Canada has become a leader in quality home construction by maintaining high standards through its tough building codes. Award-winning builder Mountainview Homes prides itself on exceeding those standards by building high-quality, much-sought after homes in the Thorold area. It all starts with a strong foundation.
“Our purchasers want their houses to be built on a strong foundation so we put a lot of effort there,” explained Mike Memme, engineer for Mountainview Homes. “We start by using stronger concrete than the building code requires.”
On top of that, the builder puts steel reinforcing on the top of the foundation to help prevent leaks. “As soon as someone sees a leak in their basement they think they’ve purchased a bad investment, but all concrete cracks,” Memme said. “By adding reinforcing steel rods we can minimize those cracks to help prevent leaks.”
Mountainview Homes goes still another step further to prevent leaks by using a double drainage layer, effectively stopping 95 per cent of the leaks. For that extra five per cent, an extra layer of protection is added inside to make sure there is no water getting into the foundation.
The next area is the roof. To make sure it doesn’t leak the builder uses 30-year roof shingles as opposed to the 20-25 year roof shingles that are popular among other builders. “These roof shingles really stick well so there’s no chance of blow off.”
Then hurricane roof vents are installed to prevent water from entering the attic. “Purchasers probably never think of this but we’ve had situations where little piles of snow end up in attics because the wind has blown it through the roof vents. Although we’re not in a hurricane environment, these roof vents prevent any precipitation from getting in.”
The main source of water penetration is due to sump pump failure. Mountainview Homes has made that almost failure-proof by being the first builder in North America to use a high-end sump pump. “Most new homes today have sump pumps in the basement,” Memme said. “And it’s a pump that relies on a motor and all motors fail eventually. Our sump pump has a built-in alarm so that if it does fail you have 12 to 24 hours to get it fixed before any water damage occurs.”
To get more information visit
www.mountainview.com.
