Barrie Home Inspector

Home Maintenance and Tips for Home Owners

Tag: Ontario Building Code

Commercial Property Inspector – Barrie

Real Estate

Commercial Property Inspector – Barrie is a Certified Building Code Official. He has attained the required training and education with the Ontario Building Officials Association and is fully qualified on Large Buildings and Part 3 of the Ontario Building Code. An unknowing inspector may lead you to believe your property is code compliant when you could in fact be faced with spending thousands or tens of thousands in required building code upgrades.

Aluminum Wiring: In the late 1960′s and early 1970′s copper prices rose and contractors/electricians switched from copper to lower costing aluminum wiring. Concerns with this type of wiring have arisen, for example, when aluminum wire is connected to devices (eg. receptacles, light fixtures) which were not designed for aluminum, or, when aluminum and copper wires are attached. In these cases a reaction can occur causing the connections to fail, perhaps become disconnected, and/or, potentially overheat, spark and catch fire. Symptoms of this can sometimes be seen in the discolouration of receptacles, flickering lights, or the smell of hot plastic insulation.

Asbestos became increasingly popular among manufacturers and builders in the late 19th century because of its sound absorption, average tensile strength, its resistance to fire, heat, electrical and chemical damage, and affordability. It was used in such applications as electrical insulation for hotplate wiring and in building insulation. When asbestos is used for its resistance to fire or heat, the fibers are often mixed with cement (resulting in fiber cement) or woven into fabric or mats. All types of asbestos fibers are known to cause serious health hazards in humans. Removing asbestos from a property can be expensive and time consuming. Personnel have to be licensed to perform asbestos removal.

Mould: Leaking roofs or basements can lead to an excess of moisture in your crawl space, basement or storage areas of your building or office. The best reason is to avoid the growth of fungus, mold, or mildew that may decay and destroy wood and potentially your indoor air quality. Moisture in any form provides the missing ingredient for spores to thrive and grow in its environment. Having your property or building inspected can prevent expensive clean up costs that might be incurred after you purchase a property.

Thermal imaging (infrared camera) is used on all our commercial property inspections. This amazing technology can aid in the detection of heat loss, moisture, water leaks, over-heating conditions and even mould detection. We also perform moisture checks with our up-graded digital moisture detector which allows us to detect moisture up to an inch behind most building products.

The Commercial Property Inspector has been in business for 7 years and has performed over 4,000 inspections. As a Certified Building Code Official with the Ontario Building Officials Assc he has master the Ontario Building Code by completing all the Part 9 (small buildings) and Part 3 (large buildings over 600 m2) which enables him to use this experience when inspecting your commercial real estate investment. All inspections are performed to ASTM E2018 standard and report is based on PCA format.

Looking to find Toronto Commercial Property Inspections, then visit www.commercialbuildinginspector.ca to find the best advice on GTA Commercial Property Inspections for your next investment.

Commercial Building Inspector–Toronto and GTA

Real Estate

Commercial Building Inspector–Toronto and GTA.  Commercial Building Inspections are an important decision before investing in a property.  Understanding your buildings systems and condition is paramount to purchasing property.  As a Certified Building Code Official with the Ontario Building Officials Association you can rest assured that your building will be code compliant and suitable for your occupancy requirements.

In Ontario Part 3 of the Ontario Building Code covers buildings over 600 M2 in size.  The Ontario Building Officials Association offers many courses specific to Large Buildings which would be considered necessary if planning to inspect a Part 3 building.

Member of Ontario Building Officials AssociationLarge Buildings is an intensive course dealing with the Occupancy of Buildings; Building Fire Safety; Safety within Floor Areas; Exits; Barrier Free Design; Structural Design; Change of Use and Renovations to name a few.  As you can see from the subject titles all of these aspects of a building are important and can be very expensive to repair or upgrade.

The Classification and Construction course typically offers and includes the following: building classification; separation of major occupancies; building area and height; streets; building size and construction; occupant load; fire separation/fire-resistance ratings; firewalls; closures; Ontario Building Code requirements; fire stopping; provision for firefighting; and mezzanines and interconnected floor spaces.

Part 3 Fire Protection is an OBOA course dealing with all aspects of your buildings fire protection features.  Your local building department may require you to upgrade your features where the following are lacking or require improvement; Fire Resistant ratings; where the building coded requires Fire Separations because of Building Classification, separation of major occupancies, service spaces and exits including penetrations of fire separations.  An unknowing inspector may lead you to believe your building is code compliant when you could in fact be faced with spending thousands or tens of thousands in required building code upgrades.

Commercial Building InspectorThe Commercial Building Inspector is a qualified Building Code inspector.  He is a Certified Building Code Official with the Ontario Building Officials Association and is fully qualified on Large Buildings and Part 3 of the Ontario Building Code.  An unknowing inspector may lead you to believe your building is code compliant when you could in fact be faced with spending thousands or tens of thousands in required building code upgrades.

The most important aspect of having your Commercial Property inspected is knowing the Qualifications of the actual inspector performing the inspection.  There is no value to hiring a well known firm whose founder is extremely well educated, only to find out that you are going to be dealing with an employee, who may or may not have the qualifications you are looking for.  The Commercial Building Inspector attends every inspection and uses only highly trained assistants to aid him.

 

The Commercial Building Inspector has experience in Project Reviews, Over 4,000 paid inspections, is a Certified Building Code Official and has experience in hundreds of plaza’s, Malls, Strip Malls, Medical Buildings, Apartment Buildings, Mixed Use and Multiple Occupancy building inspections.  Visit www.commercailbuildinginspector.ca to review Buildings Inspected and Qualifications, you won’t be disappointed.

Masonry Block – Building Tips

Basements, Exterior

Masonry Block – Building Tips. Every block wall-regardless of height or length-should be placed on a secure footing of poured concrete. A block barbecue grill or outdoor fireplace requires a large concrete pad as a footing. The footing must extend down beyond the frost line to prevent heaving in the winter.

For a footing poured in an area where drainage is a problem, lay a drain line along the outer edge of the form. Allow for a drop of about 1″ for each 20′ of drain line. Backfill over the drain line with about 12″ of crushed stone or gravel. In Ontario this is mandatory and must be installed for any building of 100 square feet in size.

Building exact corners is the most important construction of a masonry wall as corners will guide the building of the rest of the wall. A corner pole will make the job easier. A corner pole is any type of post which can be braced into a true vertical position and which will hold a taut mason’s line without bending. Two such poles are set up, one on each corner, with the mason’s line stretched between them. Corner poles for block walls should be marked every 4 to 8 inches, depending on how high the material is with which you are building the wall. Such marks must be absolutely level when the mason’s line is stretched between them.

Set the corner block first. Be sure you are using the correct block. Check the starting corner block, both horizontally and vertically, and take time to get it positioned correctly. All other blocks will align with this starter block, so it’s very important to set it exactly. Follow this same procedure as you reach the other corners, laying the first course out about two or three blocks in each direction. Tie a line between two bricks and stretch it between the two corner blocks on the first course.

Corners and lead blocks are generally built 4-6 rows high, with each course being stepped back one block from the course below, creating a pyramid effect. The wall alignment, plumb and level should be checked on these corners before completing the wall. If everything checks out fine, it is now time to fill in each course between the corners.

Because they can be adjusted in size slightly, mortar joints provide some layout flexibility. While the ideal mortar joint is 3⁄8 inch wide, masons routinely shrink joints to as small as 1⁄4 inch or stretch them to as large as1⁄2 inch. Joints that fall out- side this range are unsightly and, with a few small exceptions, prohibited by most building codes.

The Barrie Home Inspector uses his training to ensure every building inspected meets or exceeds the required building code practices. As a Certified Building Code Official he is one of the few Barrie Home Inspector’s with Ontario Building Code training in both Part 9 and Part 3 of the Building Code.

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