First episode aired about 7:45am on CBC radio.. TV to be on tonight..
Here are two articles from the CBC site about their discussion:
Throw-away buildings:
The slow-motion failure of Toronto's glass condos
http://www.cbc.ca/toronto/features/condos/index.html
Over the past decade, Toronto's building boom has been dominated by tall glass condo towers.
They've transformed the look of city skylines all over the world – especially here in Toronto, where according to Emporis.comExternal Site we've built more towers per capita than any other city in North America. But it may be a trend that puts style over substance.
A small but growing chorus is sounding the alarm about the future of these buildings.
Building scientists have known for a long time that glass-walled structures are less energy efficient than the stone and concrete buildings that were put up forty of fifty years ago. But the market demand for glass combined with the relatively low cost of glass-wall construction means the building industry has been happy to oblige.
However, industry insiders warn that as energy costs climb, glass towers may become the "pariah" buildings of the future. In these stories, we explore the hidden costs of building with glass and
the slow-motion failure of window walls.
We also look at why the Ontario Building Code failed to make energy performance a priority.
Construction workers install a window wall on a new building. (Ted Kesik)
John Straube
John Straube
John Straube, a building science consultant and professor in the Department of Civil Engineering and School of Architecture at the University of Waterloo says glass condos are a "perfect reflection" of a society that's found it easier to throw things away than to build them to last.
"We have a hard time," says Straube, "thinking five years when we buy a laptop, ten years when we buy a car. With these buildings – both the skin and the mechanical systems are going to have to be redone in a 25-year time frame. The concrete structure will be there a long time but in 20, 25 years time, we are going to see a lot of scaffolding on the outside of the buildings as we replace the glazing, sealants and the glass itself."
Although falling glass from the condo balconies has attracted most of the public attention during the summer of 2011, building scientists warn that the long-term failure of the glass structures – although less sensational – is much more serious.
More: how thermal window failure happens
Window-wall systems
Most of them are built using window-wall systems which have next to no insulation value, except for a half inch of heavy gas between the two panels of glass.
As John Straube points out, what glass does really well is conduct heat. "A little experiment anyone can do at home is get a glass for drinking. Pour boiling water into it, and try and pick it up. You'll burn yourself."
Straube, along with building science colleagues like Ted Kesik at the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture at the University of Toronto, warns that as energy costs climb, the costs of heating and cooling glass towers will increase the monthly fees.
Kesik wrote a paper called The Glass Condo Conundrum (250KB .pdf) on the potential liabilities of glass towers.
The Glass Condo Conundrum
It's not just the energy costs. Glass structures require major maintenance much earlier in their life cycle than a traditional structure made of precast or brick.
A longer-lasting and more energy-efficient solution: masonry block behind a brick facade. Punched windows are used instead of windows from floor to ceiling. (Ted Kesik)
Straube warns maintenance costs will skyrocket in 20 to 25 years' time as the buildings age. The windows will begin to fog up, and the cost of replacing entire walls of glass will be prohibitive on highrise structures that can only be accessed from swing stages.
Building scientists talk about the life cycle of a building, akin to a human life cycle, language that encourages people like Straube to see a building as an organism. "It has lungs," says Straube, "it has veins, all of that stuff – it has a structural skeleton."
To Straube, a building is a living, breathing thing, enclosing the people who live inside. Building with glass walls is to miss the main point of a building, says Straube – sacrificing the protection that is a building's first duty for a beauty that is only skin-deep.
"It's almost derogatory in my world," says Straube, "to forget about everything else that's part of experiencing a building. I like to think what is this building going to be like on a dark and stormy night. In our climate particularly, we care about that. It's life and death."
Toronto's glass condos face short lifespan, experts say
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/story/2011/11/13/tor-glass-walled-condos.html
Many of the glass condominium towers filling up the Toronto skyline will fail 15 to 25 years after they’re built, perhaps even earlier, and will need retrofits costing millions of dollars, say some industry experts.
Buyers drawn to glass-walled condos because of the price and spectacular views may soon find themselves grappling with nightmarish problems, including:
Insulation failures.
Water leaks.
Skyrocketing energy and maintenance costs.
Declining resale potential.
One developer calls glass-walled condos “throw-away buildings†because of their short lifespan relative to buildings with walls made of concrete or brick.
CBC Toronto investigates condos
John Lancaster begins a three-part series Monday at 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. on CBC News Toronto about the city's glass-walled condos — their short-term durability and their long-term costs.
“We believe that somewhere between, say, five and 15 [years], many, many of those units will fail,†said David House of Earth Development. He spoke to CBC as part of a special three-part series on the issue that starts Monday at 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. on CBC News Toronto.
No other city in North America is building as many condo towers as Toronto, where they have reshaped the skyline, overshadowed once-prominent buildings such as the Rogers Centre and, in many areas, blocked Lake Ontario from view. Right now 130 new towers are under construction.
Not energy-efficient
Glass walls have been popular among developers and consumers alike because they’re cheaper than more traditional materials and make a good first impression. But they aren’t energy-efficient and come with a hidden price that could soar down the road, engineers say.
Floor-to-ceiling glass walls heat up and swell in the summer, freeze and contract in winter, and shift with the wind, engineers say. The insulating argon gas between the panes escapes, the seals are breached and the windows are rendered useless against the city’s weather.
David House of Earth Development calls glass-walled condo towers throw-away buildings.David House of Earth Development calls glass-walled condo towers throw-away buildings. (CBC)
Eventually, the glass walls — the skin of these condo high rises — might have to be replaced entirely, with condo owners picking up their share of the multimillion-dollar costs.
“Now is about when we should start seeing trouble with 1990s buildings, with the glass starting to get fogged up, the rubber gaskets and sealants starting to fail,†said John Straube, a building science engineer at the University of Waterloo.
Condo owners file suit
Complaints and lawsuits have already begun.
Condo owners in a tower off Front Street are suing the developer, Concord, claiming the window-wall system in the nine-year-old building near the Rogers Centre has defects and water is seeping through.
Toronto is also seeing the high cost of retrofitting a highrise. At First Canadian Place, a retrofit will take three years and $130 million to complete.
Straube said many condo owners have no idea about the expenses they’re in for and don’t ask the right questions.
“Do you want a building that is going to appreciate over the long term? Do you want a building that will be comfortable and energy-efficient? If so, you need to ask tougher questions of the marketplace.â€
Windows tempt buyers
The glass walls that undermine a condo’s durability and energy efficiency are a key part of the attraction when potential buyers first step into those sunlit spaces overlooking the city.
“To walk in and see trees, and just to see the city — it’s a wonderful thing,†said Kamela Hurlbut during a recent tour of a condo with her husband, Jason.
"We don’t have energy-efficiency ratings on condominiums and that’s too bad, because we get them on dishwashers, refrigerators, and they only cost a few hundred dollars.†— Ted Kesik, University of Toronto
For first-time buyers like the Hurlbuts, who eventually hope to own a detached house, a condo also seems the only affordable home-ownership option. Their estate agent, Linda Pinizzotto, emphasizes long-term costs as she tries to warn the couple away from glass walls.
“As time goes on, what they have to be concerned about are maintenance fees,†Pinizzotto said. “There’s certainly a lot more care and requirements in the building if they have floor-to-ceiling windows.â€
Glass-walled condos meet the requirements of the Toronto building code, although the code does not specify how long a building should last. Energy-efficiency is also a fuzzy area, since condos aren’t rated that way.
"We don’t have energy-efficiency ratings on condominiums and that’s too bad, because we get them on dishwashers, refrigerators, and they only cost a few hundred dollars,†said Ted Kesik, a professor of building science at the John H. Daniels faculty of architecture, landscape and design at the University of Toronto.
Janice Pynn, president of the Canadian Condo Institute, isn’t sure energy efficiency is a big factor for condo buyers initially — even for buyers who care about not wasting energy.
“People talk that they want it, but when it comes down to what it's going to cost them, it doesn't even come into the equation,†says Pynn, whose Simerra Property Management company manages 250 condos across the GTA.
“It really is ‘Can I afford to buy this?’ not 'What am I willing to pay to have agreen building, or a building in the long term, that will be far more economical, and cost-saving and for the environment?' They're just not asking those questions.â€
