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From
globeandmail.com, Toronto, Canada Tuesday, January 21, 2003.
The Globe
and Mail is Canada's largest daily newspaper
Mould worries real
estate sector
Industry facing more claims
over damage related to sometimes-deadly spores
ALBERT WARSON, Special to
The Globe and Mail.
Invisible mould spores
drifting freely in and out of commercial buildings, public institutions and
homes are the latest problem to strike the real estate industry.
They have been responsible
for billions of dollars in property damage and lawsuits in the
United States
and cases in Canada are becoming more common. The spores can make people
sick and even kill vulnerable patients in hospitals. And they can lurk
anywhere, unlike that other costly menace, asbestos, which is visible and
contained within specific building materials.
In the United States, the
number of mould claims has exploded in recent years. One major insurer in
Texas
reported 12 claims involving mould issues in 1999, 499 the following year
and 10,000 in 2001.
In Canada, hospitals,
school boards, provincial governments, contractors, developers and building
managers are gearing up to combat mould.
Mould, as primordial as its
fungi family, thrives in either wet, humid places or dusty environments.
Toxic mould, as the most dangerous strains are called, can establish
"colonies" within 24 hours. Mould grows rapidly, like its mushroom cousins,
but unlike mushrooms, the spores or seeds that perpetuate the species can be
dispersed throughout almost any building -- including hospitals.
In July, 2001, Health
Canada
issued procedural standards intended to prevent the spread of
construction-related infections in health care facilities. It also
identified 242 cases of infections -- which claimed dozens of patients'
lives -- related to construction or renovations inside or adjacent to
Canadian and U.S. hospitals between 1978 and 1998.
Hospitals are the worst
place for mould to grow, says Bruce Stewart, senior vice-president of
Pinchin Environmental Ltd., a consulting firm based in Mississauga. That's
because patients with immune systems compromised by medication and treatment
might inhale mould spores disturbed by construction and develop
life-threatening or fatal fungal infections.
"Buildings accumulate
ambient dust on ceiling tiles, inside air ducts and wall cavities," he says.
"Dust particles blown in and out of buildings always include mould spores."
Mr. Stewart can verify that
mould awareness is growing. Pinchin now takes on about 500 mould-related
testing and cleanup jobs a year involving all types of buildings in
Ontario
and Manitoba. Three years ago it handled only 100 cases. The figures don't
include similar work by affiliated companies in the other provinces.
Glenn Gibson, chief
executive officer of Crawford Adjusters Canada, the Mississauga-based
subsidiary of a U.S. insurance services company, says he was "shocked" last
year to learn the extent of mould litigation in Canada. While speaking to
120 commercial and residential claims and property managers in Toronto about
toxic mould claims, he asked how many audience members had a claim in
progress. About three-quarters of them raised their hands.
Last May, a committee of the
Insurance Bureau of Canada, a national insurance industry trade association,
recommended that insurers tighten up wording in their policies concerning
mould-related damage or injury. It noted that skyrocketing claims in the
United States, mainly involving water and flood damages to residences could
spill into Canada.
"The insurance industry does not want to provide coverage for maintenance
type issues, like continuous leakage," says Dave Way, co-ordinator of the
IBC's standards and practices committee. "Damage has to be sudden and
accidental, like a sewer backup."
Meanwhile, the Ottawa-based
Canadian Construction Association is expecting a report this spring from a
task force it set up to study the liability implications of mould for
contractors. Jeff Morrison, the CCA's director of communications, says the
task force will also create guidelines on how to minimize mould in new
construction and clean away old mould during renovations.
All this attention has been
stirred up by media coverage over the past few years of throat and eye
irritations, stomach disorders, headaches, occupational asthma and other
respiratory ailments allegedly caused by poor indoor air quality or "sick
building syndrome."
Since 1995, the
Ontario, Saskatchewan,
Manitoba and British Columbia governments have developed guidelines for the
detection and elimination of potentially hazardous mould. Elimination could
mean anything from drying out and cleaning contaminated areas to replacing
walls, ceilings and leaking roofs, to gutting an interior to demolition.
School portables are
especially troublesome, Mr. Stewart says, because they aren't efficiently
ventilated or drained, are usually situated on damp soil and have structural
divisions with openings that support mould "colonies." Those colonies can
feed on just about any material except hard surfaces, such as steel and
glass.
In 1999, a couple launched
a $20-million lawsuit against the Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School
Board in Ontario on behalf of their daughter, alleging health problems
resulting from mould in a relocatable classroom module. It fizzled in court,
but the high-profile uproar persuaded the provincial government to cover the
cost of building environmentally safe schools to replace the portables,
school board spokesperson Bruce Campbell said.
Getting rid of mould is
costly -- the Ontario government spent $40-million to clean up school
buildings in 2000 and $19-million during 2001-02 to rip apart most of a
Newmarket courthouse.
Ontario Realty Corp., which
manages the province's real estate assets, increased spending from $71-
million on mould-related repairs and maintenance at government buildings to
an estimated $91.8-million over a three-year period ending March 31, 2003,
said Karen Raz, an ORC spokeswoman. ORC has tackled mould problems in police
stations, courthouses, jails and government office buildings across the
province since 2000.
Mould lurking in office
towers is most likely to be found in class B and C buildings, rather than in
class A buildings, where maintenance programs --monitoring air quality and
routine inspections for hidden mould growth -- tend to be more thorough,
says Francois Depelteau, president and CEO of Montreal-based Alize Building
Technologies. Alize manages technical operations and maintenance for 230
commercial properties in Quebec encompassing 25 million square feet.
"Preventive maintenance and interior air quality monitoring in line with
industry standards and inspections of areas where moisture can accumulate
are necessary to stop mould proliferation and other types of contamination,"
he says.
Ian Stewart,
Toronto chapter president of the Building Owners and Managers
Association, recalls only five cases in that city where mould was removed
from high-rise office towers.
Association members, who own
and manage buildings, recognize that buildings should be designed to provide
adequate dehumidification, cooling, heating and ventilation, and they make
sure those are constantly maintained, he says. |
