Putting on the mainfloor floor

Now that we had the foundation poured we spent a few days putting the ledger board around the entire inside of the top of the Basement walls so that we would be able to install the floor for the next level. Like most things, this took Jeremy and I quite some time. Jeremy did the hard job up on a ladder screwing through concrete etc. My job was to line up the boards and notch out the outline for the sill plates…(I think that is what they were called). D. again had agreed to give us a day to put the floor on. When he arrived to install the floor trusses and floor system, we still had a few ledger boards to complete. His method was much quicker and effective…simply smash the ledger board against the sill plate and it eventually makes a dent in the board that fits perfectly. Looking back we could have been our own "Survivor Cagayan: Brains vs. Beauty vs. Braun team". D. definitely was the braun, Jeremy the Brains, and being the only lady on the crew, I guess I get to default as the Beauty. At any rate, things always moved much swifter when D. was on site. True to his word…the floor system, with much of the framing for the basement as the walls in the basement helped support the floor system, was all completed in a day. Now that the floor was in place, Jeremy and I could continue going up with the ICF…

I will forever WEEP when I remember our Weeping tile and our Blueskin...

The weeping tile is the black coil…I never actually took any pictures of this process…Hopefully it will one day all be blotted from my memory. It was a minorly frustrating task that turned into a major frustration for me. You lay weeping tile around the foundation of your entire house to help with drainage. It comes in one complete coil and if you don't roll it out right it can be a real mess…Luckily Jeremy devised a system and though a struggle, we got the weeping tile rolled out and laid along the trench next to our foundation. We went a step further and wrapped the entire length of our weeping tile in landscaping cloth to make sure even less dirt and rocks could get in and plug it up. All of this took time…a lot of time…and these little tasks never seemed as satisfying as they seemed so menial and progress seemed so slow. finally it was laid and in place. However, after the concrete pour, sections of the landscaping cloth had to be cut off and replaced as the concrete splatter had gotten on it, which would have inhibited better drainage. Then washed rock needed to be piled on top of the weeping tile, sloping to the foundation to aid in drainage. We used a bobcat to do much of the rock placement, still having to be careful to get the blueskin in place and held down by the rocks. Having to hand bomb wheel-barrows full of rock in other sections. Once we finally finished this task we ended up having to redo most of it… Our whole passivhaus plan required that we achieve ridiculously high R values in the floor, walls and ceiling. To do this we had investigated a few options, and had planned to do a 2x4 interior wall inside of the ICF wall to add extra insulation. After talking to an ICF passivehaus designer in ireland on the phone, he convinced us that we should just wrap the entire home in an extra 4 inches of styrofoam sheets and that would get us our R-values, without worrying about the interior 2x4 insulated wall around the entire house. So, after having the blueskin, rock and weeping tile all in place, we had to now squeeze 4 extra inches of styrofoam (EPS) sheets down to the foundation inside of the blueskin…this took a ton of extra time and hassle, meant replacing the weeping tile, rock and blueskin, and it is an understatement when I say that it was seriously a happy day when that job was finally finished. I think for the rest of my days (though typically simple jobs…these tasks were made much more complicated by our last minute changes in design and plans), I will forever despise blueskin and weeping tile. Probably my least favourite tasks so far on the house. So frustrating. At times I felt the statement of "the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again", ring true as we did and redid these simple little jobs to get it just right.

FUN at the SITE

We worked hard, the boys played hard and we always came home at the end of the day tired and very FILTHY!!!! Our beds often were filled with dirt in the morning, it seemed in those weeks that we could never free ourselves of the endless dirt and mess of the site…it followed us everywhere. Another MIRACLE from that summer was that we had NO visits to the hospital for any of us…and even though we were working long days on a construction site, and the boys were running amuck on the site while we were busy working, each morning and evening we prayed for protection and safety and I feel so blessed that our prayers were answered. (Also grateful our neighbours never called family services because 3 young boys were running around a construction site all summer long)…Also grateful that the weather was so great all summer long. I don't think we missed one day of work due to weather. Little miracles happened throughout the summer.

THE BIG CEMENT POUR DAY

So, the moment of truth…Our first big pour day for our walls. After being thoroughly traumatized by our footings cement pour, D. agreed to come and help us out for our foundation walls pour. All we needed to do was have all the walls properly braced and they would come and help us out for the day. When pouring ICF walls you have to brace it really well or you could have a blow-out, which would be a huge disaster and pain. Well, no matter how much bracing we had done, we still worried it wasn't enough and so just hours before the cement trucks and the pumper truck was to arrive we were still scrambling to brace. I loved it on days when Dave and his crew were on site. They worked so quickly and efficiently that I really was just in the way, so I went from being crew member to spectator/watermelon/water girl. Definitely happy not to be working with concrete and letting the guys handle it that day. Nevertheless, each concrete pour was stressful and crazy and mayhem, no matter how prepared we thought we were for it…you just have to move so fast as your doing it.

(Happy not to be on the wall) In the end it all worked out, though there were times they had to hustle. That is just the way it goes with the concrete pours… After it was all said and done, Jeremy and I had done our foundation from start to finish in about 3 weeks time. Curious, I asked D. how long it would take him and his crew to do the foundation…his answer…3 days!!!…yikes…I consoled myself by remembering that we did not have to pay anywhere close to $70, 000 for our foundation. So all of our sweat equity, though painfully slow, would be worth it in the end. Yes, we may have been slow, but the thing I liked about us doing the work is we did not cut any corners. I had seen how D. could slap the ICF together in no time flat, but we actually felt good about doing it with a little more precision and perfection. Maybe it doesn't matter in the end, but I liked not seeing big gaps in the ICF and feeling like it was tight and secure. In the end, no blowouts and we had our basement walls.

LEGO LAND

Well, the day our ICF was dropped off was an adventure in and of itself. I was away at Young Woman's camp for three days and knew Jeremy would want to be at the site every day possible as we were racing against the clock to get as much done in the summer before he had to return to work--I hired a babysitter to watch the boys while I was at YW camp. Already feeling a bit guilty and torn about leaving when we had just barely started our big house-building scramble and knowing that I was the only member of Jeremy's "crew" so he would be on his own at the site, I had my doubts about what was the "right" thing to do….go to camp, or support my family. It seemed a huge sacrifice at the time for our family, but even though it was a stake camp, I wanted to support the YW president and the girls and get to know them a little better. And so the morning of YW camp, they picked me up at the site (trying to squeeze in a few hours of work before camp) and away I went. I thought about my family all day long at camp. I knew that the ICF was going to be delivered that day and that Jeremy had already arranged to take the babysitter home around 7:00 pm so that he could get in as much building at the site as possible. So, I anxiously waited until 9:30 pm to try calling him that evening and checking in on how everything went that day. At first I couldn't get through to him at home so I tried calling his cell…after the second attempt the phone picked up but all I could hear was a tonne of wind and a flurry of business, but no voice on the other end. I was so confused. At this time, Jeremy should not be at the site still…the babysitter should be gone and the boys should all be snug in bed. I started to worry a bit. I hung up the phone and tried calling the house again…no answer…I tried Jeremy's cell a few more times. Finally he answered and in a panicked voice he said "I can't talk now, there are tornado warnings here right now and the ICF is all blowing away and getting banged up…I am out here trying to get it all tied down."….Ahhh, tornado warnings…where are the boys? Our rental house does not have a basement so the ICF was not my top concern when I heard "Tornado warning"…Jeremy said the boys were at home (just 2 minutes down the road). He had had Walden waiting in the car as he scurried around the site, but Walden was crying so much he ran him home and woke up Chaim (6 years old at the time) to have him watch Walden while dad went back to the site. I walked back to the camp fire not just worried but starting to feel a little panicked. When the other leaders asked how things were at home I nervously told them that my 6 year old was babysitting during a tornado warning while Jeremy tried to save our building supplies. I am sure both Jeremy and I were saying many prayers that night, and in the end, the boys all survived and so did our ICF…It was on site, Jeremy had managed to save it from being too banged up…The babysitter had survived a long day in a one-bedroom house with three wild boys and the boys had survived being babysat by their 6 year old brother during a tornado warning…and I had survived a near nervous break-down at YW camp (I would like to think I held it together pretty good). By the time Camp was over, we were ready to start building. ICF is like big blocks of styrofoam lego. We staged the bundles of ICF where we were going to need them and began laying block. Jeremy would cut the blocks and lay them and I would help lay them, pound them down and tie them together with zip ties. Jeremy, would then come behind me and tighten the zip ties with a pair of pliers to ensure they were nice and snug. Little by little the exterior walls of our home started going up and we were the ones doing it, while the boys ran amuck on the site. So, while we were busy doing that:

The boys were busy doing this:

P.S., the picture with Jeremy on the scaffolding shows our window bucks. The house actually has a lot of windows on the south side (all part of passive solar heating)…I was impressed and grateful that Jeremy was able to build and figure out all the dimensions for the doorways and window openings. It was a lot of extra work for him to build the window bucks and know where they were supposed to go. I definitely would not be able to do that!

Feeling a sense of urgency yet?

Well, we went from renting our lovely new home at the "sanctuary" for $800/month, to now, while building--renting a one bedroom, home for $800 plus about $200/month to fill our cistern with water. Yes, our little family of 3 boys, a new labradoodle named Kit'n and Jeremy and I (6 warm bodies in total) have been living in a 1 bedroom barn-house while we build. It was the best option for us cost wise and he have made it work…separating a portion of the room with a curtain to make a "boys room", and putting a crib mattress on the floor in the closet, which at first Chaim would use but now Walden uses. This house is also for sale and so several times throughout the build I have wondered if in fact we would be homeless. Turns out not too many people are interested in living in a one-bedroom home (lucky for us I suppose). You would think that with our cramped living quarters and less than ideal arrangement we would be in a little bit more of a hurry to get the house built…I sometimes imagine where we would be right now had I not dug in my heals so much and wasted the year fighting over the blueprints. That being said, we learned valuable lessons in that year as we researched passivhaus and houses, overcame some communications challenges, and found a way to compromise and work together... which helped us be a little more ready for building. In the end I don't think I really regret anything, it was all learning and growing. They say that building a house can be very stressful on a marriage…I don't think when they are saying that most people are their own generals or their own builders most time…this being said, despite all the stresses and craziness we have experienced so far in building, picking the blueprints so far has been the hardest thing we have been through yet. Once we decided and started building we just began to work…and work and work…and each day could see a little bit more progress than the last. however I will say now that we not only are itching to get out of this one bedroom home, but now at times we are going down-right squirrelly in it. We all are in need of a little more space--to say the least.

The day I thought I was going to DIE!!

Well, most contractors, when we mentioned to them our plans of doing a lot of the building ourselves, just kind of laughed at us and didn't take us to seriously…and all of them pretty much refused to work with us if we were wanting that sort of arrangement…all that is, but one fellow. I will call him D. D. was in the process of finishing building a house for a family, and he said he would pop in now and then or when we needed him to give us some tips and pointers and to help us with our concrete pours. For the summer we were on our own save it for a few days here and there when we needed him, but otherwise, he was happy to lend us his forms for the footings and be a bit of a sounding board for us. so…like a hero, he showed up at our site and dropped of his forms so we could lay our footings. He even helped us and was a speed demon with laying them all out. leaving us to finish the rest, I suddenly started getting overwhelmed by the task we were embarking on. "How firm a foundation", and the "wise man built his house upon a rock", and many other lessons on how important a firm, sound foundation is for the rest of the house, played over and over in our minds. Wow, if we mess this up…the rest of our whole house could be a big mess. Ultimately, with the "bottom-line" ever looming over our heads, we had no other choice. We finished setting up the forms and were finally ready for our very first concrete pour. It just so happened to be one of the hottest days so far, around 28-29 degrees C. We called in the help of a young man from our ward…and so our crew consisted of Jeremy, myself, and a young man named Levi. I don't think anything could have prepared me for that day. It was beyond brutal. Probably one of the hardest working days of my life, and truthfully, I don't even know how Levi managed, he was a powerhouse. Well, with us being rookies and all, we had no idea that the concrete could be wetter and it would pour and spread better…Instead, we were having to really work it to get the top of the footings nice and smooth…and we were having to move fast so it didn't dry up on us. When we were almost 2/3 done, we realized we needed help. A quick panicked call to D. who was busy working on his other house, and they (a crew of 3 more) were at our site in 15 minutes. True angels. We were moments away from loosing a whole concrete truck of concrete…it was about to set up and turn to rock right inside the barrel. Those guys moved… It was also discovered at this point that we had not placed our rebar in our footings along the way as we were supposed to, so C. (one of the guys on the crew) to the rescue, started cutting lengths of rebar and pounding them into our quickly setting concrete. After the mayhem died down D. went to get mad at the concrete driver for letting it get so dry in there and not doing something about it sooner (they should know to)…but our concrete driver was actually a bit of a rookie as well…oops. (I think my dad would have called that "the blind leading the blind") In the end, though a near complete catastrophe…it all worked out…a complete answer to prayers and definitely a miracle. During all of this, our Chaim, Oscar and Walden were onsite, with stern warning to remain sequestered to the tent trailer we had set up. It was chaos…But thankfully we all survived…at points I thought I was going to pass out due to physical exertion and extreme heat exhaustion. Jeremy, remained calm and led our misfit crew like a champ, encouraging us along until help arrived... and in the end we got it done, however traumatic it seemed at the time, I will forever be grateful to D. and his crew for coming and saving us when we were just minutes away from major disaster. In the end, the footings were poured…One step closer to having a house.

(Memory: I just remembered how we were not quite done tying the rebar in the footing forms that morning before the concrete trucks arrived. It felt like crazy pressure, like when you watch those Masterchef shows and the clock is ticking down…they have 10, 9, 8, 7…etc seconds to plate the food or feed an army of hungry people..6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1…time!…Times up! the cement trucks are here. Put down your rebar ties. Luckily…another miracle, we finished prepping the forms and the rebar just as the first cement truck rolled in…it was truly a crazy day.)