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M5V - a condo nicely located in the heart of the entertainment district.
Developers: TAS DesignBuild, Lifetime development (Bisha buyers beware~!)
Builders: Tucker HiRise
Architects: Teeple Architects, Core Architects
For the full low down on the building, see:
We were really excited when we bought our unit; LEED certified show room, well known Toronto architect firms (I'm a mechanical building designer btw), reputable developer(s), heck, even an nice article of it in the Toronto Star (no longer available but part of it can be found
here).
Despite the occupancy date being pushed back twice (which happens, so be patient), the building went up quickly. As we'll see, maybe a tad too quickly.
FELLOW M5V'ers! We want to hear your story and see your pictures too! Write to me!
Remember - clicking on pictures will load up a high resolution version! We uploaded original resolution for your viewing pleasure.
Exposed ceilings = Nice. Poor rebar and concrete work, not so nice
Cracks, all along where my walls and ceiling slab meet. Maybe I'm a bit picky. Oh and my grill doesn't sit straight. Common, they could have done that right at least.
You need to zoom in to see this one. But its where the frame to my so called "2nd bedroom" and the kitchen wall meet up. Cracks. Not to mention, they didn't seal up the crack between counter and the wall very well. Any water that gets to that area is already deteriorating the wall and the poor seal they made. At this rate I'm going have to seal the whole thing over again.
This is the frame of the same window above. We feel like if we push against that window frame its just going to fall out.
Here is a perfect example of the contractors being really cheap. The brushed metal back splash doesn't go all the way down to the counter! And what happens when you get a little spill ? Well, look below.
Damage. That's what happens. Thanks Lifetime / Tucker. You guys did a bang up job >_<.
Also, notice the cracking and the holes that they left! What are we supposed to do, fill them in myself? Talk about poor paint job too. A little bit of moisture and its pealing and dissolving. Not sure its paint, but I'm not a paint expert.
Here's another 'settling' effect. Pfftt... more like poor construction effect.
Like, look at the walls! The bottom baseboard and the heat pump shell just looks like crap. It will continue to crack and look like crap with age.
Zoomed in.
Now, this place is supposed to be a high end condo as far as we can tell. But how can you call this high end when the heat pump isn't even integrated with the wall properly? The wall was cut rough, never sanded or touched up, and the baffle sits away from the wall! See for yourself how poor the job was done. I'm going to take a picture with the baffle off to show you all what it looks like in a future post.
Bisha buyers beware! They will try and screw you with glam and shinny walls and trinkets, but don't be fooled, they will get you with the other details. We mean, our friends condo (The 500, on Sherbourne St) has nicely integrated heat pump system which doesn't look like a 10 year old cut it and slapped a baffle on. The saving grace of the entire HVAC system is that it was designed around a hybrid heat pump system, which doesn't use a compressor to provide heating (it acts as a fan coil). It's something all condo's should be using, and I know, because I've designed plenty of systems using hybrids HP's.
Again, cracks on between slab and wall. Misaligned grille.
Poor glazing installations which are messy and crooked. Oh yeah, nice paint job by the way guys. Ever think of using painters tape? Oh right.... costs too much. Easier to just wing it.
This is one of our favorite things that they screwed you on. The kitchen island. Instead of providing a kitchen island which stood on its own 6/8 legs, they conceal it, which is a nice touch if you like that look. We don't mind it, but what we don't like is the hack of a job they did underneath the thing. See for yourselves.
They basically swept the construction dirt under our island! We can't wait to see what is under our kitchen counter.
Now here is a set of images which simply show the piss poor joining they did all over the place. Actually, piss poor is too nice of a word. Work that I've done with my fellow colleges on houses for Habitat for Humanity looks better than this crap. And we worked for free. Yes people, unskilled, but highly motivated and intelligent people who are donating their time can put together a house better than your average decently paid tradesman can.
This is one of the worse ones.
Sorry, no this is the worst one. This is to the entrance to our walk in closet. The floor wasn't even cut right... it was hacked together. So was the baseboard, the painting, the joints. There's like 20 kinds of wrong here. WHO BUILT THIS? A BLIND MAN? Oh sorry, actually, that's just mean to blind people, they could probably do a better job.
Poor window and joint construction. The framing looks cracked freaking sake. Look at the picture below, they just tacked on drywall or plaster to cover the corner up. And it looks like crap.
Poor painting and baseboard lining skills.
I've done better grouting jobs than this.
These photos will absolutely shock you. Just because the contractor thinks you'll never look under your sink, doesn't give them the right to do really shoddy work. See for yourselves everyone.
WE CLEAN UNDER OUR SINKS. WE SEE THE POOR CONSTRUCTION ALL THE FREAKING TIME! LEARN TO BUILD PROPERLY!
Awesome painting skills. Thanks for marking up our cabinets. I swear, they probably came in here with a paint gun and just blasted this place as quick as they could.
Where our sliding door and wall meet up. Sigh.. I'm getting tired of saying how crappy this construction is.. but there it is, look how crappy it is.
See the two picture above. It's the balcony sliding door and wall. Thanks for the great install guys. Can't wait for that nice infiltration to come in through the cracks. Heating wasn't expensive enough, so we need some way get some cold air in to seem through. Looks like you guys already provided for me though!
This is the wooden slat and the sliding door. Couldn't even get that joint right. Heck, they couldn't even hide it right! If you want to do a piss poor job, at least make the effort to hide the mistakes people!
What the ffffff... can't even get an outlet right. The cover goes on after you paint.
Wall and counter. They don't like each other. Nice crack. Seriously.... the more we look around the place.. the more we start to wonder if we over paid for it. All potential buyers... scour your potential homes before buying. Or just don't buy Lifetime Development / Tucker HiRise built condo's. Cause this is what you'll get.
This is a fine example of how not to install the warn edge spacers. They look slapped on. Foam around the edges leaked right through! Why must we go around scraping the excess foam off? Didn't we pay $400k for our unit? Didn't we take on a huge amount of debt and use up our savings??? Doesn't decent workmanship come with the price?
The saga continues. Here's the outside walls just outside of our unit. Walls don't line up, check. Baseboard cracked up, check. Paint looks like crap, check. Wall paper all funny, check. Carpet not cut properly, check. Did we miss anything else? Are the contractors going for some kind of record or something?
Oh oh, even freakin better. The joint between our neighbor's door (potential neighbor) and our door looks like they threw some plaster between the door door frames and topped it all off with some spray foam or something. WTF.
Apparently, M5V is a LEED building. Oh wait... quick check on the CAGBC website (Canadian Green Building Counsel - the people who award you a LEED certification), apparently says M5V hasn't been awarded a certification yet. Keep your eyes out people. List of projects that are certified or are under review -->
Here <--
As a fellow resident... and knowing that the building as been closed (at least our closing is done), what the hell is this? Why is it, that one of the first things I see when going out or coming home is a giant hole in the wall and a steal panel? Seriously, it's been here for like 2 months.
Other things to note.... the elevator lobby, smells like trash. Why? Cause its not ventilated properly. It needs to fight constantly with the smell of fresh coffee grinds from Starbucks, which I like actually, but that's only if the smell of grinds win. When it looses... god it smells.
Oh, speaking of garbage, the garbage chute likes to go out of service.... alot. I haven't quite figured out the pattern, but it seems that the closer it is to friday, the more likely the chute is to be down.
Sigh. This is just the beginning Lifetime / Tucker HiRise. I got more pictures and comments coming in. The people will know what they're buying into either here or at your other developments. We will not let your poor attention to quality and poor construction practices ruin our homes and steal our hard earned money.
Stay tuned readers! I'm only getting started.
Oh, and if you have a condo that's in as poor 'new' condition as mine, by all means... send it over with your comments... We'll be sure to make remarks based on what we see too!
