This is one-fifth of the old wooden garage door I got on Craigslist for $90. It’s pretty ugly, but I think I can turn it into a silk purse.

That's not smoke above the door - we just haven't cleaned it yet.

And the ugly smoking door is no more. We have a silk purse of a functioning fire. D put gaskets along the top of the door, in spite of Lakeshore Design’s advice to the contrary. We also got a draft going in the side chimney with a burning newspaper before lighting. We didn’t remove the chimney cap. It’s a miracle!

my shingle-dipping system

Partly because of the classic appearance of shingled homes and partly because cedar shingles are produced locally, we are using shingles as our exterior cladding. We managed to find 48 bundles of #1 and #2 grade 18″ shingles, for an average price of $18/bundle, about half what you’d expect to pay at a shingle mill.

Shingles need to be pre-stained before application. They need finishing on both sides to prevent cupping/cracking after weathering. One could pay big bucks to have them stained at a staining facility. Painting them by hand with a brush or roller is a messy and time-consuming endeavour (and practically impossible after they are applied to the wall.) Dipping them is the best option.

Everyone I talk to about dipping shingles warns me to expect a real logistical headache. Visions of clothespins and laundry lines, or drilling holes in all the tops and stringing a wire through them.

view from the business end of the process

But the best advice I’ve received is the system pictured. In a morning, I was able to dip 4 bundles, quite painlessly. I’ve set up a relatively permanent processing corner, protected from rain by the deck above, facing south and east, so I will get sun on them to dry.

The components:

1. A set of  grooved 2×4s (from the skids of lumber previously delivered. They come with grooves for the metal bands that hold the skids together). They allow the wet shingles to be placed upside down, with spaces between them. I line them up in decending rows, so the ends will be accessible. If these and regular 2×4s are nailed down with narrow spaces in between, the thin ends of the shingles can be wedged into the spaces so they won’t touch each other (this latest design improvement courtesy of Tess.)

2. A garbage can about 18″ tall (the length of the shingles), filled with the stain, at the top of

3. A trough, made from 2×4 and plywood, covered by stovepipe to collect the drips of excess stain in

4. A pail at the bottom of the trough

5. Dairy cases (the kind with holes in them). After the shingles are dipped, they go into the dairy cases on the trough.

6. The shingles (which need to be dried and cleaned of insect casings, larvae, dirt before dipping.)

They only need to be dipped about 15″, which is the maximum that will be exposed with two layers of a 6″ exposure. Depending on the stain you’re using, and the weather, they dry in a few hours. Our builders recommend storing them by width to make application smoother. So I will invest in more dairy cases at the recycling depot.

Dave, the Vaproshield representative came by the lot to sell us on this green building wrap, GreenShield.

It’s a weather resistive vapour- and air-permeable membrane.  The construction of WallShield (triple layer spunbond polypropylene) allows moisture to continue to filter through to exterior of the building during and after construction and occupancy. Water vapour transmission is 212 perms.

To prepare the window openings for window installation, we used 15” strips of Greenshield membrane to layer with the red plastic upper corners and water-shedding sill pans with their clever glued-on sill pan corners. (VaproSillSaver components are made from reprocessed residual vinyl trim material from old windows.) Any water that somehow gets into the window cavity past all the flashings and building wrap and waterproof tape will be drained into the plastic sill pans to the outside.

The system is considerably more expensive than “tar paper” or “Tyvek”. Our 32 windows and 3000 sq. ft of exterior wall is costing us about $3200 to outfit in this wrap. I’ll report on the wrapping of the house later.

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 lower the main floor the other foot, because the view was still accessible there.

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.

- Not buying our own generator. On our builder’s estimate, there was no provision for temporary power. When I asked Doug how we would handle the temporary power, he said they would use their generator until a wall was up to accommodate an electrical panel. I thought that was pretty good, until we were charged $30/day plus fuel for the use of it. We are now 74 days in, and although Doug indicated he didn’t charge the full rent, we could easily have bought a used Honda 5500 generator for less than half the rent. I checked the commercial rental rates, and they were $700/month.

- Not communicating enough with builder to get quotes before delivering service.  We have been billed some astronomical charges, that we didn’t have any warning of, during the foundation phase. The builders just use the contractors they’re used to working with, without getting competing quotes, in the interest of efficiency. For instance, the form rentals were estimated at $1600, by both our builder and one of the other general contractors we got to estimate. The bill came in at 3x that amount, because the forms were needed for 31 days, 21 days over the 10-day limit. We were just presented with yet another bill for $9500 for trucking 42 loads of sand, yard scrapings, and road base (this in addition to $3500 previous bill from the trucking company.)  We didn’t discuss this service or the need for it with any other trucking companies, nor even with our builders. It was just done.

I have tried to communicate with the builder, to let him know that we have to work within a budget (the budget now is based on available working capital). At least it would be good to know what to expect before the bill comes in.

The estimates that came in from the general contractors put me into a blue funk for about two weeks. The budget would have to be nearly $300 – 400/sq. ft., and that didn’t include finishing the basement or the loft, only the main floor. It was immediately clear to us that we wouldn’t be able to build for a couple of years.

Then, our thoughts began to turn to doing our own general contracting. It’s not that far-fetched – we did it in the early 80s, when our kids were new. Of course, much has changed, technology-wise (thank goodness, I say.) We don’t know the tradespeople on the coast, as the builders there do. We live in Vancouver, not Gibsons. For some odd reason we’re not as young as we were then.

But, we reasoned, we would save about $100,000, just by doing the contracting, not-to-mention some of the other labour. I can put my art career on hold for a year or two, and I’ve managed some other large-ish projects. I can be persistent and organized. I’m good with money. D is good with manual labour. In fact he drives himself relentlessly. We could move the motorhome to the lot to live in during construction. It would be fun! (Sure, in that balmy summer, it sounded fun.) I can do it.

Next job was to find a builder/framing crew to take us to lock-up. We interviewed three. One, whose estimate for his crew’s labour was 1/3 less than the others, got a poor rating from his references, but the other two seemed competent and trust-worthy. We chose the one who was available sooner than two months hence. We weren’t keen to start in the rainy season.

Another consideration that reared its ugly head this fall was a sudden announcement by our provincial government that BC would be instituting the Harmonized Sales Tax on July 1, 2010. We would have to start paying the 7% provincial tax on labour. (It’s already charged on materials). That’s a huge additional expense – I’m estimating $14,000 more. The reasons to start sooner rather than later started to pile up.

We met with Doug Johnson at his home on a warm fall day. Everything about him and his crew gave us confidence. Their references checked out. Although they usually do the general contracting, Johnson-Barr was willing to work with our plan. They were willing to try green materials and methods. Doug prepared an estimate. They could start in a week! Let the adventure begin.

The obvious answer is added costs. All of us are required to build to the BC Building Code, a region-specific version of the National Building Code. After 2009, for example, we are all required to install new windows that have low-E argon gas in the airspace. So, all new homes will have to be built green, to a degree. This is a good thing, but needless to say, it’s much more expensive.

When doing the rounds of home/design shows, I responded to the big ads: “get $150 rebate for each window you order.” But, it turns out, those are for current homeowners who replace existing windows, not for new home construction. Same with highly-efficient furnaces and hot-water heaters – grants and rebates are only available for renovations to existing homes. This is patently unfair, of course. Why not encourage homeowners to build as green as possible? A later post will cover the few grants available.

The developers of multi-family projects can install one geothermal field for their whole development. The individual home-builder absorbs that whole cost (about $22,000). Economies of scale at each stage (design and execution) make the added cost to each unit far more affordable.

Our current project will be what some developers call “deep green.” We will be going as far beyond the building code as we can afford. It’s that critical balance that we will have to achieve. Value vs. Cost. Stay tuned…

A builder!

Several years ago, I read “House” by Tracy Kidder, published in the early 1980s. Even if you aren’t considering building a house (or having one built for you), this is an interesting read. The author gets below the surface of the builder/architect/client relationships. He evidently was on site for much of the process of building a house, and includes thoughtful research results about the history of building, the personalities and   backgrounds of the key players, and the costs to build.

I have just re-read this book. Even though it was written a generation ago, and much has changed about building codes and costs, it is an insightful view into the relationships involved, and helpful for our current situation.

A year before we were thinking of starting our home, we asked everyone we could about their recommendations for a builder. From our new neighbours, to the designers we were talking to, to the manager at the quilt shop, the tool rental store, and the building supply stores, we inquired. Then, we interviewed a few builders whose names came up more than once. We wanted to see some of their work, and get a sense of their availability. We asked if they had much experience with building green. I developed a list of about 12 written questions for the potential builders, such as:

- How many employees do you have, and what is your turnover?

- What is your opinion of pre-packaged homes: Can they save money?

- What is your opinion of ICFs (insulated concrete forms)?

- Have you worked with fly ash concrete?

I don’t think this list exercise was very useful.  It was more useful to meet the builders in person at a site they’ve built or are building. You get a much better idea of the quality of the work and the communication skills of the builder (at least the builder’s frontman). Most builders are not that comfortable with email. Some have an email address, but seldom check it. They rely on their cell phones for all communications, it seems.

Once we had the house plans in hand, we could begin to talk to builders. Interestingly, a small few that we liked were no longer available a year later. Two that we quite liked took about four weeks to prepare an estimate. An estimate is not a quote, and no one seemed to be comfortable with a quote. Two builders said that an estimate almost always turned out less costly in the end than a quoted price. Judging from our experience so far, I am not so sure about that.

In Tracy Kidder’s book, House, much of the thread revolves around the quoted price: any variance, or “change order” is costly to the homeowner, and the builders struggle daily to make a decent wage plus profit by staying within their own time estimate in the quote. It takes a great deal of time, research and knowledge of the industry at the time of the quote and expectations over the course of construction, to prepare an accurate quote. No wonder contractors are reluctant to do this. In Kidder’s book, the builders came away with decent wages over the five months of construction, but almost no profit, due mostly to one missed budget item and the builder’s own need for quality – a stairway had to be rebuilt.

An estimate is just that: an educated guess about the cost of each stage. The billing would take place on a regular basis and is based on the actual costs, plus taxes and overhead  (called, not surprisingly, “Cost Plus”) One of the two general contractors who prepared an estimate for us required a $60,000 payment up front as working capital, upon signing the agreement and commencing work. The overhead rate, or profit, for general contractors, charged on all permit costs, labour, rentals and materials (all costs, whether they procured them or we did) varied from 12.5% to 15%.

To Be Continued…

Photo by TeBa

From the moment you start talking to designers, builders, and even the regional district building department, the question comes up: “What is your budget?”

How on earth would we know that? That’s what I need the professionals for.

When we built our first house, 30 years ago, in North Vancouver, we paid $36,500 for the large treed lot abutting Fromme Mountain. We – and some very generous friends and extended family — did much of the work ourselves, hiring subtrades for excavation, foundations and framing, drywalling, masonry, furnace installation, and carpet installation. The 2700 square foot house cost us $80,000 to build, at that time, or $30/square foot.

When you make enquiries of builders or the pre-packaged home sellers (or indeed almost anyone who wants to sell you something, at a home show, for example) the cost estimates are perfectly reasonable, as far as I can tell. But, when you manage to get written estimates or the project is underway then you can become alarmed at how much the actual costs are.

A friend-of-a-friend gave us a tour of her lovely waterfront home on the Sunshine Coast, built within the previous year. Beautiful fir clad windows, high-end finishes, lots of interesting spaces.  She indicated that the cost to build it was $185/sq. ft. It included a geothermal field (below the septic field!) for heating the home. So, we thought that might be a reasonable budget number.

Oh, we were wrong, so very wrong.

As the costs for each of the stages become apparent, I will be sharing them here. This is in the interests of informing readers who might be considering a similar project. We would have appreciated such help ourselves before starting.