Sheathing and decisions on the ceiling

So the house is coming along at full speed now with considerable changes day-by-day which is exciting. Today the sheathing started to go in which begins to give a real feel to the house. However, it has raised a few questions for us: notably, it's a bit dark on the main level (no side windows), so do we cover up the exposed joists to have white ceilings (and thus more light) or do we stick with the plan? There are pros and cons to each:

Advantages of covering the joists: light penetration throughout lower level, no need to take care to repair subfloor above (can be done cheaply), can insulate and soundproof the upper/lower levels, "cleaner" look.
Disadvantages of covering the joists: some extra drywall costs, less character and visual to the house

We would still have the parallam beams left exposed and I would aim to use some of the old boards in some other parts of the house, so we'd still have a bit of that history and exposed wood element. If we were to close it in, I'd also put in a solatube to add some extra light to the space.

So, that's what I'm leaning to at this point, but we'll see what Kris says when she walks around in the space.

Other info:
- Apparently part of the cribbing has sunk a small amount which has left us with a VERY small margin for error on the framing and lift/drop...but I think we're safe.
- Having a debate about the green wall from bynaturedesign which I'd really like to have. I think I can probably manage to install the system for about $1200 all in, which is reasonable. The debate on moisture issues with green walls seems to run the gamut. I've got some sites out there saying it's a major no-no and it will lead to huge indoor air quality/mould issues, etc.  I'm debating about talking to Green Over Grey - a local company here in Vancouver that does pretty amazing green walls throughout the world - to get their thoughts on it, but am  hoping I can get some input for free. We'll see...
- The City of Vancouver is starting in our our new sewer and water line on Monday, so by mid-week we should have a new sewer system. Apparently they have to dig down some 16', which is good news for us as the lower the piping, the less pumping we need to worry about.
- Still debating about kitchen designs, but will do a separate posting on that.

Here are some shots of what the place now looks like:

View from the front of the house looking at the new sheathing on the west wall

Inside the "kitchen"

West wall of the extension. Where the wall ends is where the rooftop patio will be.

View from the street.

COV Engineering setting up for next week.

Look out, construction down below!

Foundations of life

So a short break on the blog post, while a new part of my life began this past week: fatherhood. A pretty amazing experience all in all - one of the most emotionally intensive weeks of my life in which there were tears, relief, fear, happiness, worry, helplessness, and many other things experienced in a matter of hours. But, at the end of it all, I have a new family, which is a really neat feeling. My baby boy's name's Bevyn (though all of you will likely know that on here) and while he's a little less than interactive at this point (eat, sleep, poop, pee, cuddle, repeat), there are still special moments in which you can see him taking in the world anew. The innocence is pretty amazing to witness. And now to build him a house to call home.

That's my boy!

So...this week was the starting of our walls. We have put down our sill plates with a gasket and a bead of mastic that will go down the inside of the wall to create an air barrier. The wood we are using is Canfor and should be FSC, but I have yet to get the COC # which is making me nervous. The plan right now to handle the exterior of the ICFs is to use a peel and stick membrane (to waterproof it) and then a dimple board with a cloth filter to basically create a "foundation rainscreen" that allows water to drain down to the draintile below. We'll then cover (or "parge") that dimple board in a concrete facade to protect it from damage where it is exposed above grade. Protecting the ICFs is pretty important and has been illustrated through the damage they've had already. The ICF's have taken a bit of a beating during installation as have the Fastfoots (Fastfeet?) but the workers have agreed to fix the damages (and help address the insulation/waterproofing that's been compromised).

In addition, we've sorted the new windows and dimensions so we can order the second batch of windows (thankfully) soon and hopefully they'll be set in the next 6 weeks or so. Cascadia have been fantastic thus far in providing pretty amazing customer service throughout this project. Hopefully we've sorted out some of the tricky attachments where the doors are flush with the ground (where we're trying to do a seamless indoor-outdoor look)...more complicated than you would think!

Last but not least, the rep from Prosoco came up for another visit and demonstrated two of the RGuard Products that I'm planning on using. It was pretty slick stuff and I'm keen to give it a whirl. It's going to be more expensive, but I think it will likely be one of the better investments in the house and I'll hopefully save on labour costs since I'll be doing much of it myself.

ICF foundation with sill plate in place (west wall).

R30 ICF with concrete in between (south and east walls).

Rear wall with cutout for back windows (north wall)

Parallam!

WALLS!

Brett and Mark catching up on site below the cribbing

Framing the lower level of the house

The front door (to be)

Sheathing with RGuard's various products

Second pour...comin' up!

So with the first pour sorted out, we are ready for the second pour today. Some small complications from the first pour included:

1) Fastfoot being torn in parts...this was kind of frustrating given that this is the first line of waterproofing for the footings. Brett agreed and will be using some peel and stick waterproofing to patch things. Not ideal, but the waterproofing layer is somewhat of a backup to the draintile anyhow. Overall, I'm not 100% convinced by the Fastfoot used as a separate product I don't think since you need to fire nails into it to secure it to the forming lumber. Moreover, some of the people we talked to claimed it was "damp-proofing" not "water-proofing" which seems to go against the picture painted on the website. We'll see how it plays out in time.

2) Some small damage to the ICFs as well. Nothing too major, but again, still a bit disappointed that it's happened. I suppose these are some of the small bumps in the road you just have to roll with.

3) A robin has decided to make a nest in the house. I managed to take down the half-built nest as I really don't want to have to shift a nest (it would likely be abandoned). Hopefully a home-destroying exercise has dissuaded her from our real estate, but you can't blame her excellent choice of locations! ;)

So - passed our second inspection today from what I understand (wasn't there). Inspector has requested that our structural engineer be on site for the pour to ensure the air is removed (apparently difficult to see in the ICFs), which costs a bit more, but shouldn't be too much.

Hopefully June 8th goes down as the completion of the foundation and the arrival of a new baby in my world. Would be a big day if both happen! Fingers crossed. Will post more pics later of both babies (genetic and cementitious)!

And then there were footings...

So big day today (now yesterday since I didn't post this last night), we had our first concrete pour! Exciting times (and no, I'm not being sarcastic).

The Lafarge truck outside our place

We passed both inspections (engineer & city) and so this morning, at 9:30am, the Lafarge cement truck rolled up to our place and got set to pump. We showed up just after 10am, and they were in full swing. The whole thing was fast and efficient with one person running the truck, one person running the "concrete hose" (aka. line pump), and then two others (our formers) vibrating (to remove air from the concrete) and troweling the footings level. We used 28 MPA (hardness of concrete) with 30% flyash - which is a "green" aspect to concrete (concrete's really energy-intensive to make, and fly ash is a by product from coal-fired power plants that used to go to waste...the fly ash also helps to strengthen the concrete). I opted to go for Lafarge in part because I know they've been a strong advocate on the global level for improving the carbon footprint (and other conservation issues) associated with concrete (WWF has had a partnership with them for many years now). I'm not suggesting they're perfect, but at least they're aware and trying to make a difference on a number of fronts, which is a step beyond ignoring the problem.

Fastfoot plastic sheets in place for footings

First pour!

Kristina: pregnant supervisor extraordinaire

I also opted to use Fab-Form's Fastfoot product which is basically "footing in a bag". The reasons: it results in less use of lumber, it results in less waste of concrete (attested to by the fact that we managed all of the pour in one go, despite thinking we might need some additional concrete), and it waterproofs the footings, which is a nice plus to have when you're sitting on clay at the bottom of a hill. They seemed to work really well and I'll guess I'll find out tomorrow or Monday how they look (NOTE: checked in today...looking good and hard)!

Final section of pour with Mark looking on supervising

So, we now have footings. Apparently they'll have enough strength to actually build on by tomorrow afternoon, and then cure over the course of several weeks until they reach maximum strength. On Monday, the insulated concrete forms will arrive and get set up. Hopefully that means we'll do another set of inspections on Tuesday, and the second pour on Wednesday, with backframing beginning on Thursday. At that point, the house will really start to take shape.

Footings: troweled and with rebar tied-in.

In other news:
- No baby yet
- Most of the windows are apparently ready (way ahead of schedule!) which is good...but we still need to get some other ones into production (front and rear). Hopefully we can do that soon - possibly as early as next weekend even if things go really well (though I'm not crossing my fingers on that).
- Think I've found some fir flooring that can be used to replace the damaged stuff upstairs for a few hundred dollars.
- I'm concluding that I'd like to have some storage space up in the attic and ultimately, that we'll put in an insulated shed at the rear as well.

So - wish us luck for the baby and the finishing the rest of the foundations this week!

From demo/decon to build

Well, we've finally made it to the eve of "construction" rather than deconstruction or demolition. This past week was spent excavating and getting set to lay the foundation and with that, tomorrow, we start laying out the new footings and forming...very exciting.

It's been an interesting birthday week with a few twists and turns on the construction front. We started the week by spray painting the new foundation walls and then set to work with the mini-digger which couldn't be there until Tuesday (bye bye to another day).

Laying out the new footings for the foundation

Things I've learned throughout the course of the week:

1) The construction world is more akin to a four-day-work-week. It's almost impossible to get five days worth of work out of a given week. Invariably someone can't work, or something's not ready to go, so you lose at least one work day per week. It's pretty frustrating when you're paying about $100/day in overhead costs just to maintain the site, but it's what you deal with. Worth knowing for others however.

2) Our place was built upon not just silty-clay soils, but also a refuse heap. I'm not exactly sure when, but roughly around the turn of the century, our property was used as a bit of a dump pile. As we've been digging down through the soils, we've been uncovering all sorts of interesting things...the most interest of which was an old ink container (intact!) from 12-01-03 from the then-young Diamond Ink Co in the USA. Kinda cool to pull a piece of history like that out of your front yard!

Standard "stuff" that's coming out of the ground...mainly broken bottles, pieces of metal (e.g., half a spoon!)

The "gem"/artifact. Hey - eBay says it's worth $30! I'm rich!

3) Our slab was not built to support a mini-digger. Yep - a mini digger and bobcat managed to mangle the slab. Oh well...just means a bit more fill. At least they nicely dug out the foundations - three days and $3000 later that is... I must admit however, that it was pretty amazing watching him work actually...kind of like machine ballet!

A shot of the mini-digger at the front

Mini-digger at rest in the back yard...mushing our 1" thick slab

Job done!

And the end product...with a topping of $275 worth of rock.

4) I might (big MIGHT) own a green/living wall that holds a Guinness Book of World Records title. At EPIC! a couple of weeks ago, I chatted with the guys from By Nature Designs, who told me that they were actually selling the 11 foot living wall that they'd built. It wouldn't be cheap - probably about $2,000 by the time I got the system in place, with plants and an irrigation system plumbed in (no way to water something 11' in the air!)...BUT it would be amazing to look at, it would purify the air in the whole house, and it would be a definite talking piece.

The system uses these Modulogreen units which are recycled ABS plastic and allow one to independently pot plants in a soil medium (which differs from many living wall systems that use moss or something else and easily dry out). Full details are here.

Hard call as it would be a definite "luxury item" in the house...BUT I think it would be spectacular. Decisions, decisions!

These shots give you a sense of what it would look like:



5) Through all the pain of construction, Vancouver does remind me from time to time why it's so amazing out here. This past weekend was pretty spectacular. The weather was between 23 and 28 degrees blue skies for the most part. Kris and I took advantage of the weather and the pre-baby time to enjoy ourselves and had two days where we had some beach time. We also checked out some stores in town, and even began the quest for our new wood slab for our island countertop (more on that one in another post). But with views like this, how can you not love Vancouver?

View from English Bay at sunset

Pretty nifty desk from CB2

Interface FLOR tiles, which I think may be a neat addition to our house

Other random thoughts...
A) Still mulling over whether to put in a 14" Solatube or not. There's a big hole where the chimney was, and it would nicely illuminate the central space of the house, but it's not an energy efficient thing to do (you're basically shoving an R-5 hole in your roof which should be R-50). BUT conversely, it does add light to the middle of an area that's almost below grade...I think

B) Thinking about doing a wall in brick like this (see below). I'd aim to use the bricks that were reclaimed from the chimney and since they'd be sitting on the slab, the weight shouldn't be an issue (though I'd need to confirm that).

Out of steam for the night...

Digging away my time

This week has been foundation week. After taking the long weekend off, and losing a day because the mini-digger wasn't around on Tuesday, today we started excavations. As noted in the previous entry, we're removing the foundation walls and digging down about 2 feet down to the hard clay layer that sits under our place. The upside is that we'll always have filtered water available on our land...the downside, we have water sitting right below our house (and around our foundations). So, we're still planning on getting the ICFs set to go, but Brett (our project manager) has been pretty busy this week and so I'm not sure we're going to manage Friday for layout (let alone that I'm not sure the digger will be done).

I started the day over at the site at 7:30am and my morning went something like this:
6:45am: Alarm #1 (radio)
6:46: Ignore alarm
6:50am: Alarm #2 (buzzer)
6:50:30am:  Try to ignore alarm
6:51am: Get out of bed and turn off alarm
7:00am: Realize that I really do need to get going and get up and grab food
7:24am: Get a call from Tidy-Trailers that the Live-load guy is there on site
7:25am: Arrive on site, and help Tidy-Trailers to load up yet ANOTHER load of garbage (no doubt not the last)
7:45am: Finish opening things up and move metal from where the mini-digger has thrown it (it was all piled neatly the previous night). Wait for metal guy to arrive...
7:50am: James, Brett and Mark all arrive on site to prep for digger (who is supposed to arrive at 8am).
8:30am: Assist in spraying foundation digging areas, moving walls, etc. etc.
9:45am: Mini-digger guy finally arrives (much to Brett's chagrin)
10:20am: Digging underway
10:35am: Rhododendron removed (being given a new home)
11:30am: Depart site having helped get things out of the way of the digger, chatted with the sump/draintile guy, etc. etc.
Metal guy apparently showed up later (though he didn't take one, very heavy, thing?!); and we had James remain on site to make sure that the digger (which costs $125/hr) was busy the whole time.

By the time I returned to the site at 7pm to remove a cedar tree (also being given a new home), the concrete from the front was gone, the rear foundations were largely dug, and the mini-digger had also managed to mange parts of the slab (awesome).

In chatting with the sump/draintile guy I've realized that the City of Vancouver will require me to put in two sumps, but I needed to find out what the depth/elevation of the sewer line was (the so-called "invert elevation"): 102.857 feet. Now to put that into perspective, here's the various heights:

---- 106.5 --- proposed top of new slab
---- 105.17 -- existing slab

---- 103.17 -- clay layer (depth of new footings)

So....we've got about 6" of distance between where our draintile is going and the "invert elevation". The good news is that at least we're not BELOW that line (which would automatically mean we'd need to pump...which then requires a mechanical engineer and a lot of extra $)...but I'm not sure we're completely out of the weeds yet. I'll let you know soon enough however!

In other news, I have set up a meeting with the City of Vancouver (different dept) about running a Vancouver Green Residential Homes Open House tour for next year. This would be modeled upon something that I went to in Washington DC of all places: the not-so-aptly-named http://www.solartour.org/ (which isn't JUST solar homes...but whatever). When I was in DC last year I also went to another related event: http://www.solardecathlon.gov/ which was also pretty awesome. They all reminded me of the Doors Open Toronto event I went to a number of years ago where they featured a bunch of green buildings - both commercial and residential. It was probably the place where much of this insanity began, so in order to pay the pain forward, I thought I'd entrance others! :) No, in all seriousness, I'd like to share the experiences I've had - for better or worse - and help others from going through some of the pain I'm currently experiencing. So, we'll see how it all plays out. I've also chatted with the folks at Greenworks Building Supply (http://www.greenworksbuildingsupply.com/) who are also keen on seeing it happen, so fingers crossed. Not that I need another project....

Aside from some pics, that's all for now.

Front of house with concrete rubble pre-clearing

The rhodo seeking a ride to its new home

All staked-out and ready to build (or at least dig)

The mini-digger in action

The mini-digger not in action

The house at 7:15pm on May 23, 2012

Newly dug holes for our footings/foundation

Building from the ground up

So after some additional exploratory demolition this week, we've come to accept some realities:

1) There are no footings for our foundations (they are poured on grade).
2) We need footings (given our soil and moisture issues).
3) Given the weight of the soil (HEAVY), we need to have a mini-digger in to excavate.

So - this past week was "break up the foundations with a jackhammer and get ready for the mini-digger" week, as well as cut away the lower wall sections (which I'm aiming to convert into furniture...ambitious, but we'll see).

Given the fact that our house sits on a clay lens which means that when it rains, we get a puddle of water below our house about 6-8 inches deep, I'm feeling like "damproofing" the footings simply isn't sufficient. Concrete wicks moisture and so if you're footings are sitting in standing water, welcome to wet walls. Accordingly, I'm going to opt to go with an interesting new "technology" (hard to call a bag "technology") in which your footings are poured into a waterproof bag. The company is called Fab-Form and they offer not only these "footing in a bag" (called Fastfoot), but also Insulated Concrete Forms (ICFs), which are styrofoam blocks that allow you to form and pour concrete that is automatically insulated. We're still finalizing exactly who we'll use, but the plan is to create a foundation with roughly R30 footings.

I spent the weekend moving concrete around (which I'm aiming to reuse in the garden for retaining walls), as well as organizing wood, and getting set for the digging machine to come in. Here are some pics of the place as it stands:

Concrete, wood, gravel....oh my! Now organized far better than this. 

Our elevated house, now with a fancy blue fence!

Foundation, in block form, ready for life as a garden wall

The side of our house, foundations broken.

View to the front of the house with cribbing partially filled with gravel for mini-digger to get through

Kristina at the rear of the house - May 17, 2012

On Saturday, we also hung out on our block and solid a whole $13 dollars worth of "stuff" that we were aiming to get rid of (as well as spent $0.50!), but did get a chance to meet more of our neighbours which was great. We continue to be happily surprised at the new community we'll be joining come fall.

Hopefully by the end of this week we'll have our foundations dug, and the foundation ready to pour for the following week *fingers crossed*.