Winter And Time To Take a Break

Now approaching four weeks since I last posted an update on Sunday 26th November, Dwight Hulbert has continued to work with meticulous care on the job of siding and fitting associated trim and fascia, while also taking a week off for his own family annual holiday in Mexico. About 90% done, the result since my last post update is as you see in the next few photos below. The front prow wall, working round all those windows, the central post and many odd and varying angles, was particularly demanding and finicky for him, but he has produced a very neat result.

Below you see the rear loft gable wall completed …

… and next the side wall of the garage. I will be profiling the land below the black metal strip once the Spring arrives and the ground thaws. The area you can see exposed below the fir timber fascia board on the back wall will also be done in stone by another contractor in the Spring along with the stone work on my front door and garage door wall.

I myself flew to UK last Sunday night for two weeks, a trip planned some months ago with the intention of having my first Christmas with my parents in possibly nearly fifteen years, but this trip may be extended as my father has been in hospital for the last two weeks and is currently still making only a very slow recovery. In my absence Dwight, subject to weather and access (the snow returned to us at elevations well below the mountain slopes a few days before I left, and there was then a 20-30 cm snow dump forecast two days after I left) will be focusing on silicone sealing the edges between the siding and corner trims (this along with the bug screen at the bottom of the siding prevents bugs getting behind the siding and attracting woodpeckers), then the fascia boards that fit just below the metal roof overlap, and then working on the porch dormer. In the few days before I flew to UK I was working on staining sufficient fascia boards and the shingles that will go in the porch dormer truss.

As I think I have mentioned before, the area around the front and two garage doors will be finished after the winter cold by another contractor in stone. For an additional fee I have asked Dwight to prepare the garage door openings to size and with the necessary blocking so as to be ready for installation of those cedar doors. Due to access issues on my steep drive their actual delivery and installation may have to wait until the snow melt comes late March or early April.

As I left you on completing my last blog post update I had explained that with a weather window opening between snow dumps, my plumber and heating contractor had rushed back to lay the hydronic heating loops for the main floor …

… and that next day I had an 0830 “go/no go” decision point (in case the snow had returned overnight) with my concrete supplier, line pump and concrete finishing contractors for a pour booked at 1000. This was a fluid self-levelling concrete, so while it took about an hour to get the plasticisers and water mix correct to the satisfaction of Napoleon (the concrete finisher) …

… the pour then went as planned and was completed in two hours.

Subsequently it has remained what they call in the trade very green as the temperature I have the house set at (8 deg C) means it cures slowly and it takes a while for the moisture to come out of the slab. There has been a daily ritual of me going in and wiping the condensation off my wood (so far unstained) internal window frames. This concrete has cracked in some areas, unlike the basement slabs, partly because of the type of concrete, partly it is much thinner (only 2”) and partly because it is not reinforced with rebar, but this was forewarned and as its purpose is merely a heat mass for the hydronic heating system, and will be covered by tile and engineered wood floors, it’s not a problem.  Here is the concrete photographed a couple of weeks later.

I then got Chris Walch, my ever faithful current landlord and self-build mentor to give me a couple of days working assistance and training to do what the trade know as after-framing. This work included dropping part of the ceilings in both down stairs/basement bathrooms for the extractor fans and the Heat Ventilation Recovery (HVR) ducting running through the bedroom closets, …

… as having decided to have the floor joists above at 12” on centre spacing rather than 16” (in order to stiffen the floor where the two kitchen islands will sit) the space was too tight to fit quiet running fans, and also in order to hide the plumbing and electrical ducting running along the back wall of the main floor that supplies plumbing and HVR to the loft suite …

… and along a side wall of the daylight walk out basement.

My plumbers’ team have been back to finish some roughing in work and finish lining up my boiler that is feeding heat to the basement slab. We’ve agreed we won’t be supplying heat to the main floor slab for a month or so as the concrete is too young, but as I only want to heat the building to a mere 8 deg C as protection from the outside below freezing temperatures, it is not an issue.

Readers might have noted in an earlier photograph of the main floor concrete slab some big bags of what is called “Roxul Safe and Sound” insulation. Rather than heat insulation, this type is both fire and sound insulation. In my case, as it doesn’t really negate the fact wood framing would burn at a much lower temperature than the 1100 deg C level this stuff is designed to withstand (and there are no real fire safety building code requirements for single detached dwellings other than common sense) my interest is internal sound insulation. I had 40 bags of this delivered and disbursed in various areas of the house a few days before I flew to UK.

I have started the initial insulation of the walls between the mechanical room and the adjacent bedroom …

… and the wall between both those bedrooms ...

… and the bedrooms and the downstairs family room,…

... and made a start in the lobby where the timber staircase will be built by Bob Damstrom after the drywalling.

Why am I going to this trouble you may ask?  One thing I have always noted is how poor framed internal wall insulation can often be in most builds (simply a case of cost cutting by builders as the buyer would not normally know at the time of purchase). I intend to continue with this task in the daylight walkout basement quarters and my loft master suite, plus the underside of the floors on return in January.

Bob Damstrom also delivered a set of well cut and brush sanded timbers for my small 32’ x 4’ loft bedroom deck a few weeks ago. These are already up in the loft and I have now stained in readiness for my return, and with Chris’s assistance will lay those deck timbers on the cantilevered joists that were built during structural framing last summer.

Being a fraction of the size of the front deck, I am hoping this will be about half a days work. Bob is continuing to build and stain in his yard my guardrails for both the external wooden and concrete over garage deck. While possible he may have installed these by the time I return from my UK trip, access for a trailer up the steep drive with the very recent snow dump may now prove impossible, so completion may now have to wait a couple of months.

Readers will recall my frustration in my last post about the ever-increasing delays to my being able to move in to a legal but basic shell of a house where the inspectors will approve occupancy. What had always been planned as early October, then became December, and is now realistically at least 3 more months work away, but further frustrated by access issues for delivery of heavy materials while snow is on the ground. Further, in terms of work on my part that has to be done prior to dry walling (such as sound proofing internal walls, building three internal showers using the Schluter shower building system (https://www.schluter.ca/schluter-ca/en_CA/Shower-System/c/SS), etc, etc) there is quite a bit of work still to be done by me in order to save what I would otherwise have to pay to trades. Further factors are the reduced pace of working in the cold and that as I have been going at this flat out since end of March, I need/want to ease back and take a break. So, especially with my current trip to UK, I took a decision last week and agreed with my intended drywalling contractor to delay his work until late March early April. The next two months will be a mix of dealing with those tasks I have set myself as just mentioned, focusing on a bit more exercise and regaining weight (having lost 17 lbs while doing this work) and taking a bit of time out for a break, possibly somewhere warm. To that effect I anticipate doing a short update next at the end of January. In the meantime, may I offer all my family and friends that read this blog, plus some unknown readers I can see are reading it in places such as Germany, Poland, Estonia, and Ecuador, a very Happy Christmas and New Year.