As I wrote that last post about the late start date I realized something else changed when we lost our May 1 start date: If the house is completed in the dead of winter, we won’t be able to leave the windows open to help clear out the construction dust.

You might recall that in a previous post I mentioned that the micro-particulate released into the air during construction acts as “sandpaper for your lungs” and takes several weeks (if not months) to settle. This is of particular concern as our newborn’s lungs would be highly susceptible to such particles (not that they’re harmless for anyone).

More research is needed here to see what can be done to clean the air — it does seem like the kind of thing one could rent a large air filter to take care of. (Since we are using radiant floor, we’ll have no central air filtration system as part of the house.)

We’ve considered leaving the house empty for a couple of weeks post-construction just to clean the air before moving in. It would be great if we could find a way to get a reading on the quantity of particulate in the air.

As motivated as we are to get this show on the road I have completely failed in my one major task this week: I was unable to find a Civil Engineer interested and available to build the Grading and Drainage map. Either our project was too small, or it wasn’t really the kind of work they did, or it was work they did, but only as part of the larger structural engineering aspect of the job, etc.

It was probably a mistake to try to politely avoid wasting people’s time by only phoning a couple of firms at a time and then wait for someone to get back to me. Next week I think I’m going to have to just keep phoning until we have someone signed on to do the job.

Our builder tells us we could actually start as late as  November 1 and still get the house closed in before winter, but we really don’t want to test that if we don’t have to.

Due to an unfortunately ambiguous email exchange in regards to our permit requirements it turns out the thing that’s holding up our project at the moment is: us!

Somehow we thought someone else was going to be looking after providing a Grading & Drainage plan for the new house but it seems we were the ones who were actually intended to scout out a Civil Engineer for the task.

Apparently all the other issues have been addressed in a series of email messages referencing building codes and jargon that I confess I could not decipher. Once we have submitted all this additional information, the city may still come back with further concerns (but hopefully not).

One thing that I still think is missing from our plans is a very simple air movement system.

At the very first meeting with our architect we mused about how crazy it was that no homes seemed to incorporate the very simplest idea in home cooling: a fan that draws cool air from a basement and pushes it to the upper floors of the house. The fan could even be reversed in the winter to warm up the basement with air from the upper floors.

Somehow over the course of development this idea started to seem impracticle because of the efficiency of the mechanical systems, and a lack of space for the ductwork to run. I think there might also be some building code issues that require a balance of intake and output on each floor (which would defeat the purpose, to some degree).

If I find the time, I’d like to settle once and for all if this is a practical and feasible idea.

We received a revised notice from the city citing many things that will need to be addressed before our plans can be approved, including:

• More details regarding the footings
• Many details about the ICF Support, Structure and Framing
• Header and Trimmer joists
• Etc.

There are 13 items in total, many of them inter-related. We’re still working out who we should be calling to get these details fleshed out to the city’s satisfaction.

We’ve found our new project manager!

Last year, our new PM had actually looked at our plans at the request of the architect and turned down the job as he was already stretched thin. He also wasn’t very keen on the stick-frame construction that had been proposed at the time.

Fast-forward a year and it turns out he had been selected by our old PM to lay the Durisol ICFs for the project. But we met with him today and some really interesting things came to light:

1. He usually works as a general contractor and has a full team of trades on hand to do the work (so he can usually work much faster than other General Contractors who have to hire external trades, whose availability is highly variable).
2. He’s been building Eco-Block ICF homes for many years and has a wealth of experience with ICF type products.
3. He seems like just a great, smart guy who will be really easy to work with.
4. He works on exactly one project at a time.
5. He works the job site himself, so he’s there all day to make sure things are being done correctly (often by him).
6. Even our old PM said he thinks we might be in better hands with this fellow, based on his wealth of experience

I think we will be really happy if we have no more surprises on this project, but so far the majority of our surprise “missteps” have actually had us wind up in a better place than before.

The plan is now to start August 1.

We received one call and one letter letting us know that our building permit application could not be approved until we:

1. Submitted a Grading and Drainage Diagram with our build plans (a new requirement for all new construction in the city).
2. Submitted revised mechanical drawings that show the location of the HRV ducting. (Because our heating system is entirely radiant flooring, one has to show how the ventilation will work.

We’ve asked the Mechanical Engineer to start work on the HRV ducting but we’re not sure who will provide the Grading diagram yet.

Even though it may seem like we have lots of time with our start date being moved back to August 1, we know all too well by now everything that can be rushed, should be rushed or it will never get done.

The Project Manager has received a job offer teaching architecture at a Canadian university and will not be available to help us this summer.

Crap.

This is suddenly shades of last year, but this time we haven’t just paid for plans. We’ve also paid to design a mechanical system, and bought permits from the city for a house we can’t build.

He is (and we are) working on finding a replacement.

This day has been a long time coming: we’ve finally gotten a full set of plans into the city for final approval.

Our initial PAL Review in 2007 was for a stick-frame house with a proposed forced-air heating system. The final plans call for an ICF house with a radiant floor heating system. Several key structural members were also changed in the roof truss design.

While everything has been signed off on by the appropriate professional, we won’t know for certain that the plans are approvable for 10 days. I’m especially concerned about the Plumbing form which the clerk just accepted and said “the plumbing guy will figure it out.”

In addition to our concerns about approvability, we don’t yet have the final budget numbers from the various trades and sub-trades.

At this point we are tentatively looking for places to rent during construction, but probably shouldn’t sign any leases until we receive final approval from the city and finalize the all the significant budget numbers.

I picked up the final plans from the Architect this afternoon and signed over a final cheque for their services. We started our contract with them as a variable rate with the cost of the project, but with the plan to switch to a fixed-rate contract somewhere along the way.

Since we decided not to have the architect oversee construction (our Project Manager is an architect himself and we decided it would be a duplication of effort to have them both overseeing the project) it made sense to close the contract with them at this stage. We may still bring them in (just paid on an hourly basis) to look at the project if we encounter any unforeseen issues.

After leaving the architect’s offices, I tried to submit them to the city today, but ran out of time.

I arrived at the City Planning office shortly after 3pm and the appointment sign-up book was already removed from the counter; There were more people signed up than they felt they could see by the time they closed at 4:30pm.

But if I chose to wait, I was second in line for a ‘stand by’ appointment. My patience paid off.

While there wasn’t enough time to complete an application when I was seen at 4:20pm, but the clerk there reviewed what I had brought. He provided me with the 4 forms for the demolition permit and 5 forms for construction and mechanical permit that I had not brought with me. I also only had 2 copies of the site survey, but needed 4 (2 for construction, 2 for demolition).

AND, I didn’t have additional copies of the tree-removal permit or the Final Binding Decision from our visit to the Committee of Adjustments in 2007.

I completed most of the forms this evening, but the Plumbing form was fairly confusing. I completed it about 3/4 of it based on what I could discern from the plans and with some feedback from the Project Manager. I hope to ask for a little more guidance from the city clerk when I submit the plans tomorrow.