduce personal risk or property damage. If you are unable to reach the landlord, you can authorize the repair work yourself. Repairs can also be authorized by an order from the rental authority in your province or territory.

Emergency contact
Some provinces require that emergency contact information is posted in a visible place in the building. The emergency contact can be the landlord and/or another person.

If you are authorizing an emergency repair because a landlord is unavailable, you should keep all paperwork related to the incident. Ask the repair worker to bill the landlord directly for the emergency. If repairs must be paid upon completion, tenants should keep track of expenses, notify the landlord and ask for reimbursement.

If the landlord can be contacted before the repairs are completed, the landlord may choose to take over the repairs and pay for work done up to that point. Alternatively, the landlord may let the repairs continue, choosing to reimburse the tenant for the full cost once repairs are completed.

Avoid paying for anything that is not a true emergency, because the landlord could refuse to repay your expenses. Use this chart to gauge whether a repair is an emergency putting you at risk or something you can live with for a few days.

Ottawa Real Estate

If you’ve just pocketed a set of keys for a new house, it doesn’t mean you’re off the hook as far as home maintenance goes. You’ve got work to do, but don’t fret. It’s fun work, like waxing a new car. And meeting your responsibilities diligently will keep you from having to deal with the kind of really nasty, expensive home maintenance surprises that kept you out of the used housing market in the first place.

Masonry Maintenance

Products like concrete, brick, blocks and stucco are great, but our highly variable Canadian climate can be hard on them.

• The main culprit is water. It seeps into pores and stays there until it expands as it freezes during winter.
• Exposed to enough freeze-thaw cycles, even the best masonry flakes, crumbles and disintegrates.
• Add the corrosive effects of road salt and it’s no wonder many masonry surfaces look pretty grim after their 10th birthday.
• But that’ll never happen to your home if you treat it right. The trick is to prevent moisture and salts from soaking in there in the first place. There’s no shortage of brush-on consumer products that repel water from masonry, and these do a good job.
• Apply a new coat every three or four years and you can forget about masonry deterioration.

Roof Maintenance

Most eavestroughs need annual cleaning, but there are other things to take care of on the roof too.

• Keep roof valleys free of leaves and pine needles is essential for long roof life.
• It’s always a good idea to inspect the metal flashing that waterproofs the joints between roofs, chimneys and adjoining walls.
• Although you won’t have to replace caulking here any time soon on a new place, when the time comes, use polyurethane caulking. It has outstanding sticking abilities, it’s paintable and remains highly flexible.

Nowadays, getting up on the roof takes more than just a ladder. The kind of aluminum and plastic eavestroughs on new homes are easily crushed while supporting the top end of a ladder. Solution:

• Get a pair of ladder legs.
• These aluminum extension wings support any ladder on the roof’s surface, not the eavestrough.
• They also make ladders more stable by giving them a wider, top-end stance.
• At less than $30 a pair, every homebuilder should throw in a free set as a house-warming gift.

Clean Filters

New homes have far more mechanical features than older houses, and although these don’t demand much attention, regular diligence is still required. The most important indoor maintenance task is keeping filters clean. You’ll find them on:

• Heat recovery ventilators (HRV)
• Forced air furnaces
• Whole house exhaust systems
• Water purification appliances.

Lubrication

If you want your home to operate like a well-oiled machine, you have to treat it like a well-oiled machine. The following all appreciate lubrication:

• Door hinges
• Window latches
• Garage door mechanicals
• Sliding patio doors

Medium-weight household oil works well for full-size door hinges and garage door parts, but you’ll need something lighter for sliding doors and windows. Spray-on silicone lubricants work well in areas where visible oil would be messy and unsightly.

Kitchen Cabinets

Most new kitchen

• cabinets use a system of adjustable European hinges to suspend the cabinet doors.
• You can recognize them by their large, mechanical look, and the fact that they’re only visible from within the cabinet.
• All-steel, European hinges like these last a million years, they’re easily adjustable.
• Do your doors sag together in the middle? Is the space between them too wide? Too narrow? No problem. A system of adjustment screws on each hinge lets you easily move the doors up, down, left, right, in and out.
• If your builder didn’t have time to tweak cabinet doors before you moved in, do it yourself right now.

Keeping your home in good shape is a lot like driving a car down the highway. Just as you need to make small corrections with the steering wheel every few seconds to stay on the road, your new house needs regular diligence in the little things, too. Stay on top of them and you’ll make the most of your home while spending the least amount of time and money in the process.

casaGURU

Ottawa Real Estate

Q: Every winter there’s a big buildup of road salt on my concrete garage floor and I need to know the best way to clean it off. How often do I need to clean the surface to keep the concrete in good shape?

A: Besides making your garage look bad, salt is very hard on concrete. A garden hose and a long-handled scrub brush does a good job removing it (since salt is so soluble), though you should wait for a warm day to avoid ice buildup on the floor. Doing this operation a few times a season, as weather permits, is sufficient, though you should go one step further.

Maintentance Tip to Prevent Long-term Garage Floor Salt Damage:

To prevent long-term salt damage, clean your floor in the summer, then apply a heavy-duty masonry waterproofing compound. Industrial-grade products offer a much longer working life than consumer-grade masonry waterproofing agents, saving you time. If you go this route, consider renting or borrowing a pressure washer to get the floor squeaky-clean before application.

Ottawa Real Estate

The renovation business is booming. Everyone is renovating, which is one of the reasons it’s so tough to find a good contractor.

Magazines and television shows inspire people to renovate. Home-improvement stores are full of great products and offer easy financing and seminars for homeowners. No wonder everyone wants to improve their home—I heard recently that about 10% of Canadian homeowners are planning a home renovation.

Since the average home renovation in this country costs about 15 thousand dollars, there’s a lot of money involved—from contractors and subtrades, to paint, tools, flooring, lumber, hardware, appliances and a ton of other building supplies.

Why Are You Renovating?
Renovations increase the value of your home, but you need to think about why you’re doing it. Is it to improve your home so you can enjoy living in it, to save money by adding energy efficient windows or insulation, or is it to make money?

A lot of people renovate for profit—and this can be a big mistake, because they often spend their budget on things like finishes and decor, and don’t even think about what holds their house together, and keeps it dry, safe and standing.

Is It a Flip?
Some houses are renovated so they can be ‘flipped’ for a profit. I love to renovate houses—I love to help people improve their houses, to make their dreams come true. And I think a lot of flips are crap.

In my experience, a lot of people who do this are only interested in how the project looks—in order to maximize their profit, they do cover ups–lipstick and mascara—and then move on, with a tidy profit, leaving the sucker who bought their house with a big problem. One they might not even know about for years.

Nobody wants their renovation to bring the value of their house down. Obviously you want your house to look good, and later when it comes time to sell it, it’s nice to make a profit. But, if you’re renovating with an eye to selling, make sure you aren’t just covering up problems. Fix what needs to be done right, take care of the basics like plumbing, electrical, HVAC, and insulation. Make the house better than it was when you bought it. Then once you’ve done that, make it look good.

Where Should You Put Your Money?
Kitchen and bathroom improvements increase the value of your house more than most renovations and offer the highest average return on investment.

The kitchen is the heart of a home—people gather and spend a lot of time there, so renovations that improve the kitchen are a good idea. Adding living space—either by finishing an unused basement or putting an addition on your home is the second most popular reason to renovate.

Exterior projects make up almost 40% of renovations and can include jobs like roofing, deck or patio installation, siding, foundation work, landscaping, fencing, garage building, exterior painting, sidewalk or driveway work, and gutters or eavestrough improvements.

With some renovations, you’ll make back what you spend on the upgrades, plus a profit when you go to sell. But that’s assuming the work is done well by a skilled contractor, using quality workmanship and materials. A bad job might reduce the value of your home.

Cosmetic or Practical?
It doesn’t make me happy, but not every renovation you do on your house will give you the same return on investment if you’re doing it to sell. You might replace your roof and windows and fix the foundation—and that’s the right thing to do. Practical renovations are smart and the best to invest in for the long term.

Unfortunately a lot of homebuyers don’t get that excited about these very important points—but a new granite countertop and stainless appliances will impress them every time.

I think that the best reason to renovate your home is to enjoy it. Your home is not just an investment. If you are renovating to sell, use quality materials and hire professional skilled people to do the job right.

Ottawa Real Estate

Whether it’s a 100-year-old Victorian home, a multi-apartment property or a fully renovated unit in a hip urban area…

1. Make sure it’s worth it
   As McGillivray says, the cost of renovations has to be able to pay itself back within two years rent. Scout out local markets, get a professional opinion, and be sure to watch Income Property. Because, hey, who doesn’t want to make a couple of bucks on something they need anyway?
2. Tag team, if you can
   To use a cliché, two heads are better than one, and home-owning is no exception. Getting to your desired final product is a journey, and having a teammate to share frustrations, anxieties and most importantly, costs with is invaluable.
3. The best way to learn is to go through the experience
   As one homeowner in the show puts it, “you can read as many books as you want, but you have to experience it.” Every home is unique, and every home will reveal its own problems and potential solutions.
4. Whatever you budget, add 25 per cent
   When renovating your space, despite what a professionally quoted budget says, add 25 per cent, just in case. If you don’t go over, nothing lost. But if you do, at least you were expecting it.
5. Houses are like onions
   The more layers you peel back, especially while demolishing, the more problems you’re going to find. Count on hidden gems like mould, live wires and any other hidden costs, just in case.
6. Consider all the options
   If you have a three-story plus basement house, why just rent out only the basement? As we learn in the first episode, doubling the space not only allows you to live mortgage-free by increasing the rent, it also increases the value of the home. But it also may not be the option for you, especially if you plan on expanding a family or you want access to your backyard.
7. Make sure the space is livable
   If the kitchen has zero counter space and the bedroom can only fit a bed, not only is it going to be hard to find someone to rent out your unit, but think of the types of people who might be wanting to rent out your unit.
8. Don’t skimp on the drywall, especially on the ceiling
   Not only do you want a fire barrier between you and your new housemates, you might be thankful for a little bit of sound-proofing in the long run.
9. Start on the outside
   A separate entrance is key when renting out a basement, especially if you don’t want to mingle too much with your new lessees. And you might want to make sure there are no potential lawsuits hanging around — such as slippery stairs or rotting wood.
10. Don’t turn your house into a home… right away
    If a long-term investment is what you seek, turning your space into a home right off the bat isn’t going to help pay those accumulating bills. Your No. 1 priority should be making your home into an income source, or at least a manageable entity.

Ottawa Real Estate

Although the resale condo market is going strong, it seems there is also no end to the new building developments cropping up all over Canadian cities. One of the main benefits of buying a condo in the development stage is choice. Most savvy developers offer potential owners the opportunity to have a hand in the design, layout and decoration of their unit. This means sumptuous upgrades are always on offer. Sure, standard fixtures are cheaper and function just fine—but sometimes a custom upgrade is worth the splurge, especially when it comes to resale value, which is something every condo purchaser should have on the brain. Plus, it’s always cheaper to choose an upgrade and benefit from the wholesale prices developers are generally privy to, rather then choose to remodel your condo or townhouse at full price later.

Here are some fantastic upgrade options guaranteed to pay off in the end:

• Granite countertops
• Custom cabinetry
• Recessed lights
• Kitchen islands
• Hardwood floors
• Marble entranceways
• Jacuzzi or soaker tubs
• Luxury showerheads
• Gas fireplaces
• Courtyard-style terraces, bricked with interlocking stone
• Built-in speakers or preinstalled wiring
• High-quality carpeting

Ottawa Real Estate

If you’ve just pocketed a set of keys for a new house, it doesn’t mean you’re off the hook as far as home maintenance goes. You’ve got work to do, but don’t fret. It’s fun work, like waxing a new car. And meeting your responsibilities diligently will keep you from having to deal with the kind of really nasty, expensive home maintenance surprises that kept you out of the used housing market in the first place.

Masonry Maintenance

Products like concrete, brick, blocks and stucco are great, but our highly variable Canadian climate can be hard on them.

• The main culprit is water. It seeps into pores and stays there until it expands as it freezes during winter.
• Exposed to enough freeze-thaw cycles, even the best masonry flakes, crumbles and disintegrates.
• Add the corrosive effects of road salt and it’s no wonder many masonry surfaces look pretty grim after their 10th birthday.
• But that’ll never happen to your home if you treat it right. The trick is to prevent moisture and salts from soaking in there in the first place. There’s no shortage of brush-on consumer products that repel water from masonry, and these do a good job.
• Apply a new coat every three or four years and you can forget about masonry deterioration.

Roof Maintenance

Most eavestroughs need annual cleaning, but there are other things to take care of on the roof too.

• Keep roof valleys free of leaves and pine needles is essential for long roof life.
• It’s always a good idea to inspect the metal flashing that waterproofs the joints between roofs, chimneys and adjoining walls.
• Although you won’t have to replace caulking here any time soon on a new place, when the time comes, use polyurethane caulking. It has outstanding sticking abilities, it’s paintable and remains highly flexible.

Nowadays, getting up on the roof takes more than just a ladder. The kind of aluminum and plastic eavestroughs on new homes are easily crushed while supporting the top end of a ladder. Solution:

• Get a pair of ladder legs.
• These aluminum extension wings support any ladder on the roof’s surface, not the eavestrough.
• They also make ladders more stable by giving them a wider, top-end stance.
• At less than $30 a pair, every homebuilder should throw in a free set as a house-warming gift.

Clean Filters

New homes have far more mechanical features than older houses, and although these don’t demand much attention, regular diligence is still required. The most important indoor maintenance task is keeping filters clean. You’ll find them on:

• Heat recovery ventilators (HRV)
• Forced air furnaces
• Whole house exhaust systems
• Water purification appliances.

Lubrication

If you want your home to operate like a well-oiled machine, you have to treat it like a well-oiled machine. The following all appreciate lubrication:

• Door hinges
• Window latches
• Garage door mechanicals
• Sliding patio doors

Medium-weight household oil works well for full-size door hinges and garage door parts, but you’ll need something lighter for sliding doors and windows. Spray-on silicone lubricants work well in areas where visible oil would be messy and unsightly.

Kitchen Cabinets

Most new kitchen

• cabinets use a system of adjustable European hinges to suspend the cabinet doors.
• You can recognize them by their large, mechanical look, and the fact that they’re only visible from within the cabinet.
• All-steel, European hinges like these last a million years, they’re easily adjustable.
• Do your doors sag together in the middle? Is the space between them too wide? Too narrow? No problem. A system of adjustment screws on each hinge lets you easily move the doors up, down, left, right, in and out.
• If your builder didn’t have time to tweak cabinet doors before you moved in, do it yourself right now.

Keeping your home in good shape is a lot like driving a car down the highway. Just as you need to make small corrections with the steering wheel every few seconds to stay on the road, your new house needs regular diligence in the little things, too. Stay on top of them and you’ll make the most of your home while spending the least amount of time and money in the process.

casaGURU

Ottawa Real Estate

Paint is a great way to freshen up your space. It covers up all the scuffs on the walls from the kids playing around and it is also a great way to change things around. Before starting your project, make sure that you have picked out the right type of paint. There are a variety of different applications for each type of paint. Most rooms will use Latex paint in an “eggshell” finish. Although manufacturers have different terms to describe the different finishes, look for something with a little bit sheen, not a “flat” matte finish paint. The sheen will give you the ability to wash your walls with a damp cloth if they get a little dirty.

Although, be sure not to get too much of a high sheen such as semi-gloss for living rooms as it will reflect too much light and will be overwhelming for the eye.

An old trick to using semi-gloss paint is to apply it to all your doors, casings and baseboards. Casings and doors are usually where the kids touch with their sticky fingers so it’s best to have a surface that can be easily cleaned. If you are a little at a loss for the different finishes, be sure to ask the paint reps helping you in stores. They will be able to guide you to the best paint finish for your desired application.

Once you have selected your paint finish, you will want to look at the materials and tools you will need to get the job done. Most paint retailers will carry all the necessary tools including; drop cloths, paint rollers, paint brushes, paint roller pan, plastic cups, rags, hammer, painter’s tape, paint can opener and sandpaper.

Having a positive painting experience is all in the preparation. You have to be organized and ready for anything. Prior to starting the project, empty all the room’s contents. This will allow you to properly create a good work flow and enable you to easily maneuver around the room. The less you have to worry about spilling paint on your new sofa, the less stressed you will be while painting. Be sure to also use all the tools you have available to you to make it an enjoyable experience. Place your drop cloths on the floors and apply painter’s tape to all the edges that come in contact with the wall that are not supposed to be painted in the wall colour. If you are an amateur painter, the more tape the better. Painter’s tape is easy to apply and it will ensure that you don’t smudge paint all over your casings and baseboards. Properly prep the area before you actually open the paint can and it will save you time and money.

When prepping your walls, be sure to also look for nail heads that need to be removed and any rough areas that needs to be sanded. This is your opportunity to fix any imperfections to the wall prior to applying your fresh coat of paint.

You will need to apply a few different coats of paint. All rooms get one coat of primer and two coats of finish. The primer will help mask the existing paint on the walls so that the old paint doesn’t seep into the new wall colour.

When painting your primer and wall colour, be sure to “cut in” the edges before you paint with the roller. “Cutting in” is a term used by professional painters which basically means applying the paint on an edge where two colours come together. One of the most common places where this happens is where the ceiling meets the walls. The easiest way to “cut in” for an amateur is to utilize your painters tape and tape the edge of the ceiling and work with an angled brush.

Once you have painted all the edges with your paint brush, you can now pour your wall paint in your paint roller pan and work with the paint roller. Be sure to apply the paint in a vertical fashion and work from top to bottom without taking the roller off the wall on each motion. This will help eliminate streaks on the wall which are signs of amateur painters.

Remember to take your time, listen to your favourite tunes and just have fun! Once you have finished painting, wait till it dries and bring back your furnishings into the room and ENJOY!

casaGURU

Ottawa Real Estate