Trusses up and we have power

Toronto Hydro finally installed the temporary power service - that will make things on site run a little smoother.  Meanwhile, Miguel the Magician maneuvered the 40 feet wide truss bundle in and around hydro poles, wires, fencing, trees and more and somehow got the whole package on top of the house.  By end of day, the trusses were up and standing in place.

2nd Floor Walls

The guys from Triple X Framing were back at it again today, finishing the second floor walls.  If all goes well tomorrow, we'll have the trusses delivered, lifted and installed!

2nd Floor Floor

Miguel completed the second floor floor and started the layout for the 2nd floor walls today.  Moving along nicely.

2nd Floor & Concrete Prep

It seems with this heat, everyone wants basement work!  We had Tom's advance crew prepping the basement slab, and when I got there, even Miguel had moved down from his second floor floor progress and was "checking on something" in the basement.  Who can blame him though, temperatures outside, with humidity and reflective plywood were well over 40 degrees!

Walls complete

The first floor layout, especially the exterior, of this house are pretty complicated - lots of jogs and turns with some sloped roof areas to boot!  Still, by the end of the day, Miguel was able to finish the first floor walls.  Monday, we'll get the second floor floor started.

First floor walls start

Miguel is a man down for a few days while his trusted right hand man, Louis, takes an emergency trip to Portugal to tend to family.  With just two guys, they still made great progress doing the layout and getting half the walls up today.

Carpenters... back at it?

The carpenters now have the site back in their possession, but for how long?  This month, as you may or may not know, is one of the key, once every two year events, that slows down a lot of construction in the city.  It's Euro Cup time (World Cup is also every four years, next scheduled for 2018).  If your trade is Portuguese, he's not suddenly sick today at 11:30, he's going to watch the crucial third game of the preliminary round.  I guess as a builder (and owners would maybe feel the same), I should hope they lose today to avoid further "breaks", but it's fun to see their enthusiasm for their home country, so... go team go!

Anyway... we did actually get some work done this morning!

Interior Drains

Tony and his crew were in today to install the interior drains.  I posted a video below of their work.  The inspection should take place tomorrow, then we'll have plenty of flexibility to sneak Tom in to do the basement slab when we have a carpentry window.

Water & Drain Upgrade

The City contractor, Co X Co, was in today to replace the city and private portion of the water and drain connection to the house.  While we do this, we upgrade the water to a 1" line for more pressure, and the sewer line gets a badly needed upgrade to 6" PVC pipe.  

I took some video for the friendly neighbourhood inspector after they started covering the pipe with gravel, as well as a video of the mandatory ball test (to see if a pool ball, placed at the start of the line, travels down to the clean out).

The guys left us the remaining coil of 1" copper line that will be extended to the furnace room where we will eventually install the water meter.

Fireplace planning

While we continue to wait for the as-built survey, we did some on-site planning today for the wood built fireplace.  The architect did a general layout for a non-specific wood burning unit, but the clients have selected a self contained, zero clearance unit that will make life way easier from a framing perspective.

Framing begins!

Miguel's crew was on hand to begin framing the first floor floor today.  It's always tedious work, but obviously one of the most important steps in the framing of the house.  You can see some of the work with installing the huge basement steel beam below.

Fence repair

Now that the backfill has settled somewhat, Juvee was in to repair the neighbour's fence that had to be removed for safety during excavation.  Looks good!

Backfill almost complete

Well... we're getting there.  Poor George has been working all day trying to get the sides done - it's so narrow that he has to use way smaller machines than normal (which are also way more tiring to operate).  Trooper that he is, he's close to done, with maybe a little touch up work to do tomorrow.

Backfill Begins

First up today was the gravel portion of the waterproofing - covering the weeping tile with 10 or more inches of gravel helps water flow into the weepers, and away from the foundation.

Next up? Backfill - right after the City Inspector was in to pass the foundation and waterproofing stage of construction.  The area is very tight, so backfill may take two or three days here.  After that, the surveyors will be in and then we can start framing!

Waterproofing Complete

The waterproofing crew was in today to spray the walls with bitumen to seal the concrete and then add a layer of waterproofing membrane.  We should be good to backfill tomorrow and start framing by Thursday.

Voila... walls!

Rock Concrete was in early and spent a half day stripping the forms and patching the cross support holes with tar.  It's nice to see the shape of the house - now we can start to backfill pretty soon which makes everyone feel better!

Watching the Pour

You get all kinds of characters checking in on construction sites... especially when the big toys have come out to play.  This interesting character was poking around for a while, with not a word said to anyone on site... too funny.

I got a little video at the start and near the end of the pour below.  Tomorrow, we'll finally see some foundation walls!

Walls Formed

We are ready to pour!  They guys made really good progress on the forming today, and by end of day we had everything in place to start pouring tomorrow.  Though not quite backfilled, I always breath a little easier once the walls are formed.  I'm looking forward to getting the sides of the house restored - especially for Mo, the owner/builder of the house next door that's trying to sell his new home (sorry Mo!).