An interesting posting appeared yesterday about a new detergentless washing machine (french only) from Haier.

As pointed out in the comments of the posting (via Engadget): There is no mention of it having an EnergyStar rating, likely because splitting water into OH- and H+ (the process the machine uses instead of detergent) likely uses quite a lot of electricity.

Still, a very interesting start. (Plus, if I’m right about the near-future promise of solar power, exchanging electricity for cleaner water will be a trade I’ll be happy to make.)

Because of our restricted budget on this project, we plan on completing a lot of the work on our own. As such what we want the builder to complete is different from what most people would want (i.e., a finished home).

We consulted with the city’s building inspector for our area to find out what minimal building standards existed and found the following:

• All floors must, at minimum, be 5/8″ tongue & groove plywood. No other flooring is required, in general (see below).
• At least one bathroom must be completed with a functional toilet, sink and shower. The floor cannot be just subflooring, and must be waterproof (e.g., tile). Other bathrooms in the house can just be left at the rough-in stage.
• The city does not actually issue an occupancy permit for single-family dwellings. They will not stop you from moving in any time. However, we do need to check with our insurance company as they may not cover us if we are living in a partially completed house.
• He will want to meet with us to review the building plan before we begin, but after we get our construction permit from the city.

NOTE: I am not a lawyer. This is just my interpretation of what I was told. If you need the answers to these types of questions for your own project, you should definitely ask the question of your own local inspector.

I should also emphasize that while we are trying to some degree to meet minimal code requirements, this is only for what needs to be completed not how it should be completed. Those items that we are completing should significantly surpass building code standards.

Because of the complex arrangement we have regarding our neighour’s tree, Toronto’s Urban Forestry Service had to write up a legal agreement between the three of us (the city, us, and our neighbour) describing what would be happening with the tree.

After a couple of attempts at correcting the language to reflect the situation, the documents were still coming back from the UFS without an accurate description of the agreement. (In short: we will remove a tree from our neighbour’s lawn and put the replacement tree on our lawn, and be responsible for it. That wasn’t so hard, was it?)

In the end I wound up rewriting the agreement myself, using all the legalese I could muster. Hopefully this will be good enough.

It has been a long 5 weeks since my last post and unfortunately not much as happened as we’ve been mired in budgetary issues… until tonight!

We met with a new builder this evening and he seems to think we can bring our construction project in on budget after all. Wow!

I should mention that we did not try to mess them about. We went with the ‘cards on the table’ approach and informed them that this project was, to others who had seen it, very expensive to build, and that even an independent coster said so. On the other hand, we also did our best to illustrate the design elements that should make it much easier to build.

They need to put in a formal bid, of course, but their initial impression of the plans was that we were not, in fact, building a rocket ship; That while the materials were unique, the way in which the house went together was not all that different from traditional construction. And the house was so well thought out in its design, that it should be reasonably simple to build.

In short: they ‘got it.’

The anticipated construction time would be 6 months, and if all goes really well, we might be able to break ground in September. Here’s hoping!

One item that did concern them (and you should be aware of if you plan to build in the city) is that they were quite keen to be able to put scaffolding on our neighbour’s driveway while building the exterior walls. I hadn’t considered it before but building on a narrow lot such as ours (well, at 25′ ours is actually wide for the area), it would be very difficult to erect an exterior wall if you couldn’t put scaffolding outside the property area (unless it was a VERY narrow house).

Today we met with the Joanne at her office in Hamilton, along with Alex and a prospective contractor.

The purpose of the meeting was to try to identify the portions of the house which were causing it to be so expensive. We made some good progress and identified the following items:

• The ‘c’ shape of the house introduces 4 additional corners to the foundation. It would be cheaper/easier to build a rectangular foundation. This means our ‘cold room’ would be inside the foundation, but if it is well insulated from the house interior and unheated, it should provide us with nearly the same effect.
• The stairs to the basement are quite expensive and could be added at a future date.
• According to the energy modeling team, the radiant floors on the ground floor and 2nd floor are excessive for our needs. The house’s structure is going to be so efficient, that it simply isn’t going to take much heat to keep the house comfortably. It’s felt this amount of heat can be easily distributed through the ventilation system. Radiant floors should apparently still be used in the basement because, as Alex pointed out: we’re pouring concrete anyway. It’s hardly any extra work to put the tubing down before we do that.
• Move Stacey’s writing garret inside the roof of the house.
• And other smaller changes.

That last point is the hardest one on the list. We think that part ads a lot of character to the house and we’ll be quite sad if it has to go to appease the budget gods. Alex is working on an analysis of what savings we might find from each of the features taken away from the house and we’ll make our choices once we know what we’re saving for each item we’re giving up.

We still haven’t settled on a solution to resolve our parking dilemma, but have mentioned the issue to our neighbours to see if they would be interested in creating a shared laneway to the back yard for parking to be set up there. The other option we’re exploring is narrowing the ground floor to leave enough space for a full parking space at the side of the house.

There is a major difference between these approaches as the former only requires 2.2m of space between the houses, whereas the side-parking requires 2.6m of space between our house and the property line. It also leaves the 2nd floor overhanging the first floor. (I can’t say we really understand why the city wants us to make one of these choices instead of just parking in front of our house as we, and as many others on our street, do now.)

This was very strange.

Two general-contractors were bidding on our project. One needed a little more time, and one needed a lot more time. We granted the long extension (to May 20) and the architect informed the other contractor of the new timeline. (This is not that unusual: their trades and suppliers are all very busy so getting everyone to return their quotes for the work to be done can be challenging.)

Both contractors were really nice and came across as thoroughly professional, but when it came time to turn in the bids, the contractor who needed the longer extension didn’t arrive.

He didn’t call, didn’t return our 2 phone calls or the calls from the architect over the next few days. He just disappeared. The behaviour seems so out of keeping with the fellow we met that we are a bit concerned that he’s been injured on a work-site. It just doesn’t make much sense that he couldn’t take 30 seconds to say “Sorry, I’m just too busy to take on this project” so the only other (disturbing) explanation we’re left with is that he’s unable to contact us.

The one bid we did receive was, unfortunately, well outside our anticipated budget for the project. He called us to let us know that he was keen to sit down and see where the project could be modified/simplified to reduce the budget, which was nice. We’ll probably wind up doing this once we are more certain what direction we’re going in regarding parking.

I went down to the Committee of Adjustments desk at City Hall to discuss the parking pad stipulation on our variance and it was suggested we contact the Manager of the Toronto East York Panel to discuss the issue.

I sent her an email describing the issue and received a phone call in reply. She patiently explained that the committee’s decision actually indicated we must obtaining a parking pad permit before being approved for our plans to build a parking pad, but that our request to provide no parking was approved on its own. (This seems different than what we thought we heard at the meeting, but it’s hard to say for certain. Regardless, that’s how it was noted in the official decision.)

So we are not blocked to build the house as it is, providing we remove the parking pad and plan to provide soft landscaping across 75% of the front of the yard.

However…

She also made clear that the city will tolerate no shenanigans. If we go ahead with no parking pad and no legal parking, cars parked on the existing driveway in front of our house would be ticketed, our curb-cut across the sidewalk would be raised to normal height and cars could park in front of it.

She indicated that they prefer we do this because every parking space added back to the street “adds parking for 4 or 5 other people and is for the greater good.” (I don’t see how this can be true but she seemed quite adamant on this point.)

We’re not sure if the city is just talking tough on this issue with no intention of enforcing the bylaws, but it’s got us thinking very seriously about finding a new layout for the house; One that includes enough room for a legal parking space. We’re discussing our options with the architect and hope to come to a decision reasonably soon.

Today was the big day for obtaining our variances. There were about 30 people presenting their cases to the committee, and we were the 2nd variance in the first group (the group with no really complicated variance requests).

The committee first asks if anyone is present to speak against the project, and if they are, both groups are asked to step outside and first try to come to some agreement about the situation (even if they’ve tried before).

No one was present to contest our variances, so we were offered our 5 minutes to present any information we felt the committee should know (there’s even a big clock on the wall). We just gave a quick overview of the project (which was probably also unnecessary as all this information was already submitted with the application). They quickly voted to approve, with the small stipulation that we obtain pad parking since we would not have “a legal parking space behind the front wall of our house.” Since we were planning on getting a pad-parking permit anyway we claimed victory! The whole process took under 5 minutes (not including the months of waiting to see the committee).

However…

Upon returning home and contacting the Off-street Parking Office, we discovered we are not eligible for pad-parking because permit parking is available on our street (by-law 918).

So: the city won’t let us put a car on an existing driveway on our property because it’s possible for us to get a permit to cram the car onto the overcrowded street where it will be available for small children to dart out from, get in the way of snow plows, etc.

Adding to the frustration is that bylaw 918 only went into effect on April 16. If we had gone through this process a few months earlier (as was initially planned) we’d be all set. Apparently this crack-down on pad-parking permits comes and goes every few years, and we just missed the window.

We do have the option of appealing the Off-Street Parking Office’s decision. However, we’d have to pay $285 to apply (and be instantly rejected) and then file an appeal for $685. The appeal process is lengthy and at the last meeting most appeals were rejected. (I should mention that the folks at the Off-Street Parking Office were really nice and understanding about our situation, though their mandate from the city clearly doesn’t offer them much wiggle room.)

Alex believes that the councilor who made the pad-parking stipulation may not have known about bylaw 918, and may be happy with the de facto equivalent: that we get a street parking permit. We’ll need to make another trip to the permit office to find out.

Yesterday I called the Urban Forestry Service to check on the status of the application to remove the unhealthy tree next door.

The inspector at our local UFS office called today to let me know that the paperwork was only marked as received by their central office today (though it was dropped off on Monday). It will now be forwarded (via letter mail) to the local office and someone will come by next week to inspect the tree.

Once again I should mention that you should count on ‘the system’ to take longer than you might expect to do everything it needs to do. I don’t mean this as a dig towards the government agencies that regulate all the different aspects of a construction project, only that you should remember to allot sufficient time for each group to complete the due diligence required by their mandate.

In speaking with the inspector today we also found out that even though our neighbours authorized the arborist to manage this process with the city, they will still need to sign the final paperwork authorizing the removal of their tree. We had hoped our build would be of as little inconvenience to them as possible, but it looks like we’ll have to impose a little more paperwork on them yet.

(Sorry guys!)

There is also some good news as far as the timeline goes though: In the case where one is applying to remove a tree that the city considers to be unhealthy, there is no 2-week public appeal process. It makes sense now that I think about it: there’s no reason to preserve a tree that is dying and therefore could fall, no matter who would like to see it stay.

You know you’re really getting close to getting your project underway when the city gives you a sign to post! Woo hoo!

Our notice to the neighbourhood of our intent to build (and request ‘minor variances’) is up in our front window, and we will (hopefully) clear our last hurdle with the city on May 23rd! Right around this time we should have our Urban Forestry Service clearance, and we can proceed with applying for our building permit.

I was so excited about the sign being up that I took a photo, but sadly both my media card reader AND the cable for the camera have gone missing. I’ll try to update this post with the photo a little later.