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