Kart72
Legacy Member
Well let me start off by saying that what should have been a very exciting project turned out to be (and still is) a complete nightmare. I hope this post will help any one else from going through what I did.
I finally decided that it was time to build a garage on my property this spring after having waited and saved up for several years. In the interest of time, and the fact that I didn't have much of it I opted to have a local Montreal company build it for me....
Thankfully I had another company (B&B Foundations) do my slab and I am quite pleased with their professionalism and the quality of their work. Now back to Garages and Cabanons Fontaine... I had decided to go with a 18x26 garage with 9'6" walls and a 5/12 roof. I was limited to these dimensions by city bylaws. I chose to go with storage trusses so that I could store a few seasonal items up there when not in use. Unfortunately when the truck showed up it was loaded up with standard trusses. I had to point this out 3 times before the builder finally had a look and agreed that they were in fact the wrong trusses. So he says that they will get the walls up that day and bring the new trusses on Monday. The speed at which these guys slapped the wall sections together was enough to make your head spin (pre fab walls) Not a tape measure, chalk line or level to be seen. Just slapping them together and driving tap cons in to the slab to anchor them. one of the wall sections had been dropped and landed on the tongue of the trailer snapped the top plate clean in two and then just hammered it back and carried on... Here are a few pictures from day one of the build.
So after day one I've got a broken top plate and and 4 crooked walls which look like they were thrown onto the slab and screwed down where they landed.
Next day truck shows up and to my surprise the "new" trusses I was supposed to recieve are actually the standard trusses that they brought the day before, only now they have been modified for storage area. Now I am no Engineer but I am fairly certain you can't just modify trusses without some level of engineering. I bring this up to the builder and he assures me that they are fine and I will receive the engineering documentation for them. so they continue with the build working at a feverish pace with no attention to detail whatsoever.
Here is a photo of the modified truss. they cut the diagonals out and added as second 2x4 in the "storage area"
at the end of day 2 I went out to have a look at what they had done only to find that on many of the areas where the trusses meet the fascia boards had HUGE gaps, in some cases close to an inch!!! it seems that many of the trusses aren't in a straight line leaving huge gaps at one end or the other.
Also noticed that the headers above the door and window sit proud of the studs by over 1/2" in some cases. I told them that this is un acceptable and will make the drywall a nightmare. Their solution....... add some strips of plywood on top of the already proud header and use furring strips on all of the studs to match...
At this point I am so stressed out and fed up I just want this whole experience to be over. Next day they are just installing my Canexel Engineered wood siding and a few other odds and ends to finish up the job. How could they screw that up?
Well it turns out that they don't follow the very specific instructions which state that the Canexel starting strips must be used before the first line of boards goes on. What does Garages and Cabanons Fontaine do? They just drive a bunch of finishing nails through the side of the finished boards.
I had also specifically asked that they first install the trim on the front of the garage as it is most visible so I would like it to be done with full length boards only. What did Garages and Cabanons Fontaine do? They did the front of the garage last and used a bunch of cut boards resulting in more unsightly joints.
Now it should be noted that this construction was done in the first week of June and I am still waiting for engineering documents to confirm that these modified trusses meet the minimum code requirements for my area. This is obviously the issue I am most concerned with. As we all know here, Montreal receives quite a lot of snow, and I'm left with modified trusses of unknown strength on 24" centers and 15/32” (0.438” actual thickness) OSB sheathing. As someone who isn't an expert in construction I decided to put my faith in a company that does this every single day. I really hoped that they would have the customers best interest in mind and take pride in their work. Clearly that wasn't the case.
I finally decided that it was time to build a garage on my property this spring after having waited and saved up for several years. In the interest of time, and the fact that I didn't have much of it I opted to have a local Montreal company build it for me....
Thankfully I had another company (B&B Foundations) do my slab and I am quite pleased with their professionalism and the quality of their work. Now back to Garages and Cabanons Fontaine... I had decided to go with a 18x26 garage with 9'6" walls and a 5/12 roof. I was limited to these dimensions by city bylaws. I chose to go with storage trusses so that I could store a few seasonal items up there when not in use. Unfortunately when the truck showed up it was loaded up with standard trusses. I had to point this out 3 times before the builder finally had a look and agreed that they were in fact the wrong trusses. So he says that they will get the walls up that day and bring the new trusses on Monday. The speed at which these guys slapped the wall sections together was enough to make your head spin (pre fab walls) Not a tape measure, chalk line or level to be seen. Just slapping them together and driving tap cons in to the slab to anchor them. one of the wall sections had been dropped and landed on the tongue of the trailer snapped the top plate clean in two and then just hammered it back and carried on... Here are a few pictures from day one of the build.
So after day one I've got a broken top plate and and 4 crooked walls which look like they were thrown onto the slab and screwed down where they landed.
Next day truck shows up and to my surprise the "new" trusses I was supposed to recieve are actually the standard trusses that they brought the day before, only now they have been modified for storage area. Now I am no Engineer but I am fairly certain you can't just modify trusses without some level of engineering. I bring this up to the builder and he assures me that they are fine and I will receive the engineering documentation for them. so they continue with the build working at a feverish pace with no attention to detail whatsoever.
Here is a photo of the modified truss. they cut the diagonals out and added as second 2x4 in the "storage area"
at the end of day 2 I went out to have a look at what they had done only to find that on many of the areas where the trusses meet the fascia boards had HUGE gaps, in some cases close to an inch!!! it seems that many of the trusses aren't in a straight line leaving huge gaps at one end or the other.
Also noticed that the headers above the door and window sit proud of the studs by over 1/2" in some cases. I told them that this is un acceptable and will make the drywall a nightmare. Their solution....... add some strips of plywood on top of the already proud header and use furring strips on all of the studs to match...
At this point I am so stressed out and fed up I just want this whole experience to be over. Next day they are just installing my Canexel Engineered wood siding and a few other odds and ends to finish up the job. How could they screw that up?
Well it turns out that they don't follow the very specific instructions which state that the Canexel starting strips must be used before the first line of boards goes on. What does Garages and Cabanons Fontaine do? They just drive a bunch of finishing nails through the side of the finished boards.
I had also specifically asked that they first install the trim on the front of the garage as it is most visible so I would like it to be done with full length boards only. What did Garages and Cabanons Fontaine do? They did the front of the garage last and used a bunch of cut boards resulting in more unsightly joints.
Now it should be noted that this construction was done in the first week of June and I am still waiting for engineering documents to confirm that these modified trusses meet the minimum code requirements for my area. This is obviously the issue I am most concerned with. As we all know here, Montreal receives quite a lot of snow, and I'm left with modified trusses of unknown strength on 24" centers and 15/32” (0.438” actual thickness) OSB sheathing. As someone who isn't an expert in construction I decided to put my faith in a company that does this every single day. I really hoped that they would have the customers best interest in mind and take pride in their work. Clearly that wasn't the case.
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