Water Proofing Your Foundation

Often times you will get a damp feeling in your basement...or even more drastically, there is water seeping in from outside... As foundations settle they may incur cracks along masonry joints or cracks within a poured in place foundation wall.

When such an occurrence happens where you find your basement leaking, you are forced to call up a contractor and have them come in to dig up the foundation walls for proper waterproofing repair. Sometimes things can get messy where the waterproofing repair entails having to rip apart existing landscapes like planting beds of walkways around the home.


If you are living in an older home and considering investing your money into a landscape project, check the conditions of your foundation walls before hand... if a repair is needed in the near future, it may make sense to have that done before you call in someone like myself to design and build your project...

A Stone Mason in Toronto

A couple of years ago I was fortunate enough to meet up with a very talented group of stone masons working in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA).


Just a few examples of some stone masonry work in my designs can be seen below and in the photo above:

In the above photo, Natural stone retaining walls and random flagstone path (Credit Valley Flagstone and wall stone). This was a brand-new stair/wall system put in for better access to the client's front door from the driveway.

In the above photo, Natural Owen Sound square-cut flagstone in a Grey-buff colour mixed with black square-cut for a bit of accent. This is a patio that had been put in to provided a great space for entertainment.

In this photo we see the work in progress as the front walkway is completed for one of my clients. The photo at the beginning of this post is the end result of excellent Stone Mason work and quality landscape construction work. The stone used here is called Indus Valley Sandstone in a grey colour.

For stone mason work in the Greater Toronto Area you can contact me for further information regarding design or I can refer you to a contractor for estimating the work on your natural stone projects.

Deck spans...

Last year I had the pleasure of working on a deck project that involved a face-lift plus a structural repair to the main supporting beam.



The deck is an elevated second-story deck that sits over a 2-car parking area which required a 20 foot clear span of the main beam. The picture above shows some fancy engineering of a laminated beam made up of 2 x 12's and plywood spanning the 20 feet. It will not sag under it's own weight and will hold up nicely when your party of 12 sits happily and safely above!

The deck in the distance shows a 20 foot span sagging under it's own weight...evident in the slightly curved appearance to the bottom of the deck. Imagine what a party of 12 would do to it? When designing the structure of a deck, there are specific building codes to follow with beam and joist spans. Things are very specific in the types and sizes of beams to use according to the distance you wish to span from post to post.

You want to make sure your spans follow those guidelines for safety reasons... saving money or trying to maximize space under a deck by using less posts with the wrong type of beam could result in structural failure. The above picture shows what you get with the proper guidance of a knowledgeable contractor working on your job. The deck carpenter for this project was Tony Fredericks of The Woodcrafters (416-420-3999)

Gone are the days....

Gone are the days in the City of Toronto when you could simply rip down an existing home and with only the building permits in place, build what ever you wanted!!! It is February of 2007 and my phone is ringing with calls for help!

Someone doing a property flip is faced with a possible stop work order because they failed to adhere to the City of Toronto's by-laws set in place by Urban Forestry. Trees over 30 cm in caliper are protected from removal unless a permit application is made for cutting the tree down! This measurement is taken along the trunk of the tree... 4 feet (1.2 m) off the ground... at that height you measure the diameter at the tree's thickest point of the trunk.

So why is my phone ringing? Rules are not being followed by people that should know they are in place. I just came from a site visit where a residential construction project using heavy haul equipment is in the works on an older lot in the Scarborough Bluffs area... there are several large trees on the site and the construction is interfering with the root systems of these trees.

All the trees are over the 30 cm diameter and none of them are properly protected according to the city's requirements! Now what??? A 70 foot tall Colorado Blue Spruce has had 1 major anchor root severed and 3 main feeder/anchor roots severed on the south side. I need to make a tree protection plan for the city and the contractor... and I need to make a report on the tree damage...

Again, now what??? That tree will begin to show visible signs of stress in the next year or two... I expect about 10% to 20% of the branch structure on that side will be lost over the next 2 to 3 years and this once majestic looking Spruce tree will not look so hot anymore.

The saving grace...in my honest opinion is that this tree will recover from the damage... but not without scars... it will take about a good solid 3 growing seasons to redirect it's root structure for that side...it was the south side damaged and so in those 2 to 3 years... I just hope we do not get a major windstorm that will carry heavy winds off Lake Ontario and blow to the north... that may cause the tree to lean towards 3 neighbouring properties.

Yikes!!!

Anyway, the point of my rant??? Thinking about a property flip? A tear-down and rebuild... all in the City of Toronto boundaries?? If you have mature trees (30 cm or greater in caliper) and also if you live in a ravine protected area......... Call Urban Forestry before you even start work!!! As I was on that particular site today, my phone rang...someone else from another project is in the same situation with the City of Toronto over a tree needing protection during construction.

There is only so much that can be done once construction happens... If nothing was done before construction started... The inspectors for the City will be majorly annoyed! Destruction of trees and ravine property is viewed as criminal action and will be treated accordingly with fines and lawsuits by the City of Toronto.

Landscape Contractors - Landscape Construction

Back in 2005 I worked for a company that was contracted by Home Depot to do landscape installations. One of the first things I was asked to provide HD's head office with.... a criminal record check!

I must admit, at first I was a little unnerved, insulted if you will....why would anyone want to check me for a criminal record?!?!... but only for a brief moment did I think that as I quickly reminded myself of the previous years of exposure to various so-called contractors that are out there in the public domain.

These various few are accepting your phone calls and taking deposit checks from people that so trustingly turn them over, expecting work completed in return....yet I see it time an again, someone always runs off with the money! The client gets burned and then labels the contracting world as shysters and crooks!

That's why Home Depot does criminal checks before they give that contractor the right to wear the orange logo!!! So, I'm proud to say...nothing was found on my record! I was given the blessing to wear Home Depot Orange. I was cleared to walk into people's homes and accept signatures, checks and credit card numbers to sell, sell, sell....

The police report was Home Depot's way of saying, you can trust this guy.... He wears our name....

I have run into my share of Contractors that have lived "Hard Lives"....some still lives those hard lives and continue to walk into people's homes. I've seen contractors that are alcoholics, coke heads, pot-growers, scammers, some have been arrested for a drunken disorderly or an assault! The worst was seeing some of them drinking and driving....opening the door of their pick-up to find an invoice and I see beer bottles rolling around the passenger side.

....Not nice!....

Make sure the contractor you hire has a well-known reputation for quality work and professional character. Word of mouth is the greatest referral going...long standing business operation means no funny business....

Stone Masons

What makes a good stone mason? I often get asked by many clients about natural stone and use of it in their landscape.

Where the problems start with using natural stone is that it takes a skilled mason to work with stone. Not every landscape contractor is experienced enough to work with natural stone, yet time and again, I see mistakes being made in landscape construction due to inexperience.

Masonry work is an art... I have seen Masons lift a brick or stone, look at the space they need to fill, balance that stone in their hand and then chop it down to the size needed...only to place it in the spot like it was made for that space. A mason must know their materials and be comfortable with what they work with.

Mistakes commonly made;

-Mortar mix being the wrong consistency which can lead to the failure of the mortar to hold it's bonding ability.

-Stone walls assembled without "rock facing" unsightly saw cuts that are visible on the stone face once it is placed in the wall.

-Sloppy mortar and grout application which leads to staining of the stone surface for years to come.

-If you also noticed something in the photo posted, then you've probably guessed it, staggering stone joints so that the overlap of materials actually give more support to wall structures.

Like the example in the photo, joints that are lined up, can over time, open up and ultimately cause a wall to begin to fail. When this particular wall was built, it was a good example of a contractor selling work and not having qualified workers doing the masonry. The contractor himself is a qualified mason and sold the client on his company's ability to do the work based on past projects. It was not him that built the wall and therefore the masonry quality suffered. The client now has to look at a failing wall 4 years after it was constructed.

Check your contractor's past references....ask who will be doing your masonry work? How long have they been doing Masonry? Ask to see past projects that are at least 3 to 5 years old. Seeing how a landscape ages will tell you if that contractor is right for you!