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Whipcracker and crew
Susan Down, National Post
Published: Thursday, January 29, 2009
By the time a prospective buyer walks into a condo sales office, the developer has already spent millions on land, building design, permits and consultants who offer guidance on everything from improving wind conditions to choosing a project name. Building a condo is a very public performance, but not many of us see just what it takes behind the scenes. In this monthly series, we follow the steps involved in building and planning high-rise condos in the Toronto area.
Behind Massimo Sisti's desk in the crammed construction office is a yellow chart with numbers in each box. Each number stands for a day, and today is No. 534. The pencilled-in figures beside each number indicate whether the stage was on time or not. As the project superintendent for D.J. Campbell Construction, Mr. Sisti can relax a little now, knowing this latest project, the Lotus, an elegant 16-storey Yorkville condominium developed by the Shiu Pong Group, has come in a month ahead of schedule. It didn't look promising at first, when a high water table held up excavation for two months. Just when they were ready to pour the concrete slab on grade, a broken water main on nearby Davenport Road pumped water back in again to a depth of two metres. Despite these setbacks and challenges, Mr. Sisti says that the initial stages of such concrete pouring were easy relative to managing the many trades on a crowded job site.
Andy Kropka's day starts at 5:30 a.m. and ends when the phone stops ringing around 10 p.m. "It's always too much or not enough," he says. "It's not like working in a factory." Mr. Kropka owns KSP Finishes, a Mississauga painting company. About 90% of his business is paint finishes for new condos. He runs a crew of up to 40 people, and right now he is working on six projects in the GTA.
Not only are there more workers on the job site at this stage, but everything they do gets noticed. No one pays attention to a nick in the concrete of the parking garage, but leave a mark in the crown moulding or a crack in the tile grout and they will hear about it from the new owners.
Finding enough qualified workers can be difficult, especially in a trade that people think they have already mastered. "Everybody's a painter," says Mr. Kropka, adding that most people's own home repair and decorating chores seem to qualify them as experienced. That's why when he brings on new crew members, he only hires them for a day. He can tell right away whether they will be suitable or not.
One person he knew would be acceptable was his father. Like many business owners in the construction trades, he followed his father into the field. The twist is that his father was an employee with a painting company. When Mr. Kropka started his business, his father came to work for him.
At the finishing stages, when flooring crews, cabinet installers, drywallers and tilers all manoeuvre around each other in a construction square- dance do-si-do, Mr. Kropka's crew has to do the work in stages. "You'd think we'd just be in once," he says. "Sometimes we're in the same unit 10 times." Generally, his crew is spread over three floors, spraying on one, staining doors on another and completing the finishes on the third. While the wood trim, ceiling and doors are sprayed, the walls are still done using rollers. Typically, corridors are the last areas to be finished after other trades have completed their work.
At Lotus, the pre-delivery inspections (PDI) were completed weeks ago and the 155 units are inhabited now. Mandated by Tarion Warranty Corp., the regulator and warranty guarantor of Ontario's new-home building industry, the PDIs turn up such things as damaged appliances or visible marks and scrapes. It's up to the developer to make good on these problems. Mr. Sisti is co-ordinating the final touch-ups with a crew of three. "The biggest challenge is that when the trades are done, you have to get them to come back."
After 25 years in the business, Mr. Kropka has seen major changes, especially improvements in safety and quality standards. Even management etiquette has changed. A paint mark on the new carpet? "The old school was to start screaming," he says. "These days, people talk things out."
Improved safety standards mean that crew members can't show up in cut-off jean shorts and a T-shirt any more. Like the other trades, Mr. Kropka has safety reps and he must submit his safety policy to the builder before he begins the job. It's a document that could be subject to a government audit.
With consumer reports available from respected market research firm J.D. Power and Associates that allow not only condo buyers but developers to track the high performers, "Today everyone's trying to outdo each other," says Mr. Kropka, adding that the biggest challenge is maintaining the quality and still meeting the developer's deadline.
The best way to measure quality, it seems, is through the eye of the beholder - the new condo owner. "We're the voice of the customer perspective," says Darren Slind, senior director, national leader, client solutions at J.D. Power. This fall, the company released its third annual report on customer satisfaction among condo buyers in the GTA. The company received feedback from 1,086 owners of new condominiums registered in the previous calendar year. That meant they had likely lived in the condos for nine or 10 months. "The new-home smell was starting to wear off, and they were forming definite opinions as to whether they would recommend that builder or not," says Mr. Slind.
Measured on a 1,000-point scale, the questionnaire asks about everything from marks on the granite countertops to service levels from the developer. Not surprisingly, the better the communication between builder and buyer, the higher the rating from the consumer. "The guys at the top are getting a lot better a lot faster," says Mr. Slind. In the 2008 report released in October, Tridel Corp. came out on top, followed by Daniels and Monarch.
In the past three years, the average number of deficiencies identified in single-family homes has dropped significantly while condo deficiency counts have risen. Most common deficiencies are in kitchen cabinets and hardwood flooring. But the top "dissatisfier" is paint. Mr. Slind speculates that the rise may be due to the difficulty in finding enough skilled finishing crews in the frenzied condo building market in the GTA. "As volumes go up, maybe quality has suffered a little."
Meanwhile, Mr. Sisti is getting ready to roll up his yellow spreadsheet. He is meeting the building inspector in a few days to take the final walk through the project. Soon, Lotus will be a building he can point to as his handiwork as he drives through the downtown area. In a week or so he'll be moving to the next construction site - he's not sure which one yet - to start the whole process all over again.
Whipcracker and crew
Susan Down, National Post
Published: Thursday, January 29, 2009
By the time a prospective buyer walks into a condo sales office, the developer has already spent millions on land, building design, permits and consultants who offer guidance on everything from improving wind conditions to choosing a project name. Building a condo is a very public performance, but not many of us see just what it takes behind the scenes. In this monthly series, we follow the steps involved in building and planning high-rise condos in the Toronto area.
Behind Massimo Sisti's desk in the crammed construction office is a yellow chart with numbers in each box. Each number stands for a day, and today is No. 534. The pencilled-in figures beside each number indicate whether the stage was on time or not. As the project superintendent for D.J. Campbell Construction, Mr. Sisti can relax a little now, knowing this latest project, the Lotus, an elegant 16-storey Yorkville condominium developed by the Shiu Pong Group, has come in a month ahead of schedule. It didn't look promising at first, when a high water table held up excavation for two months. Just when they were ready to pour the concrete slab on grade, a broken water main on nearby Davenport Road pumped water back in again to a depth of two metres. Despite these setbacks and challenges, Mr. Sisti says that the initial stages of such concrete pouring were easy relative to managing the many trades on a crowded job site.
Andy Kropka's day starts at 5:30 a.m. and ends when the phone stops ringing around 10 p.m. "It's always too much or not enough," he says. "It's not like working in a factory." Mr. Kropka owns KSP Finishes, a Mississauga painting company. About 90% of his business is paint finishes for new condos. He runs a crew of up to 40 people, and right now he is working on six projects in the GTA.
Not only are there more workers on the job site at this stage, but everything they do gets noticed. No one pays attention to a nick in the concrete of the parking garage, but leave a mark in the crown moulding or a crack in the tile grout and they will hear about it from the new owners.
Finding enough qualified workers can be difficult, especially in a trade that people think they have already mastered. "Everybody's a painter," says Mr. Kropka, adding that most people's own home repair and decorating chores seem to qualify them as experienced. That's why when he brings on new crew members, he only hires them for a day. He can tell right away whether they will be suitable or not.
One person he knew would be acceptable was his father. Like many business owners in the construction trades, he followed his father into the field. The twist is that his father was an employee with a painting company. When Mr. Kropka started his business, his father came to work for him.
At the finishing stages, when flooring crews, cabinet installers, drywallers and tilers all manoeuvre around each other in a construction square- dance do-si-do, Mr. Kropka's crew has to do the work in stages. "You'd think we'd just be in once," he says. "Sometimes we're in the same unit 10 times." Generally, his crew is spread over three floors, spraying on one, staining doors on another and completing the finishes on the third. While the wood trim, ceiling and doors are sprayed, the walls are still done using rollers. Typically, corridors are the last areas to be finished after other trades have completed their work.
At Lotus, the pre-delivery inspections (PDI) were completed weeks ago and the 155 units are inhabited now. Mandated by Tarion Warranty Corp., the regulator and warranty guarantor of Ontario's new-home building industry, the PDIs turn up such things as damaged appliances or visible marks and scrapes. It's up to the developer to make good on these problems. Mr. Sisti is co-ordinating the final touch-ups with a crew of three. "The biggest challenge is that when the trades are done, you have to get them to come back."
After 25 years in the business, Mr. Kropka has seen major changes, especially improvements in safety and quality standards. Even management etiquette has changed. A paint mark on the new carpet? "The old school was to start screaming," he says. "These days, people talk things out."
Improved safety standards mean that crew members can't show up in cut-off jean shorts and a T-shirt any more. Like the other trades, Mr. Kropka has safety reps and he must submit his safety policy to the builder before he begins the job. It's a document that could be subject to a government audit.
With consumer reports available from respected market research firm J.D. Power and Associates that allow not only condo buyers but developers to track the high performers, "Today everyone's trying to outdo each other," says Mr. Kropka, adding that the biggest challenge is maintaining the quality and still meeting the developer's deadline.
The best way to measure quality, it seems, is through the eye of the beholder - the new condo owner. "We're the voice of the customer perspective," says Darren Slind, senior director, national leader, client solutions at J.D. Power. This fall, the company released its third annual report on customer satisfaction among condo buyers in the GTA. The company received feedback from 1,086 owners of new condominiums registered in the previous calendar year. That meant they had likely lived in the condos for nine or 10 months. "The new-home smell was starting to wear off, and they were forming definite opinions as to whether they would recommend that builder or not," says Mr. Slind.
Measured on a 1,000-point scale, the questionnaire asks about everything from marks on the granite countertops to service levels from the developer. Not surprisingly, the better the communication between builder and buyer, the higher the rating from the consumer. "The guys at the top are getting a lot better a lot faster," says Mr. Slind. In the 2008 report released in October, Tridel Corp. came out on top, followed by Daniels and Monarch.
In the past three years, the average number of deficiencies identified in single-family homes has dropped significantly while condo deficiency counts have risen. Most common deficiencies are in kitchen cabinets and hardwood flooring. But the top "dissatisfier" is paint. Mr. Slind speculates that the rise may be due to the difficulty in finding enough skilled finishing crews in the frenzied condo building market in the GTA. "As volumes go up, maybe quality has suffered a little."
Meanwhile, Mr. Sisti is getting ready to roll up his yellow spreadsheet. He is meeting the building inspector in a few days to take the final walk through the project. Soon, Lotus will be a building he can point to as his handiwork as he drives through the downtown area. In a week or so he'll be moving to the next construction site - he's not sure which one yet - to start the whole process all over again.