Be careful out there...

Sunday...

Need I say more?

GREAT NEWS!!!

For immediate release.

Home Renovation Tax Credit - Win for Green Industry
In the weeks leading up to the announcement of the 2009 Federal Budget, The Honourable Jim Flaherty, Minister of Finance requested industry consultation. The Canadian Nursery Landscape Association (CNLA) responded in a major way by providing Minister Flaherty with an action plan to stimulate the Canadian economy by investing in green infrastructure. Michael Murray, CNLA President, was very pleased that Minister Flaherty took the recommendation seriously. “This is a great development for Canadian home owners and our industry. We hope this is just the beginning and look forward to this government’s support in the future”, said Mr. Murray.

Canadian homeowners are now eligible for the Home Renovation Tax Credit outlined in the Harper Government’s recent Federal Budget for 2009. Families will be eligible to claim a 15% non-refundable tax credit for eligible expenses made in respect of eligible dwellings. The credit will apply to expenditures in excess of $1,000, but not more than $10,000, resulting in a maximum credit of $1,350 ($9,000 x 15%).

Examples of HRTC Eligible and Ineligible Expenditures:

Eligible
- Renovating a kitchen, bathroom, or basement
- New carpet or hardwood floors
- Building an addition, deck, fence, landscaping or retaining wall
- A new furnace or water heater
- Painting the interior or exterior of a house
- Resurfacing a driveway
- Laying new sod

Ineligible
- Furniture and appliances (refrigerator, stove, couch)
- Purchase of tools
- Carpet cleaning
- Maintenance contracts (furnace cleaning, snow removal, lawn care, pool cleaning, etc.)

CNLA is national federation of nine green industry associations representing over 3,600 companies in the landscape, independent garden centre, and nursery sectors. CNLA’s members are thrilled with the Home Renovation Tax credit as they are the growers of trees, shrubs, annuals and perennials; retailers for all garden products and plant material; and professional service providers who will create stunning gardens and landscapes for homeowners across Canada.

The green industry that CNLA represents contributes $14.48 billion to Canada’s economy and employs 132,776 people across the country.

Garage update...

In between the major snowfalls, we have been successfully finishing the interior of garages. To date we have completed 8 garage projects, 4 of them with heaters and 1 of them with some nice shelving.

Here we have installed a unit heater, which is critical to a quick project, as paint and mud dries much quicker in temperatures above freezing.

Elton and Hedi are installing the final bit of insulation and will be completing the gyproc portion of this project shortly.

This project had a special requirement for insulation, as the bonus room above the garage had walls exposed to the cold attic space above the garage. We can't put insulation batts here as there would be an amazing amount of redundant framing required in a really tight space, so we contacted Tiger-Foam and purchased a DIY kit of insulating spray foam. The product comes in 200 sqft and 600 sqft application packages and includes all the necessary hoses, spray nozzles and instructions required to provide a proper finish. The foam is rated at R-7 insulating factor per inch of finished thickness, and we were able to put on 2 inches and provide a factor of R-14, equivalent to a 2x4 insulated wall. Success.

The foam, the heater and the finished garage will help keep not only the vehicles warm, but will allow this family to enjoy their bonus room more, as the chief complaint was that this room above the garage was consistently 5-7 deg c colder than the rest of the house.

Winter wind...

They are building a commercial retail center in Cranston, and have been constructing this fire break wall for about 3 weeks now. It looks like they completed it and had taken down the one side of the scaffolding. Well wouldn't you know it, the wind picks up from the East (rare) and rips down the other side. Now we know why they spend a significant amount of time supporting the wall itself with guy wires prior to the rest of the building being built against the wall on both sides. What a mess to clean up...

LeeDavid Landscapes is now "Award Winning!"...

We were just informed by LANTA, that we have received an Award of Merit for our Bel-Aire project. More details to follow once we receive our award...

here are the criteria we were judged by...

The Landscape Alberta Nursery Trades Association (LANTA) Landscape Awards
reflect the Association's commitment to the development and promotion of high
standards of excellence in the landscape contracting industry.

The program is designed to reward independent landscape contracting
companies that execute quality landscaping projects in design, construction or
maintenance, and the citizens who underwrite such work. LANTA’s Awards Program
also strives to increase public awareness of quality landscaping, to encourage
the contractors’ use of quality materials and workmanship, and through example
and recognition, to encourage all landscape contractors to pursue excellence.

Each landscaping award entry is evaluated independently against a list
of industry-set criteria. A jury of industry experts judge the entries: the jury
is comprised of professionals chosen from the fields of landscape architecture
and design, education, landscape construction and landscape maintenance.