Toronto Murano | ?m | 45s | Lanterra | a—A


I think then its time for laminated glass... oh but then its double the cost, still better than a lawsuit.:)

I called it..good move

Toronto condo developer to replace balcony glass

The Toronto condominium developer at the centre of a controversy over glass falling on the city's streets, has announced it is replacing all of the glass in the balconies of three of its buildings.

The buildings, all in downtown Toronto, will have the existing tempered glass used in their balconies replaced with laminated glass.
More....http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/story/2011/08/17/toronto-condo-glass.html
 
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Kudos to Lanterra for doing this right. Good on them.
 
Kudos to Lanterra for doing this right. Good on them.

Joking right? They got caught. We've been talking about this for months here at Urban Toronto. It took how many pieces to come down before they finally woke up?
 
Joking right? They got caught. We've been talking about this for months here at Urban Toronto. It took how many pieces to come down before they finally woke up?

As I recall, two pieces came down at first several months apart, a very unusual occurrence. After that every balcony system was checked by Building Inspectors and passed. When it started again during the heatwave a few weeks back the decision was made to remove all balcony glass and railings in the north tower. Then One Bedford happened, two panels blow in less than a week and in the middle of all that a panel blows from the south tower. Yesterday they announce all three building's balcony systems will be replaced with laminated glass when in fact the glass used was possibly defective to begin with which isn't Lanterra's fault if that's the case. Further, they'll use the more expensive laminated glass going forward. So, good on them. Nothing from Daniels yet re: Festival Tower.
 
Joking right? They got caught. We've been talking about this for months here at Urban Toronto. It took how many pieces to come down before they finally woke up?

You're looking for conspiracies where there are none. Lanterra weren't trying to cheap out: they've been bitten by bad glass, likely not tempered properly, as has been suggested by U of T Engineering Prof Doug Perovic. No developer wants their reputation to take a hit like this - you cannot continue to develop if you build unsafe buildings, plain and simple.

At first it seemed that is was only a problem with the north tower at Murano, so Lanterra announced that they would pay to fix that. Now there have been a couple of incidents at One Bedford, and one at Murano south. So now they will pay to replace the glass in all three buildings simply because it makes sense for everyone. They have also announced that effective immediately all of Lanterra's projects will have laminated glass for their balcony glazing. Good solution!

The balconies will get fixed and Lanterra will soldier on.

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Flaws discovered in exploding glass balconies

Published On Thu Aug 18 2011


Liam Casey Staff Reporter



Microscopic imperfections buried within the pane are behind the spate of exploding glass balconies on downtown condo towers, an engineer says.
Mark Brook is a partner at BVDA Façade Engineering which is analyzing glass from the north tower of the Murano building, where at least nine panes have exploded since last September.
Brook recently discovered nickel sulfide crystals in two shattered panes. These crystals grow over time, which stresses the glass. If the imperfection is in the right place, the pressure builds until the pane explodes.
“It’s either bullets or inclusions,” Brook said. “And there’s no evidence someone’s shooting at the balconies.”
To get a definitive answer, Brook needed at least one of two specific bits of glass where the explosion originated — the portion containing the nickel sulfide crystal. That’s nearly impossible when a pane explodes into hundreds of pieces strewn across a busy street.
But the engineering firm was lucky. It had been testing intact panels from the north tower of the Murano building as the developer took them down. One night, a pane resting against a wall in the testing facility exploded. They found their specific glass bit.
“It’s not poor installation,” Brook said. “It’s not wind, it’s not the weather, it’s these imperfections.”
Brook first suspected the faulty glass was from a bad batch. It was actually several contaminated batches from manufacturing facilities in the United States that ended up in Toronto.
“Exploding glass isn’t that abnormal,” Brook said. “It’s just been making the news because it’s been exploding onto busy streets like Bay St.”
Brook’s firm has been contracted by Lanterra Developments to examine the glass on three of its condos where balcony railings have shattered: the two Murano towers as well as One Bedford Rd. The developer has said it will replace the tempered panes with the safer laminated variety — an inner layer of tempered glass and an outer layer of heat-strengthened glass sandwiching a sheet of plastic — on these and all future projects.
Glass has also shattered on three Toronto buildings built by other developers.
http://www.thestar.com/news/article/1041662--flaws-discovered-in-exploding-glass-balconies?bn=1
 
Tests were also conducted at an engineering lab at U of T and they came up with the same preliminary results.
 

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