I’ve been skirting around giving a chronological account of our progress. So here’s some of that.
Ron determines the elevation
Ron and Doug laid out the corner pins and the proposed elevation on Sunday, Sept. 13. The next day, we watched the start of the excavation. The machine found hardpan (undisturbed ground) at just about the expected level (about two feet below the architect’s rough estimate for floor level) in the back south corner. Ron had the brilliant idea to lower the basement floor 1 foot (resulting in 10’ basement ceilings) and raise the loft ceiling the other foot.
We decided to locate the studio closer to the house and back against the hill’s setback allowance. It didn’t require much more than leveling, since its floor will be a slab-on-grade, not a basement. We will build the studio foundation later.
My first of many “green dilemmas” occurred when I was sent to get 200-foot rolls of black plastic, to cover and prevent rain erosion of the high bank before the foundation could be built. Would something else do the job? Could I reclaim and pass the plastic to some other use rather than discard it?
When we left that afternoon, it appeared that the digging was nearly done.
It wasn’t. A day and a half later, the hole was ready and the forms for the footings began. The surveyor was called to confirm the corner pins and siting of the house. We wouldn’t want to have to tear out concrete in the event we were wrong about the set-back allowances.
On Sept. 24, the footings were poured, using 12.5 cubic meters of the more environmentally-friendly fly-ash concrete.
Our builders say that the fly-ash concrete is quite different to work. It is kind-of slick and takes significantly longer to harden before the next layer can be poured on top. With all that weight on the tall forms, there is a risk that the liquid concrete will just explode out of the forms. They have to give it more time before layers.
The footing forms were stripped (cleaner stripping than regular, non-fly-ash concrete), and the foundation walls forms begun. Forms were rented, which helps to avoid waste, but ended up costing much more.
We have a 14’ high wall on the uphill side, and plenty of weight planned for portions of the house, so the wall forms were extensive. Five weeks after the footings were poured, we poured the foundation walls, with 34 more cubic meters of fly-ash concrete. This was rather more time than the builders estimated, so the budget has already been blown.
Add to that a total of 64 truckloads of sand fill for inside the walls to bring them up to floor level, packable road base for the driveway and perimeter, and drain rock, and I can understand why we have already spent $84,000 on the foundations of the house alone. This figure is eerily close to our total cost to build our first home in 1980!
Cost breakdowns so far for foundation, with more to come: Labour: $43364, Materials: $29142, Rentals: $7665, Excavation: $3722, Ferry: $91.
