Quiet day.

After a frantic week I was ready for a day of relative relaxation. I slept in a teeny bit then headed out to eyeball our progress on the house. I measured up for some plumbing supplies we needed and then headed into town. Todays job was to put in a few of the underground conduits we would need.

The electrical/mechanical room is in one corner of the house. Gas, sewer, water, telephone and cable all come to this same place. This means that conduits from the outside come up inside the walls. I also needed to locate a sewer line across the foundation space from the old house. This pipe will be cut off and abandoned when the new house is complete. All of the pipes had been cast through the walls when we poured the concrete. It was a simple task of cutting and gluing the pipes together, making sure everything sloped the right amount.

Tomorrow we'll begin packing in a whole bunch more sand. Stay tuned...

-grampa dan

Half full or half empty?

Today was another busy one. Gravel trucks arrived regularly. Peter manned the Bobcat, ferrying the material from the driveway, up through the carport, dumping it over the concrete wall into the foundation. I was down inside the foundation on our small tractor jockeying the sand around the floor in six inch lifts. As each lift was completed we ran our vibrating plate packer over the area before beginning the next layer of sand. Progress was halted briefly because of a flat front tire on my tractor but we managed to get a couple of feet of sand into about half of the foundation before the day was done. 

It was with great delight I could finally see over the wall once more and admire the view as I drove back and forth around the foundation to deposit the sand evenly. While one side of the foundation may still be empty, the other side is now half full!

-grampa dan

Rubber roof!

From the early planning stages of our house we wanted to consider all options and pick the very best one we could. The object of our quest was to build the most imaginative house possible while also making it as efficient and green as we could. The roof was a key element of course. I've never been a fan of asphalt roofing. The look isn't my favorite and they don't last nearly as long as their manufacturers claim, most lasting only 10-15 years. Cedar shakes have a limited life as well. We wanted a roof that would outlast Janis and I. A green product would be bonus points as well.

We wanted a better option. The eyebrows and curves of the roofline presented some definite challenges and meant some products we looked at would not work. We needed a roofing material that could conform the the undulations of the roof and we also needed a roofing installation team that was up to the task. After much research we have selected Penfold's Roofing and their Eco-Roof Rubber Shakes. The rubber shakes are made in Calgary, Alberta from recycled tires that are ground up in Vancouver, British Columbia. Our roof will divert more than 1,500 tires from a landfill. The roofing material carries a 50 year transferrable guarantee. The roof can be walked on, pressure washed and will stand up to anything mother nature can throw at it. The shingles are guaranteed to stay in place in winds up to 170 kilometers an hour. We made sure that all the other elements of the roof such as the flashings and vent flashings were also premium materials and designed to last as long as the top layer. 

We look forward to working with this great team to put the best possible roof on our house.

-grampa dan