Chatwin Engineering is pleased to announce the 10th Anniversary of its Building Science Division. The Division was created in 1998 by Brian Chatwin primarily to assist condominium owners on Vancouver Island at that time with the ever growing building envelope failure problem, known as “the leaky condo syndrome”.
In the 1970s, North America experienced a severe oil shortage due to the oil embargo placed upon the continent. The Canadian government developed strategies to become energy dependent. Part of the strategy was to develop housing stock that was much more energy efficient. Changes were made to the Building Code to accommodate this strategy.
Many multi-residential projects constructed during this period experienced building envelope failure, resulting in the leaky condo crisis in the coastal areas of British Columbia, where the temperate climate creates cool, damp winters compared to the rest of the country.
New strategies had to be developed to ensure that these steps to energy efficiency could be accommodated without creating building envelope related problems.
Chatwin Engineering assembled a team of engineers, technologists and scientists with experience in building science to provide services to their clients in the remediation and repair of buildings suffering from the effects of building envelope failure.
Most municipalities throughout coastal British Columbia have now adopted a program whereby Building Envelope Specialists are required on new multi-residential buildings to ensure that proper design techniques and reviews are provided. As well as providing engineering services for building envelope repairs and remediation, Chatwin Engineering now provides services for new building construction from their operations in Vancouver, Victoria and Nanaimo that service all areas of south western British Columbia. Work provided by companies like Chatwin Engineering has turned an industry that was once a crisis in British Columbia, to an industry that is now a dynamic powerhouse of our economy.
