I wasn’t going to post this. However, I took another walk by your place the other day. I noticed that your builder was quite sloppy with the sill flashing on the first floor front big windows. It’s ripped, torn, doesn’t actually extend all the way across the top of the sill opening, etc. There also other areas where the housewrap and sill material wasn’t installed properly and it will be impossible to fix now. Also on the windows, it looks like there might be some type of flashing (beige in colour) but I am not sure what it is or is it actually part of the window frame. (What is it?) If it is flashing, does it extend from the outside to the inside so that you can tuck tape the housewrap to it on the outside and the vapour barrier to it on the inside? (If not there’s nothing you can do now). In any event, the corners don’t seem to be done properly at all as they is no flashing at those points on the outside at the 90 degree corners. An additional piece of flashing should have been placed on thise corners so the flashing is continuous across the outside plane. People variously use Blueskin, housewrap, ice & water shield and other custom materials to do this. I favour Blueskin myself and it’s only a few hundred dollars to flash an entire house for materials.

I know I’ve harped on this before, but it’s really sad that you are probably paying well over a half-million dollars (probably $750K or more I bet) to build your dream home which you plan to live in for a while, have invested all this time and effort in research and monitoring your builder, yet no one is making sure that you have a good tie-in of the vapour barrier to the openings on the inside, well-waterproofed window and door openings and a good tie-in of the typar with the openings on the outside.

You can spend all the money you want on energy efficiency and green products but almost 1/2 of your energy savings will come from the proper sealing of the vapour barrier on the inside at wall protrusions, window/door openings, electrical boxes and the like. The other 1/2 will come from the amount of and proper installation of the insulation. Proper windor and door opening waterproofing and housewrap tie-in is what is going to avoid water infiltration and mold. Because, eventually, all wall fascia will allow water in whether they are brick, stone, wood siding or whatever (and whether the windows are caulked and spray foamed or not – this is why the CMHC and CSA, etc. put out publications on how to flash windows properly). You just don’t want that water to be able to enter your structure after it gets past the wall or into the window/door opening and that’s what proper housewrap and flashing and sealing techniques are all about. I can’t stress these points enough.

Ok, I’ve said it. Good luck.