Our building shell carpenter crew

Now that the shell is complete, I’ve been meaning to write a retrospective. What was good about our wall assembly and what wasn’t. What we learned and what we'd do differently next time. I’d like to get some input from the guys who actually built it: Justin, Mark, Blair, Tyler and Kyle from Cornelis Grey. Look for it soon. But for now, I just wanted to give our crew a shout out.

Hats off to them. They were great to work with, super professional and genuinely nice guys. Even our neighbours have commented on how courteous they’ve been, which is a huge bonus (gotta keep them in our good books seeing as how we are borrowing power, water and do need to live beside them eventually). Justin Corkum led the team. Mark really enjoyed working with him. They had a great dialogue back and forth and were able to forge a strong, trusting working relationship. Justin is moving on to another company. While we are keeping most of the crew, we are sad to see him leave. Thanks for all your help Justin!

Justin working on our temporary door — check out the routered handle!

Construction week 28 — kitchen design

We’ve been finalizing our kitchen design. Check it out! Mark had originally designed the kitchen to fit Ikea components, in case we decided to go that route (for economic reasons). But after meeting with a couple kitchen designers and weighing the pros and cons, I think we’re going to go custom. And we were casually browsing appliance stores this weekend when we stumbled upon a built-in refrigerator at an ultra discount floor model price. It’s the same price as the other non-built-in option we were contemplating and has all the nice design features and benefits that we were looking for. So, yay!

We approached several kitchen designers with our initial design. They were able to bring some outside perspective to our layout. Kitchen design is something that architects do as well, but kitchen designers really know their products and details like under sink garbage options and drawer vs. door that really help. I wouldn't say they 'designed' out kitchen, Mark did, but they helped work through the details with us.

Deciding on our appliances also weighed in on our decision making. I’ll write a separate post about the appliances, because it requires one (Passive House limits our options in this area). We went back and forth on a few items. Wall ovens vs. island oven and pantry space. Pantry space was important to me. Even though I like the idea of a wall oven, pantry has a higher priority for me in terms of chest-height accessibility. We have ideas for finishes, but that will all be worked out once we design which company we’re going to go with. Both are great options, it will likely come down to cost and who we like working with.

As an aside, we aren’t basing all of our decisions on cost alone. It definitely weighs heavily, but we also want to work with people with whom we actually like. Mark wants to build long term relationships and find people he would feel comfortable referring his future clients to as well.

And on to week 28...

Our crew started on interior wall framing and have been going around the outside of the house on scaffolding sealing and taping the wood fibreboard spots they missed when they had to stand up the walls. Mark also did some more interior air barrier sealing with that Siga tape.

We’ve also been busy pulling quotes together and meeting various sub-contractors on site for things like siding and ceiling insulation. Starting to make some headway…
Our roof is getting insulation this week. Walls continue to go up. Hopefully Mark will be able to perform our first blower-door test and we’ll begin the service cavity walls as well.

Construction week 12: the first floor

This week, the team finished installing the ledger boards, hung our floor joists (supplied by Kott), finished the interior structural framing, and set a floor on top of the floor joists. Construction is starting to resemble a more traditional site-framed home. Over the weekend, we had a family picnic in the house and even had our first official guests over to join us (of course we all wore hard hats).

We forgot to mention on the blog that last week was International Passive House Days. There were several events and tours happening around the city. There is rising interest. Mark also gave a couple tours of our place (outside of the PH week events). One to a group from NRCan (Natural Resources Canada) and one to a group of fine folks taking a Passive House course. Seeing as how our build has been garnering interest and tour requests, we will post a sign-up form (eventually) and open them up to the public. We are all-for raising awareness for Passive House...we are also pretty proud of what we’re building and happy to show it off. We'll get that going soon.

Next week, work will be geared towards the main floor walls. 

In the new toasty basement

Welcome to the main floor

Meet our builders: Cornelis Grey Construction

Exterior rendering of Casey and Natasha Grey's Passive House in Manotick

[Post written by Casey Grey of Cornelis Grey Construction]

Working with Mark, Meghan and PLOTNONPLOT was a must for us. Since we had already built a Passive House for ourselves, we obviously knew we had values that aligned. This partnership was meant to be. Ultimately, the building industry needs to change and there’s no way one person can do it alone. We all have to work together if we’re going to have any sort of impact in this life.

Although the term “Passive House” is widely unknown, “saving money” is something we can all relate with. In a world where everything seems to become more and more expensive, it’s about time we start saving some money. That is what Passive Houses do. They save energy which, in turn, saves money.

As a Builder who lives and works in a Passive House, I can vouch for all the benefits. It was the smartest decision (other than marrying my wife, of course) that I have made in my life. With solar panels on the roof that are a part of the MicroFIT program, we actually make money every year instead of paying energy bills. I’m also giving my family healthier indoor air quality and a more comfortable place to live. To top it all off, all these decisions help the environment in more ways that I can count.

I’m sure you’re all tired of hearing about saving the environment so I ask you to think of it differently. A way that actually makes more sense. It’s not the environment we’re trying to save, it’s humanity... The environment was here long before us and will be here long after us. No matter what we do, it will adapt. Even if that adaptation requires getting rid of humanity. Let’s work together towards a future that costs less money, betters our health and saves lives. The decisions you make today could make you a hero for generations to come. That’s why we decide to build Passive Houses.

Construction week 9: ICF walls

Our basement concrete ICF wall sandwich.

Our house has taken shape! This week revolved mostly around setting up our ICF walls, which Mark discussed in his post from earlier this week. 

On Friday, we filled them with concrete. Our guys from Cornelis Grey leveled and troweled excess as they went. We rented a concrete vibrator to help ensure the concrete made it all the way down to the bottom of the hollow ICF walls. However, we may skip this step next time 'round, seeing as how the concrete had no trouble making it down and the vibrator actually cause our walls to bulge in a couple small sections. (These bulges are easily remedied, however, by shaving off some of the foam prior to gluing the exterior layer of additional foam. Still...the perfectionists in us would prefer no bulging.)

I was ecstatic to finally be able to walk inside our future home, the first floor at least. I can start to visualize where everything will be. Très cool. 

We posted a site sign over the weekend. Fortunately, our site, with all the construction material lying out on the front lawn, didn’t suffer from any Halloween pranking. I was a little paranoid that our port-a-pottie would be tipped or our foam would be toyed with. We should be able to clear up the front yard this upcoming week, or week thereafter, by backfilling the foundation and freeing up the backyard for materials storage and site facilities. And to make room for our neighbors fantastic front yard skating rink. Yep, winter is coming. Fortunately, the forecast looks pretty decent for the week ahead (no snow yet). Great framing weather! Next week will be another big one. Lots of change as we go up another level.

Wood and hammers and nails — oh my! 

Cheeky site sign.

Construction week 8: the slab

Work started this week with more rebar — the critical metal mesh which reinforces our structural concrete slab. Once the metal work was complete, our structural engineer, Peter Campbell, came by to inspect and sign-off on it. Check and check. We were ready for concrete.

I am relieved to say that the concrete pour went really well. The team was great and the slab looks great. But this step did not want to happen. First of all, concrete is surprisingly expensive. We had a hard time assembling quotes. Ended up having our guys at Cornelis Grey tie and prepare the metal, ordering our concrete from one company, and a concrete pump truck from another company. A lot of extra coordination. And then on the day before the pour, our concrete team tried to cancel on us! Fortunately for us, Mark can be very persuasive and eventually it all worked out. Once underway, they had to pause work several times to clear leaves off the wet concrete, but otherwise all good.

On Friday, our Cornelis Grey team started installing the ICF forms for our basement walls. This work will spill over to next. And today we ventured out to the Herrmann's. We ordered our Gaulhofer windows and doors through them and they have been sitting in their immaculate warehouses for a couple months now. We finally found the time to visit them. Boy are they spectacular. And those blue doors! Swoon. They will be a joy to operate every day. Really looking forward to getting those installed. We’re still hoping to be closed in before Christmas.

This was a big week. We have a fab slab. Now it’s onwards and upwards — with walls! Speaking of those walls, I think it’s high time I get Mark to post a little something about them. There aren’t enough hours in the day. 

And some more pics from the week:

Concrete pour -- hand troweling near the wall rebar

Machine leveling

Site inspection

Our big blue door!