I walked into a condo riser replacement that was right on schedule — except 60 suites had open holes in their walls, and nobody had priced closing them
A property manager called me this summer in the middle of a riser replacement. The plumbing was going well. The problem was what the plumbers left behind: square holes in the bathroom and kitchen walls of every suite in the stacks they had finished, and a contract that said, in one line, “drywall restoration by others.” There was no other. Owners were calling the office every day. This post covers how to plan the drywall side of a riser project so the walls close on time and look like nothing happened. For condo boards and property managers, not homeowners.
1. Name who closes the walls before the first wall is opened
Most riser contracts I read are written by plumbing engineers about pipes. That is the right focus, but it means the walls are often an afterthought: a line that excludes restoration, or one that says “patch to match” with no detail about what match means. The plumber opens walls on day one, and the gap in the contract shows up on day two.
There are two ways to cover it. Have the plumbing contractor carry the drywall and painting with a named subcontractor, or tender it separately to a drywall and painting contractor who follows the plumbers stack by stack. Either works. What does not work is figuring it out once the holes are already there.
What to look at: Search your riser contract and spec for the words “restoration,” “drywall” and “by others.” If it is not clear who closes the walls, settle it before the next stack opens.
2. How the holes are cut decides how well they close
A clean, square opening that ends at the middle of a stud on each side can be closed with a new piece of drywall screwed to solid framing. A ragged hole knocked through with a hammer, or one that ends between studs, needs backing added before it can be closed. Every one of those takes longer, and is more likely to show later.
I ask for the openings to be laid out with the drywall crew before the plumbers start: the same sizes in the same places in every suite of a stack, cut square, ideally to stud lines. It costs the plumber a few extra minutes per suite and saves a lot more than that at the patching stage.
What to look at: Walk the first opened suite with both contractors. If the openings are ragged, or every suite is different, stop and agree on a layout before the next floor.
3. Some of those walls are fire separations
This is the one that gets missed. In many mid- and high-rise condos, the wall around a plumbing shaft, and the wall between two suites, is a fire separation. It was built with a specific type and number of layers of fire-rated drywall, and the gaps around the pipes were sealed with a firestop product. A patch done with one layer of regular board and some caulking does not put that back.
The fix is not complicated, but it has to be deliberate: the same rated board, the same number of layers, the joints taped like the original, and the pipe penetrations sealed with a listed firestop system by someone qualified to do it. Your building’s original drawings, or your engineer, can tell you which walls are rated.
What to look at: Ask your engineer to mark which opened walls are fire separations, and make sure the scope says how those walls will be rebuilt and who will seal the pipe penetrations.
4. Every suite is a different paint job
Closing the hole is the drywall part. Making it disappear is the painting part, and in a riser project you are painting inside 60 different homes. One owner has the builder’s white. The next has a dark accent wall from last year and no leftover paint. And patches that are taped and painted but not primed will show through the new paint under a bathroom light.
What I put in the scope: spot-prime every patch, then paint the full wall, corner to corner, not just the patch, so there is no edge to see. Owners are asked for their colour and any leftover paint before their wall is opened. Where there is none, the colour gets matched from a sample, and the owner knows that before work starts.
What to look at: Add a short colour question to the notice owners get before their suite opens: colour name, sheen, and whether they have leftover paint.
5. Tell owners how many visits it really takes
A drywall patch is not one visit. Board in, a first coat of compound, a second, sometimes a third, sanding, primer, paint. Each coat needs time to dry, so a suite usually sees the drywall crew three or four times over about a week. Owners who were told “a day” start calling on day two.
The property manager I worked with fixed most of the complaints with one page: the sequence, the number of visits, the approximate dates for each stack, and a phone number. Running the drywall crew one stack behind the plumbers kept the walls open for about a week in each suite instead of a month.
What to look at: Before the next stack opens, send owners a one-page schedule that shows the drywall and painting visits, not just the plumbing dates.
What to do if you’re seeing any of this
If your building has a riser project coming up, or one underway with walls still open, a walk through a few finished suites and a read of the scope usually shows where the gaps are. I work with condominium corporations and property managers across Ottawa — Kanata, Nepean, Barrhaven, Orleans, Stittsville and Westboro — to close and repaint suite walls stack by stack behind the plumbing contractor, with the work written into a clear scope of work from the start. Call 613.325.3011 or email yasir@heims.ca.
— Yasir, HEIMS Construction
HEIMS Construction is an Ottawa-based commercial painting and drywall contractor serving condominium corporations, property managers and institutional clients across the Ottawa area. Fully licensed and insured, with $5M commercial general liability coverage.