Drywall!!

Things are really starting to heat up at the house! Almost literally!

We are fully insulated (inspections passed!) and almost entirely drywalled. 

These guys are efficient! They started insulating on Thursday, boarding on Friday and they'll be done boarding and starting taping on Wednesday. We're really impressed. 

We've been running 2 electric construction heaters to warm things up inside and they're working quite well. 

The basement was + 7°C yesterday! And today with the temperature feeling like -30° the basement only dropped by 2°C. 

From the kitchen, looking into dining area and great room. 

Master Bedroom

Shower in the ensuite... And someone sweet! 

We also got our water softener and hot water tank today. 

We decided to buy the hot water tank outright versus renting. It has an 8 year warranty and we would have paid for it in 3 years if we went with renting from Reliance. Seemed more economical to us!

Our garage door frames are up and our garage doors should be installed by next week! 

We are really happy with how everything is turning out. It's hard to believe that we're getting to the end! Sort of :)

Ugh. Inspections.

This blog post is kind of all over the map... Just a warning! :)

As a condition of a building permit, you must have your house inspected after certain stages of construction. 

We were smooth sailing in the beginning. Foundation, septic, plumbing rough-ins all passed without a single issue on the first try. 

Then onto framing. We've been struggling to get our framing passed since December 3rd. I think we've had 4  or 5 framing inspections so far. And every time they find something new that needs to be changed or fixed. A couple of "deficiencies" the inspector noted were complete misunderstandings, or complete idiocy if you ask me. 

Not to mention, his penmanship is atrocious. 

Our poor framer has been back to fix these deficiencies over and over and just when you think we're sure to pass, we walk into one of these slapped on a wall!

What does this even mean?!  What list?!

So after countless phone calls and emails  to the inspector, we finally figured out what this nonsense was about. He somehow didn't notice that his previous list of deficiencies from December 3rd had been fixed? Bah!

We still have 2 more deficiencies that Jake and I will be attempting to fix oursves between nights this weekend. This house has more "bracing" and "blocking" than any other house, I swear. Our framer actually agrees!

Building a house seems to be 1000 chicken before the egg scenarios. What goes first?! Well, it depends who you ask!

Thankfully, the building inspector has agreed to let us continue insulating, vapourbarriering (new word) and drywalling the areas that don't have framing deficiencies. Yay!

It's starting to warm up in there! Too bad the deficiencies Jake and I are working on are outside in the -20°C weather. 

So... Where are we at with the house now?

- plumbing and electrical inspections - complete!! First try :)

- most batt insulation is in (main floor)

- most vapour barrier is up (main floor)

We got the insulation and vapour barrier on the main floor inspected before moving on to drywall on Friday... FAIL!!

How can you fail an insulation and vapour barrier inspection? Well, our walls are insulated with R22. Our Energy Effiency Design Summary (that was submitted with our plans in order to get the building permit) says that our walls will be insulated with R24. You've got to be kidding me!!!? Thankfully the guys we hired to do this know a thing or two about insulation!

Our blueprints state that the insulation will be R21, but we also have 1" rigid foam insulation on the exterior which has an R5 value. Ta-da! So we actually have a total of R27! More than our original plan. Take that building inspector! Shouldn't he know this?

Now to get him to answer his phone... And to come out and take down his annoying orange sticky notes.

So Monday afternoon we'll get our dear old friend the building inspector out again to (hopefully) sign off on the 2 remaining framing deficiencies and to clear up the insulation misunderstanding. After that we can have insulation blown into the attic and finish drywalling.  

 

There's just one more 'chicken before the egg' situation we need to deal with.  In order to keep the insulation being blown into the attic in place, the soffits need to be on the house. We currently have the front and 2 sides done. So the soffit guys (official job title I'm sure) need to finish the back by Tuesday morning at the very latest.  I know it's been freezing out this week, but these guys have been only putting in a 3 hour work day... Frustrating!!!

The soffit guys have also told us that we need to have the back timber frame up on the porch before they can finish the soffit. And the timber frame guy is on vacation in Mexico for a week. Oh boy. 

We've decided to go ahead with the soffits at the back of the house, and have the timbers work around them after. We NEED to keep going on this house. No delays!

Here's how it's looking now! 3/4 of trim and soffits up!

I am impatiently waiting too see how the siding looks!! Hopefully soon!

We've got shingles!

Don't worry, not the infectious rash... Just the roof!

The roofers started shingling on Monday and they'll likely be finished by the end of today. Hooray!  They have been really good and we are quite impressed by them. Super nice guys who are getting the job done well and on time. 

The house looks great. Everything seems to be coming along quickly now. Framers are finishing, which is good because the house inspector is coming today!

Our mason has everything set up ready to go. The stone arrived this morning. 

Drywaller came out to measure today too. 

Plumbing, HVAC and electrical walk through was yesterday to make sure we're all on the same page before they start. 

Jake and I even did a bit of work ourselves! We had to insulate, vapour barrier and hang a sheet of plywood in the mechanical room for our hydro panel.

We just happened to take my car today, and the dog... Which wasn't the best idea since we had to go buy insulation.  

This was the only spot left for me!

I was laughing in the beginning. But then I started to feel trapped and panicky! Who knew I had confined space issues?!

All the more reason for me to NEED a truck! The want is now officially a need. :)