A few lessons learned... and a quick update

So - a few lessons learned:

1) If you're using Fastfoot or some sort of bagged footing system to protect against moisture/rising damp, OVERSEE the process. I've had a bunch of major issues with my crew having mangled the footing bag (thus rendering it non-waterproof and largely defeating the purpose of having it in place).

2) If you're removing material (earth/soil) from on site, keep it on site. It's stupidly expensive to remove it, and equally as expensive to add it back on site. I've probably spent an extra few thousand dollars because my site is so small and can't contain much extra material.

3) Gravel is more expensive than you think. I've probably spent the better part of $2000 on gravel already (with more to come). Much of that has come via the delivery charge, so a follow up lesson is deliver as much as possible at a time.

4) When working on a small site, do as much by hand as possible. Things get screwed up when big machines combine with small sites, so stick with manual labour - it's often cheaper than "standard building practice".

5) If you're doing something that's NOT "standard building practice" - OVERSEE it. Trades do things the way they've "always done it" and I've had many, many "in twenty years of building, you're the first person to ask for this" kind of comments as I've gone. Sadly, in my estimation, that means that people have been doing things wrong for 20 years.

6) FSC wood is nearly impossible to procure in BC. I've had a long battle to procure FSC-certifiied dimensional lumber and ultimately failed (though I had been led to believe that I had actually acquired FSC certified lumber at one point). If you are getting FSC, do your homework, follow up on the details and demand that it be STAMPED with the FSC logo. If you are looking for FSC lumber in BC, you'll need to order it in - I'd suggest PJ Hardwoods or Dick's - they can source it from the US.

7) If you're questioning something about your site, question it out loud. There have been a bunch of things of late that I had wondered about and sure enough, it played out the way I thought, but there were problems (e.g., timing of things). Pester people...because if you don't, things fall behind.

The quick update is that the parallam and strongwalls will go in on Monday, and about half of the backfill for the slab will be done by then. We don't have enough dirt on site to fill in the remainder, so I'll probably just do another $650 load of gravel (again...and on that note, can't believe some dudes tried to steal my gravel last night at midnight...thanks to neighbours, they were scared off) to complete things. Might go and buy a bunch of styrofoam from Home Depot on Wednesday for the slab after that...good times! I'm also going to be doing my own fluid applied building wrap and mounting my own exterior insulation (should be quite the experience), but at least we should see some good progress over the next few weeks. FINGERS CROSSED!