Our basement has walls

Yesterday morning, I went to the lot bright and early, expecting to see the cribbers arriving. DH came along, and rode his bike from there to work. This is what we found:

 Apparently they came on Tuesday. When they said "hopefully" Tuesday, I interpreted that as "probably not Tuesday". But they arrived on Tuesday, and by Wednesday at 8:30am, the forms were almost complete. The concrete was poured on Wednesday afternoon. So when I came back on Wednesday afternoon, the forms were full.

While they were finishing up the forms in the morning, BIL stopped by and we discussed the options for getting the sewer pipe through the basement wall. On his last project, they left a one foot by one foot square hole in the concrete, and then filled it with spray foam. This time, they were not willing to cut into the forms. They offered to stick the pipe in the form before the concrete, but it would only be as wide as the wall. There wouldn't be anything sticking out to connect to. So we agreed to get a hole cut by a concrete coring company. I kind of felt choked up at the thought of what that would cost and how long the delay would be. But the first guy I talked to said $150. The second guy said $225. The third guy didn't call back. Okay. First guy it is.

I asked the cribber, and he said the forms would come of on Friday. BIL is away on Friday for the long weekend, so I arranged for the corer to come on Tuesday morning.

On Wednesday afternoon, there was a pile of garbage and construction waste left behind. So I went back late Thursday morning to work on getting it cleaned up. The city charges $110 per tonne for basic garbage disposal; $70/tonne for recyclable garbage, such as raw wood and metals; or $150/tonne of basic garbage with the recyclables not sorted out. So, I'll put some effort into sorting it out. Besides the cost, we're trying to be green where it's feasible. A few hours of my own time to sort the waste is feasible at this point. The city fee structure doesn't seem like really an incentive to recycle. Compared to the cost of hiring multiple bins, and harassing the crews to sort it, just tossing it all is probably cheaper. Plus, we can hire companies to provide bins and haul them away, but I'm sure they charge the city's disposal fees PLUS bin rental and trucking charges. Taking the garbage to the dump myself saves that. At least until we start accumulating a lot. We don't have room on the site to put a dumpster at this point, anyway.

When I got to the site, I found this:

The cribbers had been back and removed their forms. We have something that resembles a basement!

Once again, we're moving faster than I expected and the next guys aren't lined up until next week. I guess it's better than having the next guys waiting and having to put them off. 

A few days ago, I was talking to Ryan, and he hasn't heard back from the city on our full permit. We're currently allowed to build up to the first floor, but then we have to wait on the rest of the permit. We should have had the permit by now. But I've been distracted with the building of the foundation, and Ryan's been on vacation, so we hadn't chased it. 

So I called today. Apparently it's been "on hold, waiting on further information" since Aug 14. But they hadn't notified Ryan until I called to check on it. Argh. 

Hopefully it doesn't set us back too much. The new truss layouts are due tomorrow. So we won't be able to order our floor joists until next week. We're probably about 2 weeks until we are stuck waiting on the permit. 

Moving again.

The spraycrete guy called me on Sunday afternoon. Unfortunately, I left my phone in the car, so I got a voicemail rather than answering myself. His message said that he was sorry, but our job didn't make it into his operator's file. But he IS the operator? And also his office staff was out of town. All week? So, he'd "try" to get the mesh placed on Monday, and spray on Tuesday.

I think he heard that I spoke to several concrete guys in the city and told them that he'd disappeared. He's now getting in touch with me to put an end to those rumours.

Since MrDinks and I had already picked up the wood, and BIL was scheduled to start the wall on Monday, I phoned the spraycrete guy back. I called back the number that he called from, so he answered. I told him that because he hadn't come to the site when he was scheduled, and nobody had called, we had since made alternate arrangements and his services were no longer required. He didn't seem surprised or upset.

I am still in shock that after a week of silence, he thought we were going to just allow him to come when he felt like and pay him crazy money.

So BIL and his labourer (who MrDinks refers to as "the intern"), started on Monday morning with the expectation of being done on Tuesday. At 11am, he sent us a photo of the finished wall.

The foundation walls are starting tomorrow, Wednesday.

I've made a decision on the window supplier. The Direct Buy finally got his installation quote, and he comes out to more expensive than the other company. So, we're not going with Direct Buy. Gotta get these ordered this week.

I also decided to go with the cheap and/or fast framer, and scheduled him. I'm nervous, but we'll watch him closely to start.

Also, we were at the lot yesterday, and found an empty beer can in the hole. That's going to the bottle depot. If we get 9999999 more, the house will be paid for!

Aaaand... Stop.

Today was concrete spraying day. We've waited the 2 weeks until the concrete spray guys could get to us. I called on Monday to confirm we were still on for today. No response. The foundation guy wanted to know if he was going to be able to start on Friday, so I tried the spraycrete guys again on Wednesday. No response.

Surely the silence is affirmative, right? If they WEREN'T coming, they'd send me a quick email, or leave me a return voicemail, "hey, we're a little behind, see you on Monday," right?

Hahahahahaha! Silly newbie.

I went by the lot at noon today. Nothing. No sprayed concrete. No workers. Nothing. So I called the office again, and left another voicemail.

I also called the foundation guy, who works with this company fairly regularly. Could he poke these guys for me? Turns out, they aren't returning HIS calls, either. He has several other jobs that are waiting on the spraycrete before he can start, and they aren't showing up to those jobs, either. Hmm, this doesn't sound good.

So I spent the afternoon calling around to see if there's anyone else to do it. Before booking these guys, I spoke to the 3 companies who come up when you Google "spraycrete Calgary". The first guy was booked for the next year on commercial projects. He suggested we try #3. The second guy does solid, engineered retaining walls, overkill for our needs. Also, they want us to backfill the lot so they can bring in big equipment to drive spikes into the dirt, which only has 3 feet before it hits the wall of the neighbour's basement. Besides spending a whole lot of money to go backwards, driving spikes into the neighbour's basement wall seems like a bad way to start off in the neighbourhood. Number 3 is the guy who has disappeared. Calling around to various companies in related industries got me lots of "have you tried Number 3?"

So back on the phone with the foundation guy. What can we do? There's nobody to spray the concrete. BIL has done wooden walls in the past, can we do that? Well, since we've gone 2 weeks, during which we've had serious rain, and high heat, and the wall of dirt has not moved at all, the wood is probably fine. But the foundation guy doesn't have guys to build it, and he doesn't know BILs schedule. I told him if not BIL, then MrDinks would get it done. So the plan now is to build the wooden wall on Monday. MrDinks and I will pick up the materials on the weekend. Hopefully, we don't have to clean out all the Lowes stores again. 

The first step needs a foot.

On Sunday, I got an email from our foundation guy asking for our plans because they might be starting the footings on Monday. Apparently this can be done before the sprayed concrete because it doesn't require standing between a wall of loose dirt and a wall of plywood. But then I asked if he wanted me to bring him paper plans, and he didn't respond. On Monday, I sent him another email asking if they were starting, and in the afternoon, he replied yes, and they were hoping to pour concrete on Tuesday. So I stopped by the lot, and there was a guy there setting up the forms. Yay!

I decided to stop by again this morning, to take pictures of the finished forms waiting for the concrete that would "hopefully" be poured today. A concrete pump truck was there before me. I snapped a picture and sent it to MrDinks. His comment was "A pump truck? How much are we paying for this? I expected wheelbarrows!"

After a half an hour or so, the concrete truck showed up.

And 23 minutes later, we had footings and the concrete truck was on his way to the next job. Apparently the pump truck is cost effective when it allows them to do 16 houses a day.

Yesterday. I went to visit the Direct Buy window place. They didn't have samples of my windows because they had taken them to DB (around the corner) for me to see. DB was closed yesterday. So I drove all the way down there for nothing. They also don't have their install price yet. The guy seems hesitant to get that. He wants to refine the order before getting an install price. I explained to him that I need an install price because if he's $3k cheaper than the other guy, but his install price is $3k more, then they are actually the same price. And the other guy doesn't require me to purchase a membership at Direct Buy to get that price. He also doesn't have the French doors we were planning to get from the other place. He can sell us French doors that are not from the same line as our tilt & turn windows, so they'll open, but don't have the tilting windows. And they probably aren't as weather tight. For patio doors, they offer sliders. For weather efficiency, instead of just sliding, they come loose from the track and then slide. Then, when it closes, it snaps back in place. Super cool. But super expensive. Plus, these are super heavy doors, so they take 2 hands to operate. So carrying stuff to the BBQ would be difficult. And, since we've only got a 6' opening, the opening would be 34" or less. French doors would allow us to have the full 6' open to the deck. On the 4 days a year you can do that here, that's important.

Anyway, the install guy was supposed to be back from holidays today, and the salesman would call me today to set up an appointment. But he didn't. So I'm going to have to harass him tomorrow.

I also found out that another truss company in town would be about $6k cheaper than the company we've been working with. So we're getting new layout from them, which may delay framing.

But we're probably not going to start on framing until October anyway. The new guy is really cheap, and available. But he's a little too good to be true. He claims he'll be done in 2 weeks. With one helper. The other guy says 5 weeks, with a crew. Hmmm.

But, anyway, we have footings!! We have officially started the build!

We still have a hole...

Excavation was finished last Friday. There hasn't been much activity at the lot since then as we're waiting on sprayed concrete against the side of the hole next to the neighbour's house. That's scheduled for Thursday, the 21st.

We have a framer booked for the middle of October. But when one of the window people called to check up on me, I explained that framing is delayed. So she gave me the name of a new framer. The new guy is available immediately, and significantly cheaper. But BIL has been out of town, so I can't get any feedback from him about whether to hire the new guy.

The window company that we were hoping to use has informed us that they can't get their certification in time for us to use them. But then the Direct Buy window quote came in, and we're a few thousand less than the other company we were considering.

Speaking of Direct Buy, we also got the quote back for the kitchen, and it's not a deal at all. It is a little cheaper than the same thing without DB, but it doesn't include installation. We might break once we hire someone else to do the installation, but I'd rather just deal with one person. I wasn't all that impressed with the DB kitchen designer anyway. Looking at flooring options doesn't look promising, either. We can save money if I select certain prefinished options. But none of them would be my first choice. And again, finding someone to install it makes it unappealing.

The thing that has me still considering Direct Buy is siding. I discovered a brand called Maxi Plank last fall. It's a fiber cement board, like Hardie. Hardie is the default fiber cement product around here, but I'm not impressed. Hardie comes in a handful of rather bland colours. It's also only got a 10-15 year warranty on the finish, despite the reputation of being something that never needs maintenance. 10-15 years is not maintenance free. Maxi Plank, according to the wholesaler last fall, is painted locally, in any colour. They do a 2 coat process and their warranty is 25 years. And they were supposed to be cheaper than Hardie. So that's what I decided on. But then I got a materials quote for the Maxi Plank and Hardie, and I discovered that there's a primed version of Hardie that the local reseller will have painted by the same people who do the Maxi Plank. So, if you compare the locally painted product, including painting, Maxi Plank is slightly cheaper than Hardie. But if you can live with one of the standard Hardie colours, then that's significantly cheaper. When I heard that, I decided on Hardie's Evening Blue. But now, through a Direct Buy connection, I can get Maxi Plank in a custom colour for about $3k less than standard colour Hardie. To me, that's worth getting the DB membership. But then, hopefully I can find an installer who allows me to buy the materials myself.

On Friday, I got a quote from a local building supply company for our rigid foam for the outside of the basement walls. I then compared their price to Lowes. Lowes' price was about a third the bulding supply company's. Plus, this weekend they are having a promotion where if you spend more than $300, you get 15% off. To throw a kink in the deal, none of the local Lowes stores had enough foam for us. So we started with the furthest away store, and cleaned them out.

But then at the cash, we only got a 5% discount. It turns out that when buying large quantities of building materials at Lowes, you automatically get contractor pricing, which is 5%. But then you don't get the 15% discount on top of that. So the cashier refunded the purchase price, and manually discounted our foam. And then the computer added the 5% again. She decided to give it to us rather than refund the purchase again and fight with the computer some more. Score!

So then we drove home with 30 sheets of foam stacked up in the back of the truck. At 2" each, the stack was 5' high. So rather than take the expressway home, we took the back roads through the industrial areas and then the sketchy neighbourhoods of the city. We unloaded it at home, and then went to another store to get more. At this store, they had to involve 3 cashiers and the manager to get the 15% discount. But then the manager knew that the computer would add on the 5%, so he gave us a 10% discount first. We ended up with slightly less than 15% off, but given the extra discount we got on the first load, we didn't argue too much. This load was only 32" high, so we were able to take the highway home. But overall, we spent 4 hours picking up our foam. MrDinks pointed out that this is why contractors don't put a lot of effort into searching out the best prices.

So, we're now ready for a foundation. Hopefully we'll get that this week. 

Aaaaand, GO!

This was the sight on site yesterday morning. Side driveway is already gone, along with the front walkway, which I had been thinking about keeping as the only remaining piece of the original house. Oh, well. At least we're digging. Doesn't the backhoe look pretty in the morning sun?

By mid afternoon, we had a hole, and they were putting in the new sewer line from the house to the street. 

The excavator guy suggested I warn the neighbours that their fence may fall into the hole. Check. Good thing the neighbours are friendly. Let's try to keep them that way. 

And I got a quote from a framer. He can't start until October, but his price is excellent. And he's willing to put our first floor on earlier so we can get the basement ready for sewer connection, and close up the hole. 

I then spoke to the distributor of my Certainteed faux cedar siding, and they finally have samples, I can pick them up on Friday. Whoohoo! I feel like I should buy a lotto ticket. 

But then I contacted the guys who connect the sewer from the edge of our lot to the middle of the street. They can't schedule us until November, which is about when we'll need them. But that's also too far into winter, so there's a good chance we'll have to pay a $4000 "damn it's cold" premium. Boo. There's another guy we can book, but he's $1000 more. So, do we risk having to pay $4k more by trying to save $1k? Or do we book the guy who's $1k more, and hope we're ready for him earlier? I called the more expensive guy's office today, and they seem to be only about 2 weeks out. So I think I'll book the first guy for November. If we're looking like we're going to be ready sooner, then I'll call the second guy. 

Today's gotcha came from the foundation guy. He was thinking of starting Saturday, so he stopped by to investigate today. He wants the wall of dirt next to the neighbour's house shored up with concrete before he starts. Buh. In addition to an extra $6k, that may take a few weeks to get done. So, working on that. 

I got a price on the one tile I was considering for the bathroom floor. It's almost 3 times the price of the first one. So I think I'm going to go grab the cheaper one if I still can. 

My other task today was a visit to Direct Buy. We've been thinking about making some house purchases from there in order to save money. But it's been a giant question mark. We had heard that the membership was somewhere in the vicinity of $5-6k. And then, how much do you save on stuff? I went in prepared for a timeshare sales pitch. It was much more relaxing. I watched a video about how evil retailers are, how revolutionary Direct Buy is, and the reason for their secrecy. It's due to the agreements with the wholesalers. If the wholesale price of a couch is $600, and Leons is selling it for $1500, and DB advertised that their members got that couch for $600 (plus shipping and handling), then random people would go into Leons and demand a discount. Leons might be so mad at the wholesalers that they'd stop selling that brand. And since Leons is a bigger reseller than Direct Buy, the manufacturers demand that Direct Buy keep the prices secret. Fair enough. The rest of the time there was spent looking at the various products I could get. Since I was prepared for the hard sell, "sign up now or never sign up" demands, I had gone in with a long list of products and selling prices from other sources. They weren't able to give me instant pricing on my kitchen cabinets and windows. All the other things I checked saved me a little. I decided that on appliances, flooring, countertops and even my fancy Fleurco shower base, we could probably save enough to justify the membership. But, you have to order everything from them, pay for shipping to their warehouse, and then arrange to have it picked up from their website at the opposite corner of the city. So, that makes the membership a little less worthwhile. I'm getting quotes on the windows and cabinets, so we can probably save enough there to cover the membership, and then the rest of it becomes pure savings, and a little more worth dealing with the ordering process. I now have a month to decide. 

What do I have to do to get a shovel in the ground?

If you've been past the lot, you'd have noticed that we have some shiny orange sticks, courtesy of the surveyors, but no hole.

The excavators were going to be ready "maybe Friday". I took that as "probably Tuesday", since Monday was a holiday. On Friday, the equipment didn't arrive, so I emailed them to confirm they would be there on Tuesday. That's when they noticed that they never got their paperwork from the Alberta One Call, the "call before you dig" people. They had requested it last Monday, and it was supposed to be done within 2 days. But they didn't look into it when it didn't show up because the locators are busy these days, and they weren't ready to start yet anyway. 

So, at 7:45 this morning, I called to find out what was going on. At first, they told me the locating had been done last Tuesday and they would request that the paperwork be resent. Then I got an email letting me know that the work actually hadn't been done, it had been sent to the locator's work queue last Tuesday. It would be done today, and the paperwork would be emailed tomorrow. Well, that means the excavators won't come until Thursday, which is almost a week behind schedule. An extra day to wait on paperwork is not acceptable. So I called them again, which would be call #2 to "One Call", not including the excavator's original request. They explained that the locators go out in the field to do their marking, and they bring the paperwork back at the end of the day. And then people in the office process it and email it out the next day. So I asked to speak to a supervisor. They gave me the number of a supervisor, and also explained that it had only been 5 working days since the original request, and they are only required to have it done within 5 days. I refrained from mentioning that not only do they advertise TWO days, not FIVE; but even if they get it done today, and the paperwork submitted tomorrow, that's still SIX working days. I phoned the supervisor's office (call #3!) and the woman there said they actually don't bring the paperwork in at the end of the day, they bring it in the next morning. But she offered to have the locator call me when he was onsite. If I could meet him there before he was done marking out the utilities, he could give me the paperwork. Hmmm, well, I can skip my noon workout at the pool and be available. But if I stay home and wait for the call, it'll still be at least a 20 minute drive to the lot. 

So I packed up my laptop, my cell phone and my notebook of other calls to make today and camped out at the lot in the truck. After about 5 hours, I was making plans to rent a backhoe from Home Depot and start digging. I'm guessing they'll show up when I report a gas leak. 

I phoned the supervisor's office again at 3:30 (4, 4 calls to "1 Call", mwahaahaa! -said with a Transylvanian accent), assuming that the guys only work until 4ish, so my job wasn't getting done today. She told me they work until 6 or 7. It's peak season for them. Okay, I'll stick it out. When I started feeling light headed, I picked up dinner nearby, so I'd still be within a quick drive if/when the call came. 

The guy arrived just before 6pm. Yay!! He mentioned that I was not on his list of jobs today. And he'd even been in the neighbourhood this morning, driving around, killing time. He got a call early this afternoon begging him to fit it in. It sounds like when I insisted on getting the paperwork, they realized that nobody had actually been assigned. So it really could have been Friday, or even next week before I got digging. 

So, early this evening, I sent the paperwork over to the excavator and got this response: Machine is on the trailer. Will be on site at 7am. 

Wait. There's a 7 AM? Oh, what have I done? On the other hand, MrDinks pointed out the email doesn't say what DAY at 7am they'll be onsite.

In the mean time, I decided on tiles for the shower, so I'm not going to order the fancy shower base. However, after making that decision, I was scouring kijiji for a shower base for the mudroom (for the dog/bike shower) and came across an ad for the fancy Urbana. Exactly what I would have ordered if I wasn't feeling frugal. In fact, the ad used the exact picture I used in the previous post. The seller paid too much for it, so their kijiji price is what I would have paid retail. But I've made her an offer, and I'm willing to wait a few weeks for her to decide. 

I also found 2 alternatives for tile for the bathroom floor. One of them is the same tile that got discontinued, just a different colour. It's also discontinued, but the store in town has lots of stock. I just need to buy it asap. The other one is a similar colour to my original choice, but a different size. I'm waiting on a price for that one. 

I'm also finalizing the window order. We've got quotes for 2 companies. One of them is a much better price, and better quality, but they don't have third party certification yet, so we might have an issue with city inspection. We don't really want to buy $25k worth of windows that we might have to rip out. They are going to try to get a firm date this week of when their certification will be done. The other company is more expensive and not as nice, but we're allowed to use them. 

Both companies' doors are horrible, though. They are basically door sized windows. If you don't want them to be all glass, they stick a big plastic insert in where the glass goes. They're ugly AND expensive. No, thanks. So I'm on the hunt for exterior doors. Exterior doors are actually quite hard to find, it turns out. I have tracked down several "door" companies, but they all either only do interior doors, or garage doors. I have found 2 companies advertising contemporary style doors which are actually contemporary style. I called both to get quotes. First one, I called and explained that I'm building a new house and asked for pricing. They said they would have a salesman call me. A few hours later, I got a text asking me for my address so they could come and do a consultation. I responded that there is no house, I just wanted pricing. They texted again telling me they can't give me a price without seeing the space for the door. So I asked how long it would take to order the door. 2 months. "It's our busy season." I'm not going to wait until the house is ready for a door before I even order the door, and then wait 2 months. They aren't the first salesman to have trouble wrapping their head around a NEW BUILD, and pushing for a home visit. But they are the first using text to give me the sales pitch. The other company gave me a quote of $1100 and $700 for the 2 doors I was interested in. After seeing the window companies' pricing of $2k-4k, I thought the guy quoted me $11k. Oh, only $1100? And you aren't sending me stupid texts? Guess what doors I am buying?