No one is regroutting tiles every 6 months lol.. especially with sanded grout

If you’ve got a grout line along a water ingress spot ie. a joint where it meets a tub or shower basin, I’d just silicon over the grout as opposed to trying to reapply grout

lol no shit I was reading the thread on my phone and didn't scroll down far enough to see the entire post and thought the first picture was the picture post renos it looked that good.

Regrout every 6 months? Who's got time for that lol. It's hard enough for me to find time to apply grout sealant once a year

Acrylic shower base FTW lol.

faux tile shower walls ftw.

https://cbcgem.app/?amv=4009999&apn=...using%20Crisis

Nice little 10 min story on the history of the Vancouver Special. Didn't realize that it exploited a loophole (18" below ground so it counted the main floor as a basement) so that it could be built that big.

It's a shame we banned it as the replacement for it were some really ugly houses - the "Van Special" of the 90's and early 2000's are such horrible houses. We could really use a new template for duplexes, triplexes, and fourplexes that can be built on any standard lot.

Agree. I'm going through some building application myself, and it's just a tedious process. And I'm not even looking to do anything fancy... just the simplest housing I can build.

There should be a template from each municipality to follow. And as long as certain characteristics that we consider "crucial" are met, they'd expedite the process. It makes things so much easier.

:okay:

I dislike the Van Special layout of living room and bedrooms on the same floor, though I'll give it to you that it's efficient on space. With houses going for the prices they are now I doubt SFH will be built with that layout anymore, it's just not very desirable and people who are paying millions for a new/newer house would rather not deal with that.

This brings us back to the narrow duplex/row home setup, or even building 4 houses sxs on 3 plots of land.

I suspect the house is older and those wooden studs are harder wood, which is why they are darker (I don't think they're water damaged). I reno'd my 1988 van special last year and the entire house had a similar-looking wood.

I took down entire walls and drywall and I was planning to re-use the studs I took out, but the wood was way too hard. It was hard to cut/screw into and since the stuff i was doing wasn't structural I simply opted to buy new studs (softer) so it would be easier to work with.

One of the reasons why I think older houses are stronger than newer houses, the wood they used back in the day is a lot stronger.

I happen to live in what is basically a new build version of a Van Special in Burnaby (2400sf over 2 floors) and there's pros and cons with having it all on one floor. It's great not to have to walk up and down stairs all the time and my kid loves having such a big space to run around in. OTOH, you can hear more from the bedroom than you would in a 2 floor setup but that can be sorta fixed with solid doors and better insulation (my place mostly has that). I've found the pros outweigh the cons so far but I'm a Housing Sir Mix-A-Lot cause I like big floor plates and I cannot lie.

The zoning for my spot happened to force this particular design and I don't think it'd otherwise would have been built this way but it's very practical - I have my office, garage, and laundry room on the first floor along with what will be a 1 bedroom suite that I can either rent out or have my in-laws live in. Being a ground level unit I don't have to worry about my in-laws having to walk up stairs as they age - from an accessibility standpoint it's AWESOME.

Most zoning now wouldn't result in a Van Special being built since 3 stories with a sunken basement is the new norm but maybe the modern version is a 3 story version that doesn't have a sunken basement. Rent out the main floor and live on the top 2.

This pisses me off. 3rd party company installing water meters for every unit in an apartment building so they can can charge each tenant for the amount of water they use. the company makes money off service fee's. This is similar to gas stations charging for air.

https://thediscourse.ca/nanaimo/water-sub-metering

^ Dude this has been in Vancouver for years, half the buildings in Olympic Village have individual water and electricity monitoring to tell you if you home is "green" or not and the company charges a mandatory monthly fee through the strata for it... you can't opt out... Vancouver made it a bylaw. BTW there's no penalty for using more or using less, just an informational rating of your usage.

And guess who owns the company that monitors all these buildings? One of Gregor Robertson's best friends at the time :)

Gross.

Water utility isn't anything new

Does anyone think BOC is overly active and will cause a housing / economic crash. News is saying April might be a 0.5% rate hike.

I don't see how our gov/ economy can support such a high rate. Fixed rates are already above pre Corona rates.

Time to sweep up some cheap properties :accepted:

it's when there's 3rd party metering on things like electricity is where things get shady and shysty as hell.

I've always learned that BoC will prioritize high rates to protect inflation, over housing market. If it had to choose one.

Cause at 3.xx% Inflation YOY, we have to increase our income by 10% every 3 years to break-even.

There's probably more to the story, that they leave out, to trigger people online

When you own an 8, 20, 200 unit apartment building, and your utilities are 40,000$ a year, it makes sense to install xx amount of water meters, and bill the tenants.

Same applies for gas, electricity, etc.

That 40,000$ in annual income skyrockets the property value due to cap rates, and increases COC returns.

If it's an existing lease, and they modify it, then yes, it's bullshit.
If they are on month to month, then anything goes as long as the lease is re written

thats also why on rental buildings you see those huge arrays of cell antennas, you rent, dont like those radio waves? move out lol

Inflation stats say otherwise. Already seeing some slow down for condo market as that's the most sensitive to rate increases. SFH still going like hotcakes.

0.5% hike is aggressive, but at 5.8% yoy inflation, not totally unexpected.

The problem is the service fee. This company is creating extra work just so they can get paid. The landlord should just include it in the rent and charge enough rent. That way you can skip the service fee, the installation costs, and the on going maintenance.

These people also can't just move out because there is nothing available.

I take articles like this with a grain of salt, there's clearly some bias and omitted details.

It's obviously illegal for a landlord to change the material terms of a tenancy agreement on a whim, so if the details of water metering system wasn't provisioned for in that agreement then he can simply not agree to pay and they can't anything about it. Since that's not what happened, it sounds to me like his agreement did have some details surrounding this system and the tenants just didn't understand it.

I can understand how renters who have never paid a municipal water bill in their life would not know how the billing actually works.
Evidenced by the dude in the article mentioning the sewer charges: “In October, we get a bill for $495. For water. Which includes some one-time charges for setup, and includes sewer,” he says, though Wyse has not installed sewer meters but rather assume the amount based on water consumption."

Yes, this is how it normally works with municipal billing. There is no such thing as a "sewer meter" so it's based off of a percentage of your fresh water use.

Metering is a good thing. Pay for what you use. If you're conscious of how much you use, then you have incentive to reduce your consumption. This reduces strain on our overall water infrastructure. It still boggles my mind that parts of the lower mainland still charge just a flat rate for water. (And I say this as someone who uses shit tons of water, like literally 200 metric tons of it in the summer months)

purchased a condo with 2 month rent back clause back. Previous owners are not paying 2nd month’s rent and want to extend even further (also trying to renegotiate rent amount lol). I want to evict, do I need a lawyer?

I have signed tenancy agreement as well as purchase&sale contract showing rent back clause. I also have text message confirmatopm and plenty of written evidence. I want to move into my new condo and not have the previous owners dwell. Do I need lawyers to evict? Or just go through RTB