An interesting idea occurred to us this evening.

Since we have the basement walkout in front of the house, why not build a room underneath the front porch, also accessed from the stairwell, that can be used as a shed house (bike storage, gardening equipment, etc. (See newly posted “Elevations” drawing in the Galleries area to see the area in question.) It also means changing the front porch from wood to concrete. The porch itself would become the roof of the room below it.

We’re really not keen to spend the extra money, but it’s not the sort of thing we could really do after the fact.

The demolition guys will be excavating any day now so if we’re going to do it, we’ll have to decide fast so we can tell them where to dig, and how deep.

[UPDATE: We can’t do it. Yes, we can use the area under the front porch, but only for a cold cellar accessed from inside the house. External access to the room is not allowed.]

We finally got our contract with our builder signed last week. That probably should have been done much earlier or we could have been left with an empty hole in the ground and no builder. It helps that he comes recommended through our architect (and is in all ways an extremely nice and smart guy) and so we felt could be trusted at his word. In general however, it’s good to remember: “Verbal contracts are not worth the paper they aren’t written on.”

With the temperature swinging into positive digits for the rest of this week, we were really hoping to have the hole dug so the footings could be set while it’s a bit warmer out.  The footings are the only tricky piece of our build as far as building through winter goes. The ICF walls are self-insulating as they are poured so the concrete will have no problem setting properly (slowly).

But if the ground is frozen or we failed to keep the footings warm enough, it could cause problems with the curing process. Our builder plans to be on site as soon as the demolition guys have cleared the ground so he can lay down hay. This will apparently prevent the ground from freezing.

Unfortunately the demolition team is now saying “Friday at the latest” for their completion date, which seems like a really long way off considering the amount of work remaining. We’re now 3 weeks behind schedule just for the demolition.

The builder still feels like he could be finished his part by the end of May. 😯

The demolition crew are now removing the rest of the debris from the lot and are simultaneously moving into excavation. My summary of our interactions to date: A really nice group of fairly unreliable guys.

For example: they were supposed to recover several things from the construction site:

• The kitchen cabinets: Countertop was broken and disposed of before we could say “we’ll take it anyway”. We did reclaim the rest of the cabinets.
• The wrought iron arch from the kitchen: Smashed. Large pieces missing. It’s inconceivable what their strategy was for removing it that resulted in *any* damage to it, never mind this.
• 100 year old solid wood 2×6 joists, 2×4 wall supports, up to 1×16″ planks on the walls: “It was all rotted by termites and water damage. We saved what we could.” That was a about 1 dozen *new* 2x4s from the latest addition to the house. It almost makes one wonder how the house could stand if *everything* else was rot. (It also makes one wonder what the value of 2nd hand 100 year old wood is. :-\)
• All power outlets and light switches: This is weird because I was half done the job. They seem to have thrown out what I had collected up to the time they showed up on the first day.

We did get to keep the front & back doors, breaker box & breakers, and the main power-connection point for the house.

Another oddity: constant contract renegotiation.

They initially wanted $6,500 up front and then a series of payments during the job. We argued that given the widespread corruption problems of their industry, we would be foolish to hand over $6500 — they may just not show up (as is common practice). We have no security.

They, on the other hand, can lien our property for $25 and 10 minutes of their time at city hall. They can lock up our biggest asset if we even hesitate to pay them. Plus since this is the beginning of the build process, they can’t be worried that we don’t have enough budget to get through demolition.

They ultimately agreed to a structure whereby they would be paid in 3 stages as work was completed: Removal of ground floor, removal of basement & foundation, excavation. This was all fine and well until they were partway into the job started hitting us up for early payment.

To make a long story short: they kept offering up factually incorrect reasons why they should be paid early, and blaming the ‘head office’ for making them ask. We ultimately agreed to give them partial payments for the portion of the work we thought had been completed.

In part I really like these guys, but another part of me considers the possibility that we really are just one poorly considered payment away from them running off with what money they have and abandoning the job.

I kept feeling like by saying ‘no’ we were just pushing our interpretation of ambiguous contract language and therefore it was somewhat unreasonable for us to refuse their interpretation. But that wasn’t even close to reality. Our contract could not have been more simply worded, or more clearly defined about when payment was due. It was in no way due.

e.g., it stated debris is to be hauled away before payment. There were 6 (!) bin-loads of debris awaiting removal when they were demanding payment.

You should be prepared to feel like a jerk even when you’re completely in the right, and consider the possibility that holding back payment is the right thing to do, even when the case isn’t so clear-cut. This is another reason why it’s so important to clearly define the work and payment schedule.

Everyone in this industry wants their money early but for 100% of cases where people get scammed, early payment was the crucial mistake.

Our surveyor from way back at the beginning of this project returned today to mark the “outsets” (I think that’s what they were called). He puts stakes around the property noting how far from each stake the house begins. This includes one marking how far down the bottom of the footings need to be.

The footing depth is absolutely critical for several reasons:

1. If the house is too deep, the outging sewer connection will not flow properly. (It won’t be installed at all, actually.)
2. If the house is too high, we’ll be in violation of the building code which limits the height of a house to 10m above grade at the front wall of the house.
3. The footings must rest on undisturbed soil. There is no acceptable way to recompress the soil once it has been disturbed. If the footings did sit on disturbed soil, the house (especially one made of concrete) could tilt and/or sink.

The surveyor marked the bottom of the footings based on traditional building practices because the documenation we provided didn’t stipulate exactly what was going on beneath the surface of the basement floor.

For our project, we have some extra height requirements because our footings are 10″ deep (typically 6″), we have 2″ of insulation between the ground and our basement floor, and our floor itself is 4″ instead of 3″ thick. The net result is an extra 7″ of depth to the bottom of the footings.

Chronologically, this post should have appeared a few months ago but I thought it would just get confusing if posts started appearing behind latest post.

The most important thing to know about shutting off your utilities is that you will want to start the process early.

> ON1CALL / LOCATES / LOCATE BURIED SERVICES (Estimated time to complete: 5 business days)

First you’ll want to either visit the (terribly designed) On1Call web site or call them at 1-800-400-2255, so they can mark the location of your underground services.

I was told that my demolition company / builder should make the call for reasons of liability, but I called anyway. (They can always call a second time if they need to, and I really wanted to get the process under way.)

> ENBRIDGE GAS / NATURAL GAS (Estimated time to complete: 44 days)

When we first called Enbridge in November to get our gas cut off we were told (or for legal reasons perhaps I’ll say: “what I remember being told was”) that before we could even schedule an appointment to have someone come and give us an estimate on what it will cost to get our gas shut off at the street, we had to have the gas meter shut off at the house.

I remember being agog at this policy and asking clarifying questions like “Doesn’t that mean we’re going to effectively need to move out of the house before we can even book the appointment?” and being told “Yes, I guess so.”

NOTE: If it seems like you know more than the phone-monkey you’re talking to, don’t be shy about calling back for a second opinion. You probably do know more.

To make a long story short, I think the implied conclusion that legal action was imminent for their mistake (they cost us rent we didn’t need to pay because we didn’t need to move out so early) got them to act very quickly and we got our gas cut off in a timely manner, for the minimum charge of $1200.

Surprise! Yes that’s right: A gas line is free to be hooked up (in most cases) but they’ll charge you $1200 (at least) to disconnect them. (Surely our government’s Consumer Protection Branch should be looking into this, no?)

Enbridge had another surprise in store for us (or rather: for our neighbours). It seems on some streets in Toronto, the gas connections are either ‘short’ or ‘long.’ ‘Long’ means (without any warning) they dig up the driveway of your neighbours across the street to get to the buried cut-off valve for your house. (Surprise!)

They were pretty good about refilling the hole and tidily paving over it within 24 hours, but when our neighbours drove over the ~16″ square hole, their wheel fell into it about 1 foot! (Thankfully, all Suburus have all-wheel drive and they were out of it in a jiffy.)

My complaints to remedy the situation seemed to fall on deaf ears and when they did come back to patch it (~5 days later), it looked to me like a drive-by paving. Perhaps someone just heaved a tar-laden ball of stones out the back of a truck?  It wasn’t smooth like the first job, just a sloppy patch of tar & rubble. I’m working on getting them to come back again.

But then, they’ll be back in the spring once the roof is on to dig it out again so they can turn the gas back on. (Brilliant system guys. “Ground-level cut-offs.” Look into it!)

> TORONTO HYDRO / ELECTRICITY (Estimated time to complete: 2 weeks)

Dealing with Toronto Hydro, while it did have its share of paperwork, was pretty much the opposite experience of dealing with Enbridge.

To have the power disconnected from your house you’ll need to fill out a form and return it to them. Bizarrely, this form cannot be downloaded or emailed. It must be faxed or letter-mailed. Once they have the form they can generally accommodate requested shut off dates that are more than 1-2 weeks out.

We happen to have a power pole in our front yard and our insanely knowledgeable Civil Engineer had told us (correctly it turned out) that if the power lines for neighbouring houses cross into your property’s air space, you can ask Toronto Hydro to move them so they run perpendicular to the street’s power lines.

There were no charges for shutting off power to the house or for moving the lines. There will be a fee of around $800 (I think) when they need to hook up power and inspect the house to make sure all is in order.

Also worth noting: If your builder needs a temporary power box on site during the initial phase of construction, the cost associated with this after installation and inspection is around $2000.

Instead, our kind neighbours have graciously agreed to to let our builder borrow power from their outdoor outlets during the first few weeks of construction. Once the roof is on the new house we can install the permanent breaker box and the builder can use that power.

When we were trying to figure out how to calculate the amount of power consumed, the easiest thing to do seemed to be to make the calcuation simple and steeply in their favour. Since power bills come every two months, we’ll probably do something like pay half the total bill. (A bargain compared with the options and sure to be more than we used so they aren’t out of pocket.)

> TORONTO WATER / WATER (Estimated time to complete: 2-3 weeks)

Water shut-off is the most straightforward of all the utilities. I think it only took 1 week, but since we had our first snow fall, they had trouble finding the shut-off valve. If you’re planning on getting the cut off done in winter, you might want to make a mental note of where your cut-off is before the snow arrives.

In our neighbourhood, just about everyone’s water cut-offs are in the sidewalk, but ours was up at the property line. The shut-off guys thought this meant the previous owners must have upgraded the water service already, in which case we would save ourselves the $2,175 (for 3/4″ service, $2,450 for 1″ service) connection charge.

Because we’re changing the elevation of the basement we will still have to put in a new sewer service for $6750. (*coughwheeeeeze*)  And that only takes us as far as the property line. We can either contract with the city’s contractors to bring the line the rest of the way to the house or find someone else to do it for us. (They city’s contractors are usually quite reasonably priced I’m told, since they are on site with all the equipment already.)

There has again been a lot of activity with the house but no time to blog about it with the continued need to work to pay for all this. 🙂

We’ve shut off all utilities (that was quite an adventure) and hired a great demolition company. They are one of very few who offered manual demoltion of the house. Apparently they recycle 95% of the materials in the home (which seems staggering to me). They are also happy to reclaim any materials we want.

We’ve already removed or are in the process of removing the main power panel (seems to be worth about $400 with breakers), electrical outlets, light switches, kitchen cabinets and the bathroom sink. We’ll be asking them to reclain the 100 year-old 2×6 wood joists, the brick from the foundation, the front and back doors, etc.

More details on all this in the future but since I have 14 hours until they arrive, I better get back to the house to finish moving things out!

So much as happened but there has just been no time.

Our permits are ready for pickup. The budget is in. (Ouch.) We have rented a house to move to during construction. Demolition company quotes have been tendered. Etc.

I hope to add more posts to fill in the missing time soon but wanted to at least up to date on the latest news.

The revised plans are into the city! Included with them were documents from the architect answering questions the city had and further technical specifications for the Durisol block and the ICF Ledger Connectors (Simpson Strong-Tie) that will be used.

With any luck I’ll be back at city hall tomorrow with the Grading & Drainage plan. (Too bad about the 1-2 hour wait that comes with each visit!)

NOTE: Many of Toronto’s libraries have free wifi access. City hall has one such library. Once you sign in with the permit office you don’t need to wait at the counter; You can leave and come back around the time you expect to be called.

Unfortunately our Civil Engineer has become swamped with other projects and like many in his industry are just so busy with other things, don’t have much time for a small project like ours.

Since I couldn’t be sure when I’ll actually have the Grading & Drainage plan in my hands, I decided to take what I had down to city hall.

Unfortunately when I tried to hand in the revised drawings 4 of them were rejected because it had the wrong stamp. A set of plans can either have the architect’s seal with a space for them to sign by hand, or it can have the signature embedded as part of the seal. Mine had the former and since they had been sent electronically, weren’t signed.

I was able to submit the new Mechanical drawings (now showing the HRV lines).

I’ve now received the drawings from the architect with the digital signature, and will reprint and redeliver them to city hall in the next few days.

I should mention: when I had to get the plans printed I used Sure Print and Design. They are a little bit out of the way for me, but their pricing for 2’x3′ engineering-bond pages was significantly lower than anywhere else I found. (And they were really nice folks, too!)

One of the many firms I contacted about providing a grading and drainage map (after turning down the work like everyone else, of course) was good enough to spend some time flipping through their list of contacts and provided a referral.

Not only was the referred Civil Engineer interested in doing the work, he was also available to start immediately.

He made a lot of interesting points & suggestions during our conversation:

1. I need to get to the Toronto Water department to arrange hookups for the new house immediately. The timeline for installation is going to be about 6 weeks after all the paperwork is in order and payment is received by the city, so the process should be started very shortly.
2. The city no longer allows the installation of underground storm drainage. As such, our house will definitely need a sump pump and drain out to ground level. All eaves will have to drain to ground level as well.
3. I need to find out the level of the sewers in front of our house to make sure the basement isn’t too deep.
4. I should talk to Toronto Hydro about changing our overhead power lines into ‘drop lines’ (underground). The houses to the North and South have power lines running through our property’s “air space” and he suggested we look into having those turned into drop lines as well.
5. I should get any permit application information back to the city as soon as possible. He suggested city hall is only getting busier so getting the information in for review earlier is always better. (i.e., don’t wait just so the information can all be submitted at once.)

I’m looking forward to tomorrow being a busy day!