Country home for Canadian PMs needs repairs – again
After a $5.7 million renovation, the mansion for the Prime Ministers of Canada on Harrington Lake should have been in great shape.
Then came the drip, drip, drip of leaking water.
Now the stately home is in need of more major repairs – and soon.
By 2021, the house north of Ottawa had undergone a major renovation – $5.7 million to replace much of the exterior “envelope” (new doors, windows, trim, masonry) along with a new kitchen and laundry room. Plus another million for security.
However, planners from the National Capital Commission, which oversees official residences such as 24 Sussex Drive and Rideau Hall, left part of the exterior untouched.
They have not replaced the cedar roof. They had advice that the shingles would be good until 2025, given by experts at SNC-Lavalin.
Now the roof has given way and needs to be replaced, preferably before winter. The NCC said in an email that “the roof replacement project is currently in the planning stages. Schedule and costs have yet to be defined.
The leaks started in earnest two winters ago, a few months after the renovation was completed. The problem, called ice dams, is common around Ottawa. It starts when poor insulation at Harrington Lake allows heat to escape through the roof in winter; this melts a little snow on the roof, and the water drips down and freezes at the eaves.
The ice accumulates at the eaves and forms a dam many centimeters thick. More water trickles down, but the ice dam forces it back, under the shingles and down into the ceilings and walls of rooms below, where it damages the plaster or drywall.
In the winter of 2021-2022, leaks were everywhere in the 98-year-old house. The National Capital Commission has looked at possible ways to stop the leaks, such as using heating cables on the roof to melt the ice.
But in February of this year, with leaks too many to even count and spaces appearing between shingles, they threw in the towel and called for a new roof.
An NCC report found “significant ice damming on the roof over the past two winters, causing water to build up under the shingles and seep into the building.
“The shingles have been damaged by the freeze-thaw cycles and ice, causing holes and water leakage in multiple areas. Temporary repairs to extend the life of existing cedar shingles are not a viable solution; the many leaks are difficult to locate, isolate and repair. It is not clear whether the ongoing water leakage has caused damage to the wooden roof terrace, this will become apparent once the existing shingles have been removed and the roof terrace is exposed.”
Any new roof is expected to be steel, with a life expectancy of 50 years or more.
“With a roof made of 1,000 small pieces of wood, it’s hard to know exactly when one might leak,” said Ottawa architect Toon Dreessen. “Some of that is unpredictable and reasonable.”
But he said it would have been more efficient to replace the aging roof as part of the building’s original major overhaul.
“You have all the extra costs of doing the design, the tender, the build… All those base costs are applied back.” He compared it to a city that re-paves a street one year, but does not have the sidewalk repaired until later, causing inconvenience to residents twice over.
“Just do it right, do it right, do it once.”
The roof problems are emblematic of the ongoing repair costs of Canada’s six official residences in and near Ottawa. Harrington Lake had the largest recent makeover of the six, but the state is still rated “fair” by the NCC because the $5.7 million wasn’t enough to address aging wiring and accessibility. The six residences — 24 Sussex Drive, Stornoway and more — together need $175 million in repairs, according to federal estimates.
Federal heritage experts write that Harrington Lake was once a model of rustic country charm, but after a 1950 makeover, “it now creates an impression of 1950s suburban development rather than 1920s rusticity.”
The house is off limits to the public, but Parks Canada says “it has been and will remain a striking symbol of the Prime Minister’s Office.”
