Winter Is Here!




About the time of our last post the weather was showing signs that the seasons were changing, the temperatures were dropping and we had our first snow fall... normally I'd be wearing a big grin and playing with Trouble out in the snow, but not this year, these atmospheric conditions are now just one more of our daily concerns. 



Jordan and his crew had begun erecting the foundation walls the Remembrance day week and worked through to the thursday so that they could enjoy a three day weekend.  We didn't see them back on the following monday so I can only assume they were either at another job site or their three day weekend had been extended an extra day.  On tuesday they arrived bright and early... actually, it was only early because the rain was coming down and the sky was gloomy... it took two more days to finish putting up the forms for the basement walls and it was during that time that winter officially arrived.  Wednesday we woke to clear skies and the temperature was around -5 degrees... I know the Alberta and interior folk think -5 is just a cool summer evening but for us this was a major climate change.  The guys started the day by getting a good size fire going and by 3:00 had finished putting up the forms.  The engineer came in just before dark and after doing an  inspection of the forms, gave his written ok for the concrete to be poured.  Thursday the pumper truck arrived around 10:00 and was followed shortly by the first of several concrete trucks.  I mentioned in a previous post about the concrete being pumped forty plus feet in the air and back down into the forms, it's actually more like sixty feet.  For any of the mechanically inclined folks who find this stuff interesting, imagine the kind of pump it takes to reliably pump tons of concrete that high into the air...pretty cool eh?... or maybe not.  Anyway, I watched them pour concrete for about five minutes and quickly realized that this was going to take alot longer than the pouring of the footings.  I had to run to town for a bit so on the way back I stopped at Timmy's and grabbed a case of doughnuts... and while only about ten of the original twelve made it all the way home, who'd ever of thought doughnuts could bring such joy to the people.  It took the better part of the day to finish pouring the concrete, but the weather had turned sunny again and things went off without a hitch. 

Removing The Forms

One of my first thoughts friday morning was "Ohh crap!"  As I prepared to take Trouble out, I had to dig out the ski gloves and Sorels as we had gotten our first snow fall of the year during the night.  I'd never really give Trouble credit for being particularly sensitive to our human emotions but he sure has a way of making us let go of our daily worries.  As soon as I opened the front door, he hit the snow running and instead of the usual morning routine of sneaking into the trees across the street, he ran around in circles, barking and deaking left and right to avoid being caught by imaginary chasers... the feeling was contagious and I quickly forgot about the foundation being covered in snow.  Jordan and his crew arrived a little later than usual and I was suprised that they were planning to take the forms off so soon.  It took them about five hours to remove the forms and expose our future basement walls.  If seeing Neal excavating the foundation hole gave us a feeling that this house building thing was actually happening, seeing the foundation walls standing there hammered home the point.

Trouble, Micro-managing

Sometime friday evening Trouble got a worried look and came and curled under our legs.  We could hear the wind whistling and knew we were in for one of our annual windstorms.  A windy day in the city and a windy day where we live are two different beasts.  Being surrounded by giant hemlocks, the sounds and sights are quite dramatic and theres always a lingering thought that a tree may come through your roof at any time.  Fortunately for us, the wind almost always blows in one of two directions and if trees were to come down they'd either miss us or do little damage.  When we were clearing trees to make way for the house we gave this a fair amount of consideration and seeing the direction all the nearby, remaing trees were leaning, I'm confident we removed the right ones.   The temperature once again dropped to -5 and the wind gusted to 70 km/h, blowing uninterrupted for three straight days.  With the windchill, temperatures hit close to -20 and our thermometer hidden in the trees had a constant reading of -12.   To make things worse, snow was in the forecast for later in the week. 

Forms Removed, Just In Time For The Snow

On monday morning (Nov.22) I had to go into town and upon returning there was a different van parked in the driveway.  It turned out to be the crew who would seal the foundation before we backfilled.  I went over to talk to the guys and found out the cold temperatures were affecting their equipment.  They use a compressor and a spray gun to apply a black, tar like material to the exterior of the foundation walls.  A brown, plastic sheathing is then put up to protect the sprayed on material from the backfill.  It turned out the hoses were all frozen from being left in the truck overnight and there really wasn't any way of thawing them; they'd have to come back after they figured a way to get them thawed.  It wasn't until wednesday that they were able to make it back which was quite unfortunate because snow was in the forecast for thursday.  We had hoped to get the drainage pipe in and the foundation backfilled before the snow fell but it wasn't going to happen now.  Once the guys got working, it only took them a couple hours to seal the walls and put up the protective sheathing. 

Installing Protective Sheathing

Neal arrived shortly after the sealing guys left to make sure his excavator would start in the cold temperatures; Starting the machine turned out to be the least of his worries.  Because everything was so wet when he was digging the foundation hole, he had a buildup of wet clay in the rollers that turned the tracks on his machine.  All that wet clay had hardened into ice and when he tried to move the machine, he blew a hydraulic hose.  He spent the rest of the day removing the hose and trying to clean the clay out of the tracks but it was already too late in the day to get a new hose.  Thursday morning light snow flurries had started and Neal showed up with the new hose only to find they had put the wrong fitting on it... he spent most of the morning driving in and out of the valley to get the right hose and then the rest of the day with a blow torch and pick trying to remove the ice from the track rollers.  By the end of the day he had everything moving freely and with the guys coming on friday to install the drainage pipe, he was good to go.  Unfortunately, by the end of the day we had accumulated almost four inches of snow which was covering the areas the pipes would be laid and also the pile of drain rock that Neal would be spreading around the foundation.  If ever we needed a rainstorm, it was now.

What Should We Worry About Next?

We were wondering if the guys were going
to make like the bears... then this showed up.

It's been almost a week since our last post and other than a few minor problems over the weekend, things are now progressing nicely.  Last friday the concrete guys showed up to start on the forms for the foundation footings.  We were quite excited to see this as this somehow made the whole adventure real in our minds... it was no longer just a pipe-dream,  it was actually happening!  The excitement lasted about a half a day when Jordan (concrete guy) informed me that the foundation excavation wasn't correct for all the necessary footings and we'd have to get Neal back to widen it.  We managed to talk Neal into coming early Sunday morning and Dan also showed up to mark out what need to be removed.   Above the front door, protruding forward from the porch roof overhang, there is a small gable that will have vertical supports on both sides;  it was for these two supports that we needed to do some extra excavating for their footings.  It took Neal about an hour to dig the area out and also scrape a little off the wall on the opposite side to give the guys more room to lay drainage pipe.  After finishing, I think everyone was a bit anxious to get on with their Sunday plans... Dan promised Neal a case of beer for dragging him out so early on a sunday and then they were on their way.

Pumper Truck.

Monday morning came about and Jordan and his crew arrived at first light.  Trouble does a fantastic job of letting us know when they arrive... he runs down the hall with a vibrating growl that grows louder as he gets to the front window, it then turns into three loud barks followed by silence... just enough to end whatever sweet dreams we may be having and remind us of what's happening out back.  We thought we were going to see some real progress on Monday only to find out that things still weren't quite right with the hole and that Neal was going to need to come back and scrape a couple other areas.  This had me worried because Neal is also working on the new Port Mann bridge and was going to be unavailable for a few days.  At 2:30 that afternoon I was suprised to look out the window and see Neal throwing a ball for Trouble.  When I went out and asked if Dan had called him about the problem, Neal had not talked to Dan yet and knew nothing about it, he had come to replace an alternator on his bull-dozer... it seems for every mishap we have, a little bit of luck accompanies it.  I quickly got Dan on the phone who was able to make it out 30 minutes later and once again a bit more material was removed.  Dan also brought a couple of workers to cover our back-fill piles with plastic so that if it rained, we wouldn't be trying to back fill with wet mud.

Filling the forms with concrete.

Tuesday morning came with Trouble's familiar growl and bark routine which, being the ever optimist that I am, didn't seem so bad because I knew today was going to be the day we'd really see some progress.  Jordan and his crew once again arrived at first light and this time I could hear them working furiously.  By 1:30 they had most of the forms for the footings completed and right about then, Dan arrived with the engineer who had a look and approved everything so that concrete could be poured the following day.   Shortly after, Jordan and crew finished up and were on their way out, it was at this time I mused that this had been our first debacle free day.

Forms, ready to be filled with concrete.

  Today was the big day, Jordan arrived at his usual 7:30 am and did a last inspection of everything in preparation of the concrete arriving.  I think they had hoped to pour early in the day but because of the nice weather, every contractor in the Fraser Valley was probably wanting to pour their slabs, so the concrete trucks couldn't be here until noon.  The clear skies brought about some cool temperatures so Jordan and crew got out some lawn chairs and lit up a fire to keep warm.  Trouble went out to keep them company and I contemplated hotdogs and beer but it didn't seem quite right at 9:30 am.  Somewhere about noon the forms for the basement walls arrived and a bit later in the day than expected, the pumper truck arrived.  He had just finished setting up the outrigger supports on his truck when the first of two concrete trucks arrived.  If you've never seen concrete poured, it's somewhat fascinating seeing hundreds of pounds of concrete pumped forty+ feet into the air and back down into the forms.  The pumper truck operator uses a remote control to move the truck's boom overhead while one of Jordan's crew uses the hose to fill the various forms... They emptied the truck suprisingly quick (less than ten minutes).  While one guy operated the hose, two others used trowels to smooth the concrete level with the top of the forms.  The second truck arrived moments later and the whole process repeated itself.  In all it took less than forty minutes to empty the two trucks. 

Footing forms filled with concrete.

    Sometime later this week the forms for the basement walls will start to go up and I will probably update this blog again.  In the meantime I urge everyone to consider the privileged lives we live because of the sacrifices made by all the Canadian heroes who went to war.

Digging A Hole... A Big Hole!



Removing The Topsoil To Be Preserved For Later

 At this stage of the game we don't even get phazed when things don't go as planned... we've realized it's part of the game and if you aren't ready to roll with the punches, it's going to be a traumatizing experience.   Sunday evening the rain started lightly and by midnight it was a typical November shower for the Lower Mainland.  I must have woke up every hour just to have a listen outside and try to gauge whether we'd be digging in the morning or not.  We weren't sure which day the guys installing the foundation forms would be coming and we didn't want to dig the hole and have it sit in the rain while we waited for them.  As it happened, the rain got stronger in the morning and we decided to wait a day before digging.   Neal came by on tuesday afternoon around 1:00 to do some maintenance on his excavator and while the weather was sunny we still weren't sure when the forms guys would arrive.  Neal had just left at 3:00 when I decided to call Dwayne to see if he had heard anything about the forms; he informed me they were ready to go as soon as the hole was dug.  I managed to get through to Neal who promptly returned to start the dig. 

Starting To Look Like A Hole

It was in the next couple hours that I learned about how to properly alter a landscape on a large scale.  We had a large rectangle paced off and marked with stakes that were about five feet wider in all directions, perhaps I had it in my head that it was as easy as digging out everything between the four posts and voila, we'd have our hole.  As it turns out, the top soil needs to be removed first and stock piled for later.  In our area we only have about two feet of top soil which leaves another eight feet of clay to be excavated.  The clay was piled seperately and will be used for backfilling the foundation once the concrete has cured and the forms are removed.  The remaining clay will be spread around the yard for countouring the landscape and then the topsoil will be spread around on top so that grass can later be planted.  Seems logical enough after you see it done but it adds about seven hours to the excavation as the massive pile of top soil has to be moved away from the edge of the excavation to make room for the clay.  If there were hills of soil, there were mountains of clay and all the material had to be moved a few times.

Top Soil In The Foreground And Clay In
The Background

After digging the hole to the approximate depth of ten feet (our basement will have 9' ceilings), Dan, the site superintendant brought out a laser level so that we could ensure the ground was level inside the hole.  After determining the lowest point of our excavation, the self-levelling laser was set up on a tripod and a seperate receiver unit was attached to an extendabel guide stick.  When the guide stick was placed somewhere with in the excavation that was higher than our low spot, an alarm on the unit would sound and flashing arrows would indicate if the point needed to be dug deeper or if it was level with the low spot.  This process took about four hours with Neal carefully scraping the high spots until the ground was as level as could be done.  Shortly after we finished levelling, a truck arrived with our first load of drainage rock.  Two loads of the rock were dumped and then spread around the excavation in preparation for the forms to be installed over.   About the time Neal finished spreading the gravel, the sky had clouded over as rain is in the forecast for tomorrow.  The forms will be arriving at first light and we are keeping our fingers crossed but I think the guys will working in the rain tomorrow.





30' High Pile of Clay

Another 30' Pile of Clay

This Blog Sucks!

Since I don't have any house progress photos, I'm
adding a few of the saddle I'm currently working on.

Admitedly, this blog probably has a high "suck" factor for it's inactivity over the past couple of weeks.  I'm probably to blame for that but in the time honored tradition of passing the buck, I'm going to blame the CIBC, the Fraser Valley Regional District, and also the neighbors dog.  If you really aren't enjoying the blog, ignore all the ramblings and scroll to the bottom where you can feed the resident fish with your mouse.... how's that for a great blog!



It's been a demoralizing few weeks waiting for the bank to sign off on the covenance the FVRD is requiring.  We were convinced we would have the necessary signatures about three weeks ago (that was after already waiting for six weeks)... we watched the days and then weeks slowly disappear along with our hopes off getting the foundation in before the usual heavy rains of October set in.  We heard rumors of our covenance popping up in different offices across Canada and our hopes began to rise when we heard it was back at the Mission CIBC.  Unfortunately for us it sat at the bank for another two weeks before I had a melt-down and called the branch manager.  I'm sure in the history of bank managers returning calls, none has ever been returned as quickly... It could have been the anger or perhaps the desperation in my voice but one of the two compelled this manager to call back with in minutes.  After listening to a three minute, heart felt apology, I somehow managed to remain calm as I was assured our situation would be dealt with personally by the following tuesday.  At long last I had someone I could hold accountable and let me tell you I was already mentally preparing my speech for tuesday.  Well, tuesday morning came with a phone call from the bank manager and I was informed that the covenance had the last bank signature needed and was in the hands of our notary public... to say the least I was in a state of disbelief and felt just a tinge of disappointment at not being able to deliver my castigating sermon. 

Handmade, Custom Tree

Excitement was in the air at the ole'homestead.  The following day the covenance was to be delivered to the FVRD office so they could add their signature before it was registered on title.  The registration process was the last obstacle between us and our building permit so we were on cloud nine thinking we were only days away from our permit... this feeling lasted for a total of about three minutes. Three minutes was the amount of time between when I was told the covenance was received at the FVRD and the time the woman at the planning department cynically told me she didn't know when it would be signed by their department.  I was astounded that they couldn't even give me a time frame...not a day or a week, just a stoic "I don't know when".   Once again we were in limbo where nobody wanted to take responsibility or be accountable for the inactivity.  We waited another week and a half without any word, all the time wondering if we'd worsen our situation by going down the the FVRD and reading them the riot act.  We even considered releasing the angry mothers on them... hell hath no fury like a pair of mothers whose children have been living in a mobile home for too long!  I finally decided that I would make my way down to the office and beg, plead, bribe, do whatever was necessary to get that signature.  While I was on my way to Chilliwack, I happened to call our builder who was happy to announce the covenance was signed and once again in the hands of our notary who had already innitiated the registration process.  I suddenly found myself the character from the movie of the week who in an overwhelming fit of joy, stops the car on the side of a quiet,country highway and starts dancing with his arms outstretched to the heavens above.  Hallelujah!  Ok, I didn't really do that, but that's how I felt.



Floral Carved Skirt

 As of today, the FVRD has informed us that our building permit is ready to pickup.  I can already feel the suck factor of this blog fading.  Next week will be full of excitement... monday morning we will start the foundation excavation with Neal arriving at 7:30am to start digging.  Dwayne, our builder, has arranged to have his crew move in on tuesday to start putting up the forms...   I think I'll go next door now and make up with the neighbors dog.

Just a note about Google Blogs... If you want to post a comment you must register with Google; it's relatively painless and they don't ask for a bunch of personal information.  Just click on the "Sign In" at the top, right corner of the screen and on the following page, click on "Get Started". 

Clearing The Building Site...

Trouble Checking Out The Building Site

It's been about five weeks since we applied for our building permit and while we are waiting we thought we'd start clearing a building site.  The house was designed with an elevated deck over a walkout basement on the right elevation so we could situate it on a small hillside and take advantage of the mountain views to the North and East.  One of our primary concerns with the site is being sure we won't have trees blowing down on the house... the appeal of leaving mature trees around the house quickly diminishes when you imagine a 4000lb hemlock landing on you in the middle of a wind storm, so we started by knocking over any trees that could potentially reach the house should they blow over.

Excavator Knocking Over Trees

It's amazing what you can do with an excavator...If  I had one of these things I'd be digging holes everywhere, all day long... that's probably why Margaret won't let me get one!  There is a small drainage creek about twenty yards through the trees to the left of the excavator and our plan is to clear everything up to this creek.  It should make it easier to look after the future lawn but with the trees on the other side of the creek, we will still have privacy from our neighbor.  In total we took out about twenty trees of varying sizes and a whole lot of salmon berries.  The bears in our area spend the summer feeding on salmon berries and as long as you don't leave garbage out, they keep to themselves.

Cleared To The Creek

A few hours later the bulk of the trees have been cleared.  Although hemlock trees have very little commercial value, we will be putting a load together to send to a local mill where they will be chipped for pulp.  The only other options are to burn them or bury them and at this time of year neither is a great option.  At this point there are still alot of roots and twigs in the soil and at sometime next spring we will be inviting all our good friends and family to a beer drinking/BBQ/beer drinking/stick picking/beer drinking party where we'll mostly drink beer, eat BBQ, and ignore the sticks on the ground.

After The Bull Dozer

After clearing the site, Neal (our clearing guy) went over the area with a bull dozer and started grading some of the depressions left from clearing the trees.



Mountain View to the East

This will be the view from the front of the house, looking east.  In the distance, just behind the excavator, you can see the guest house.  This is where we will house guests who've had a few too many or who don't pick enough sticks at the party. 

Today we started extending the driveway to the building site with gravel that came from the river bed at the end of our street.  So far we've dumped 15 truckloads for the driveway base and may need a few more once we know the final elevation of the foundation.  About eight loads of gravel have been stock-piled at the end of the driveway and will be spread when we start digging the foundation.

View to the North

Eventually we will remove some of the these trees to open up our view of the mountains to the North.  This will be the view from the elevated deck on the right side of the house.

At this point we've done about all we can do until we have our building permit.  The Fraser Valley Regional District has required us to create a covenance which will allow us to live in the mobile home while we build.  It's this covenance that is delaying our building permit as it needs to be signed by the bank holding our mortgage.  In typical corporate fashion, our bank does not have anyone capable of signing the covenance in any of it's hundreds of branches on the west coast so the covenance had to be sent to their offices in Ontario... we've been waiting four weeks now for a signature from the bank!  Our local branch claims it should be signed and ready on monday afternoon so we are staying optimistic and hoping we may have our permit by the end of this coming weekend... I'm sure anyone who has dealt with the FVRD is on the floor laughing right now!

The House Plan...



View From The Mobile



The 10acre property we plan to build on is located in a mountain valley just east of Mission, B.C. and is surrounded by mature hemlock and cedar trees.  A river at the end of our quiet street flows down from Cascade falls and makes for a great place to cool down on hot summer days...  It's a somewhat secluded setting and we wanted to build a house that would fit the surrounding landscape.  We originally had planned for a log house but the building cost didn't suit our budget and while it certainly would fit the landscape, I think we would have grown tired of not having flat walls. 





After spending what seemed like a ridiculous amount of time on the internet we came across a site http://www.antiquehomestyle.com/ that had scans of mailorder houses from the early 1900's.  Companies like Sears-Roebuck and Harris Bros. of Chicago designed and sold craftsman style homes to much of the U.S. and Canada in the early part of the last century and after studying some of the designs, we decided an old craftsman-style farmhouse would be a perfect match for our property and lifestyle... actually, after living in the mobile for 5+ years, just about anything would have fit the bill but we really did like the looks of what we saw.  We now had a basic idea of what we wanted and as chance would have it, on a weekend trip to visit the parents, we came across a house in Ladner that had great visual appeal to the exterior.  We snapped a photo and spent the next week drawing the interior layout on graph paper and then it was off to the plan design company. After we got the first draft back from our designer, two things were apparent: first, we weren't quite on the same page yet, and second, modern renditions of craftsman style houses have lost many of the small details that give them their distinct style.  What was suppose to have taken 3 weeks turned into 15 weeks as we revised the plans over and over, trying to finalize a floorplan that really made sense for us as well as include all the exterior features that would give the house the character we wanted.  We think the time and effort was worth it, but that said, are still a bit nervous of what we've designed...












Front Elevation

 



Elevated Deck & Walkout Basement on Right Elevation

T










   



Our first post...

Outside Our Kitchen Window

Welcome to Margaret and Darcy's first blog!  We decided to start this blog to keep friends and family updated on how our little piece of paradise in the country is progressing.   Since building a house is a slow endeavour (extra slow in our case), we will update this blog as noticeable changes worth sharing occur;  Please feel free to send comments or suggestions.

  It's been over five years since we decided we needed a bit more space between us and the neighbors and it seems our building dreams are finally starting to materialize.  Before purchasing the piece of property we are building on we had patiently waited almost a year for our last house to be built, only to find that while we loved the house, we really didn't care for the neighborhood.  Six feet between houses and streets lined with cars just wasn't our thing.  After staying in the new house for about six months, a ten acre property in the McConnell Creek area of Hatzic Valley came available and we didn't think twice about jumping in with both feet.  The property had an old mobile home which we figured we could live in while we built and the presence of a new septic system, well, and power made the deal very attractive.  We quickly began to appreciate our mountain valley and the locals inhabitants which include black bears, coyotes, deer, beaver and a whole gamut of amphibians.  We also realized how much we hated our new mobile home... the mice were the only ones taking comfort in the mediocre insulation during the cold winters and even Trouble seemed to wonder why we were living in this tin can. Our one year plan slowly turned into a five year plan for a number of reasons including rising building costs and the fact we didn't want to build something we would tire of in a few years.  

  After toying with a number of housing ideas ranging from building a log house (doing the log work ourselves) to modular homes, we did a complete 180 and put our beloved homestead up for sale.  Our plan was to move in a little closer to family and friends and back into a residential neighborhood.  This idea was met with constant, unruly outbursts from myself (Darcy) and moments of sheer frustration from Margaret (mostly due to my bad mood).  I eventually resigned myself to the fact it was probably for the best and we began the search for a new home.   After looking at several potential neighborhoods, my misery took on epic new proportions... not sure anyone thought that to be possible... but the idea of trading my daily, scenic walks to the mailbox for an overcrowded  cul-de-saq wasn't sitting well.  After dealing with three good offers on our property over a six month period and having all three fall through due to financing we both decided enough was enough we were staying and building and that was that.

  Now that the decision was made, there was no turning back and no waiting... except the three and a half months for having plans drawn, the month to find a builder, the six weeks to get financing, and the eight weeks to get a building permit (which we are still waiting for as of today).  Other than those minor inconveniences things are moving along smoothly... the rainy season has started and winter is just around the corner... what could possibly go wrong?

D6HEHHG2BSXJ