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FEBRUA RY 2016 | 19 PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY DRYVIT SYSTEMS CANADA LTD. Restoration Products & Services Cladding systems are another class of product with restoration projects increasingly targeted by compa- nies. "We're doing a lot of over-cladding of existing high rises that are presently clad with old brick, often with little or no insulation," says Nick Petrakis, sales and marketing manager at Durabond Products Limited. The company has been using its Durex Quantum Select EIFS system for many of these projects. "With this type of system, you don't have to do anything to the interior unless you have to replace the windows. The new exterior insulates and provides the necessary R-value, stops air and water leakages, prolongs the life of the building and makes it look much better. It may increase the resale value or rental rate, so the return on investment can be quite high," Petrakis says. Quantum Select EIFS are ULC rated as non-combus- tible and have a code-compliant 10-millimetre geomet- rically-designed drainage cavity. Petrakis says that in the Toronto area, 30 to 40 per cent of the Quantum Select that Durabond sells is for re-cladding projects. Plenty of residential tower restoration work with EIFS retrofits could lie ahead in some parts of Canada. More Canadians than Americans live in high-rises, according to a book published in 2009 called Tower Renewal Guideline by Ted Kesik and Ivan Saleff. "In the Greater Toronto Area and Hamilton (GTAH), over 1,000 towers were built between 1960 and 1980 that are now in need of a retrofit. The book outlines many retrofit strategies, with over-cladding identified as one of the most effective," says Amanda Sinnige, man- ager of technical services at Dryvit Systems Canada. The company's Outsulation Plus EIFS recently helped restore a 40-year-old residential apartment complex with a concrete block exterior in Guelph. Prior to the re-cladding of the Talisman, "Decades of moisture had begun to undermine the load-bearing, split-rib masonry in localized areas and the steel lintels above windows and doors were corroding," according to a Dryvit case study of the project. The architect selected an EIFS partly because a cladding that was continuous and capable of mould- ing over and around the building's extra forms was required. That EIFS could provide flexibility in colour and detailing was another reason. Several benefits resulted from the makeover. Besides achieving a watertight building with a more attractive appear- ance, the property management company for the com- plex reported that the heating consumption had been reduced by 20 per cent in part because of the addi- tion of the retrofit assembly with Dryvit's Outsulation Plus cladding. Talisman residential apartment complex over-cladding restoration project.

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