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Shortly after Ms. Chandler sent her email to Mr. Musial at 3:15 pm on January 16, 2014, as set out
earlier, Mr. Musial emailed Ben Hunter at DDH at 4:46 pm that same afternoon to confirm his
understanding that DDH would be delivering the subfloor components for January 27, 2014. In
doing so, I find that Mr. Musial played an active role from the outset of the project in arranging
for DDH to deliver the necessary building materials as required to fulfill his responsibility as the
general contractor to have the materials ready for installation as the project unfolded.
[50] Importantly, in his same January 16, 2014 email message, Mr. Musial asked Ben Hunter
when DDH would deliver the logs for the project. About half an hour later, Mr. Hunter emailed
back to say, “[i]t looks like Jeff [Chandler] has scheduled the logs on Monday 24th of February.”
Within the hour, Mr. Musial replied that he would send over a certified $40,000.00 cheque a few
days before January 27, 2014 to pay the first $46,028.99 instalment under the December 18, 2013
supply contract (i.e., due prior to delivery of floor framing and interior walls). In the same email
message, Mr. Musial further stated his apparent position that his next $46,028.99 instalment under
the supply contract was due by February 25, 2014 but the contract stipulated that this instalment
was due prior to the delivery of logs (i.e., before February 24, 2014) and proposed that DDH give
him a discount in exchange for paying the instalment in cash. For his part, Mr. Chandler denied
that he involved himself in scheduling DDH’s delivery of logs or any other building materials for
the project, and stated that Chandler Homes only delivered additional materials (i.e., not included
in DDH’s building materials package for the log home project) at Mr. Musial’s request under the
terms of its building contract. In any event, I am satisfied that Mr. Musial agreed, at least initially,
to the February 24, 2014 delivery date that Mr. Hunter gave him, and did not otherwise seek to
change or vary this delivery date in their communications on January 16, 2014. Subsequently,
DDH advised Chandler Homes by email on March 11, 2016 (i.e., after this action was brought on
February 6, 2015) that DDH actually had delivered the logs for Mr. Musial’s building materials
package on March 7, 2014. Absent any evidence to suggest otherwise, I accept that Mr. Musial
moved up the delivery date for the logs to March 7, 2014 after paying DDH for the materials.
[51] After finishing the subfloor installation around February 7, 2014, Mr. Chandler advised
Mr. Musial to heat the basement to prevent frost damage to the wooden floor, supporting walls,
post and beams. However, Mr. Musial did not follow Mr. Chandler’s advice after deciding that
the cost to heat the home during the winter season would be prohibitively expensive for him.