Week 115: Everything Everywhere All at Once

Wow. This week it really started to feel like we might be able to pull this off even with a snow day.

Framing

We didn’t end the week where i had hoped, but the basement framing is complete and the detailing has been done. There are so many details that Dean has to keep track of and they guys were busy installing firebreaks, blocking walls and floors joists, and making sure there are drywall backs everywhere they are needed. The firebreaks are an interesting part of the code. Since fire tends to get into the walls and go up, it is now code (in Vancouver at least) that there have to be firebreaks at the top of the wall assemblies to slow this down. They are just plywood but i guess it is enough to buy an extra few minutes and maybe save a life.

Dean had planned to have the west wall built out and the new window roughed in and the gap filled on the north fireplace wall. That didn’t end up happening because of the snow day and losing one of his guys to illness on Friday. This is going to make this coming week interesting as the plumbers need to get in there to setup the rough in for the sink. I guess they will have a bunch of work to do in the basement to start so hopefully things go well for the framing Monday. The have the subfloor down in the kitchen area which looks great but it turns out that the floor is not perfectly level. This makes a challenging transition into the addition which is of course new and level. I’ll have to warn the flooring guy about that and see what his plan is for dealing with it.

Electrical

The electrician showed up early in the week and put in a couple of days setting up both panels and getting the lay of the land in the suite. It has been so long since he was setting up our pole that i didn’t recognize him at first. He has already setup both panels, and most if not all of his switch and plug boxes and has wires all setup in some of them. Lots of holes have been drilled and he is ready to pull wire. He has a workstation in the back bedroom with all of his spools of wire and it is great to see how a professional works. He is a bit skeptical of our timeline but from what i have seen he can get a heck of a lot of work done in a couple of days. Maybe it was because he had the house to himself one of the days since the framers were off.

Sprinklers

The sprinkler guy is also well into it and by the end of the week had pipe in place for the all of the basement sprinklers. This is not small pipe so between him and the electrician, there was a lot of sawdust being swept up. I think upstairs is going to be a lot slower because he will be crawling around in the attic for a bunch of it.

Roofing!

Oh! And Richard the roofer came by! How could i forget! That was an amazing surprise and we now have shingles on the kitchen addition. It is nice to look out from our temporary home and not see the tarp flapping in the wind. We still have to wait for a break in the weather to get the roof on the deck over the laundry room and bike sheds though. That is stressing us out. When we had the dump of heavy wet snow it trashed the tarp and melted into the basement. We can’t Tyvek the walls until we have had our sheeting inspection and we can’t do that until the roofing is all done. For now we watch the forecast and the skies like Saskatchewan farmers.

With the roof over the kitchen dining addition, they took the temporary wall down and opened up the kitchen and dining area. Wow! I am so excited about it all of a sudden! It seems so huge and since they haven’t put plywood over the transom window it is nice and bright. I am really happy with the way it looks and can imagine being spending a lot of time there. This week the french doors will go in and apparently the windows are coming on Wednesday (i’ll believe it when they are loaded into the house. They are like schroedringers cat and seem to exist but not exist at the same time. I’ll never use this window supplier again.) so it is only going to get better and brighter.

The plumbers were supposed to start this week too but didn’t show up because they were running behind due to illness. I think everyone would have been tripping over each other in the basement if they had and with losing some time for framing it was likely a good thing and not much of a set back. We have a bunch of pipe in the basement waiting and they will be showing up this coming week.

Saving some cash

We are well over budget on the project and we are looking to save some money so we are now the cleaning crew. We go over in the evening and give the place a sweep so they have a clean work area in the morning. With labour rates i figure that will save us about $1000 over the next 4 weeks. Not much when you look at what we have spent, but at this point, it all matters. It is also nice to keep track of progress and i have a good excuse to poke around. I picked up Ward’s trailer on Saturday and am now the garbage man too. I hauled over a tonne of garbage to the dump with the trusty Jetta and trailer (“The Rig”) over two days. I figure we saved another few hundred dollars from that as well. I was bummed about all of the wood trim that was going to the dump but i found out that if i separate out the clean wood (no paint, stain, pressure treated, or plywood) i can drop it at the green waste area and pay $55 per tonne less. I managed to separate out over 500 kg of clean wood with very little effort. I think it just gets chipped but at least it isn’t going to the landfill. I am also going to be installing most of the windows to save a bit of money. I have done that lots before but it wasn’t really in the plan. I am grateful that Dean is understanding and is ok with me pitching in.

It is going to be a busy week and we are really at the make or break point. Everything has to line up nicely this week if we want a chance of having a place to move in to. Only 24% chance of rain on Tuesday….