Author: Melissa Gullickson

So they finished putting up all the pink insulation and all the spray foam insulation (joist ends and the walls of the crawl space). The only thing left is for them to do the blow in insulation in the attic areas. This is done after the ceiling drywall is installed, so won’t be done for a bit.

I took some photos last night of the insulation, it wasn’t quite finished at that point. You may notice also that the drywall was delivered. I can’t believe the size of the drywall sheets, some of them have to be at least 14 feet long. I didn’t even know they made drywall sheets that large.

Aron and I have also been doing some sound proofing insulation here and there. We completely did the powder room, and the shared wall of the bathroom/bedroom upstairs and same with the spare room on the main floor. We figure it might be nice for guests to keep sound from travelling around as much.

I thought I might have some photos of the drywall being installed, as they indicated they were coming Tuesday. But it looks like they are running behind as they haven’t showed up yet. I think it was probably for the best as now the insulators will be out of their way and we can heat up the house more effectively now. Hoping we’ll see them tomorrow.

 

Today they started insulating. Just two young guys showed up, so I was thinking there was no way they could do the whole house in 2 days (that’s what their boss had told us).  But they worked amazingly fast and got done so much. All the upstairs and the great room ceiling, so I think they may be able to pull it off.

Today we also had our concrete front porch poured. Tomorrow they come to wash of the top layer so we have an aggregate finish.  Also tomorrow we get the drywall delivered, and hopefully the drywall will begin.  Things will start to change quickly now.

I’ll post more pictures as things progress.

 

Just wanted to share an interesting experience we had the other day. We have another property a few minutes drive from where we are building our house. We went over there the other day and as we were driving up the road of the property we came upon this:

Just in case you aren’t sure, yes, this is a peacock. I couldn’t zoom in too much more because I was just using my phone to take the photo.  As you can see from the second photo, he was hanging out with a flock of wild turkeys.

We have a lot of wild turkeys that like to wander through that property, but this is the first time we’ve ever seen this little group come through.

We keep talking about hunting some wild turkeys one day and making turkey sausage. Wonder how peacock tastes?

Yes, you heard right. We are geared up for some major action. All the insulation and vapor barrier was dropped off today. They may start insulating as early as tomorrow, but Monday at the latest. They say they will be done insulation by the end of Tuesday. The insulators have been coordinating with the drywallers and it sounds like we might get drywall starting Tuesday morning. Even though you need to pass an insulation inspection. Our inspector knows the insulation guy well and trusts his work, so he sometimes will give a verbal ok, based on some photos to allow drywall to proceed.

It seemed like we went from a standstill for so long, to everything happening at once. The good news is that if the drywallers start next Tuesday they had indicated it would take about a week to get all the drywall up and then 2-3 weeks to complete mudding and taping. So 4 weeks sounds like the longest we should expect it to take and that lands us right at Christmas Day. Having our house all drywalled would be a great Christmas present for us, that’s for sure.

Meanwhile Aron and I are trying to get the pump house done. All the insulation is in place, we are working on the vapor barrier. Won’t be too long before we can start setting up all the pumps and tanks and test out our water system.

I’ll provide some photos in a few days to show how things are progressing.

After 13 weeks of waiting, including having them arrive but be broken and have to be sent back, our double sliders have arrived! I held my breath all the time they were being unloaded hoping that they would be in perfect condition this time. It took about 7 guys to carry each set down our road as the semi driver won’t drive down because of the steep grade.  They were all intact and no issues, so they were installed yesterday. We are so pleased!!

The house looks a little more complete now from the outside. Just need our front door now and we’ll have everything.

This is a close up of the master bedroom sliders from outside and inside

Yesterday was a busy day. Poor Aron was running around with everyone on site answering questions and trying to get his own work done. I was at work, so I wasn’t able to help him out.

So the prep for pouring the front porch is completed. Next steps will be to pour the concrete, but we haven’t got final word when that will be. They feel we may need to enclose the space and heat it for the best result with the concrete.

The sprayfoam insulation crew started yesterday, they should wrap things up today and hopefully the fiberglass insulation crew will start today as well. Getting the insulation completed will be a big step as we can then try and keep the house warm inside without all the warm escaping out.

The final odds and ends, like bracing and such need to be finished up before insulation starts, so we’ve been walking through to ensure we have everything we need for bracing in place. We got some good advice as well, to take photos of where all the bracing is placed and wiring, plumbing and HVAC is located now, as after insulation and drywall goes up, you loose track of where everything is. With photos you can easily refer back .

One the down side, we are still being challenged with water issues here at the trailer. We’ve had a couple nights in the -5 range and even though we’ve done our best to drain lines, insulate them, add some heating to some, we still end up with problems of frozen lines, so no water. We are hoping that in a weeks time we can start using water in the house, as the water here at the trailer is becoming unsustainable. At least the next few nights the temperature is supposed to be above zero. Hope they are right!

We just got informed that our two double sliding doors are in Calgary and ready to be shipped to us. What a HUGE surprise, as we were told they wouldn’t come until Dec 7th. They are being shipped at midnight tonight and will arrive tomorrow morning. This is the best news we have had in ages. Can’t wait to get those installed. Pictures to follow! (Hope nothing breaks en route)

So our fireplace is certified and we lit up a fire last night. It works fantastic and does provide a lot of heat. The only problem is that until the house is insulated, all that lovely warm air floats up and outside.

As for the insulation, in typical Kootenay style, the insulation crew did not make it Tuesday or Wednesday but told us it would be next Wednesday. Sigh…  I’m really learning to let go and not walk around upset all the time. Some things are out of our control and we just have to go with the flow. At least we are moving forward, even if it is at such a slow pace.

Luckily the trailer is cozy and warm so living in here isn’t so terrible. We just need to get the water and water heating going in the new house. Outdoor water systems only function until we reach certain temperatures. We’ve been lucky so far with night time temps only going down to about -4 at the worst. So once we have water setup and available in the new house, we will be good for a long while.

Just a quick little update on things.

We had our first snow fall the other day. We were getting a bit worried as the forecast changed from 5 cm to 10 cm. The snow was wet and heavy and our tarps outside the trailer were getting weighed down. Aron spent a good amount of time dealing with getting the snow off them. At least it was really pretty to see everything covered with snow.

 

We have quite a ritual now to ensure our water lines don’t freeze over night. Aron installed a bunch of drainage valves, so we can drain all the water lines each night and we have some insulation and pipe heaters that we put on at night. This at least this is buying us some time during the below zero nights we are starting to get. It is a pain, but hopefully it will only be for a few more weeks. The real fun is that our shower and toilet are both outside, so we get some chilly experiences out there.

As for the house, it has been pretty quiet as our builder is off on another job right now and we are just waiting for the insulation crew. They had indicated they would be here today or tomorrow. Since they didn’t show up today, I’m really hoping to see them tomorrow. Aron has been working hard to get the house all cleaned up so we don’t have dust and debris getting all insulated over. Just so you think I’m not doing anything, I’m working 3 days a week in Nelson, otherwise I’d be helping with the cleaning.

We also put up a tent the other day to provide us an area that we can heat and do work in while the house is being worked on inside.

I’m really excited as we are supposed to get our final certification on the fireplace tomorrow morning, so we should be able to get a fire burning tomorrow. Then we can see how much heat the fireplace gives off. I’ll post a nice fireplace picture once we are able to get it going.

So hopefully drywall next week. Keep all your fingers and toes crossed for us!

So our Great Room finally has all it’s windows installed. This has been a long time coming. I must admit the view from inside is pretty stunning!

But unfortunately the ongoing saga with other other missing window/door order continues.  We are still missing two sets of double sliding doors (one for the dining room and the other for the master bedroom) and our front door. All of these were damaged during shipping and never even made it to us.  We were just informed that they won’t have these all repaired and delivered to us until Dec 7th. So they were damaged around Oct 22 and the best they can do is another 7 weeks to get them repaired and to us. Totally ridiculous, and believe me, we are being very vocal about our unhappiness with the situation, but they just continue to drag this whole thing out. We just did a calculation today, from the date we paid for and placed our order it will be 15.5 weeks until we have everything. That is 4 months!!! Totally unacceptable and beyond belief. Never deal with Jeld-Wen unless you have extremely long timelines.

Our builder has completed rectifying all the deficiencies found by the inspector last week. The inspector was supposed to show up today to re-inspect, but as of now, he hasn’t showed up yet. I believe we are all set though, to conditionally pass the inspection. The condition will be the installation of the missing sliding doors and front door.

So we are expecting the insulation guys on site next week some time and they estimate it may only take 3 days to do all the insulation, so if all goes really well, we may have a totally insulated house by the end of next week.

I asked our builder what we can do to deal with the delay of the sliders and door, so that we don’t delay the drywallers and end up living in the trailer until sometime in January. He suggests (he says he has done something similar on another build), that we frame in for a ‘junk’ door in the front. He has an old steel door we can borrow. This way the entry will be sealed off and have a usable door. Then where the double sliders go, we will seal it up with sheathing and plastic, to keep the weather out and keep the house secure. That way we can heat the house and continue with the drywalling until eveything arrives. I’m so relieved to hear we have an option to keep things moving forward. Yay!!!

On the Aron eye front, he will be heading back to Calgary in the next couple weeks. He has to have another follow-up with the Dr. who just did his eye surgery and they are going to try and get him in with a cornea specialist right away. So it looks like things may be moving along faster than either of us expected. If at all possible I will try and come out with Aron this trip, but we’ll see how the appointments line up with my work schedule.

Hmmm…. Maybe I’ll mix the good news in with the bad.

1. We didn’t pass our framing inspection
2. They will be shipping out our great room windows next Tuesday
3. Our custom front door was damaged in shipping, no one can tell how us how long it will take to be fixed and shipped
4. We got some siding up today
5. Both our double sets of sliding doors have to be replaced because of shipping damage, no one can tell us how long this will take and when they will be shipped
6. Our inspector says we can move forward with our insulation while the framing deficiencies are addressed, so hoping this will start mid-next week
7. We are supposed to start getting snow in a few days
8. Aron’s surgery was successful and after a second follow-up with the Dr. he’ll be able to come home next Tuesday
9. I’ve had the worst cold I’ve had in many years and have been sick for two weeks

So welcome to the roller coaster that is our lives. I think the most challenging thing we have had to deal with, hands down, has been the windows. We just can’t understand how a big company like Jeld-Wen can screw things up so much. Basically every large item they shipped to us was damaged en-route, I mean how can this be happening? And no one seems to know what is going on, how long things will take and we just get hollow promises of when things will be resolved and they just don’t happen. I’m trying to escalate to senior management, but it is difficult to get contact information for them.  Everyone send your positive thoughts our way, we could really use them right now.

So they put up some siding on our little pump house today, this will give you an idea of what the house siding will look like.