Framing: 1st floor just about complete

Framing on the first floor is just about finished. By the end of today the floor joists for the second floor should be in place and the floor put down. By tomorrow, they should have most of the second floor walls erected.

Habitat for Humanity gift home

In case you were unable to make it to the open house of the Habitat for Humanity gift house that was unveiled in Ottawa recently, DesignTies has an extensive photo series on their blog.

There is also a video on YouTube.

It's quite an impressive renovation.

Backfilling against the foundation

Backfilling of the house occurred last week. It took about two days for them to complete it, with several large trucks of fill delivered.

Waterproof membrane applied to foundation

In the last week an a half, a lot of progress has been made, starting with waterproofing the foundation.

Once the foundation was poured, a Platon membrane was applied to the outside of the foundation against living areas. Platon is a tough, waterproof, double dimpled, high-density polyethylene plastic membrane that keeps wet soil away from the foundation wall. The dimples create an air gap between the wall and the waterproof membrane. Any water that does find its way past the membrane flows to the footing drain. As an added benefit, wall moisture condenses on the back of the membrane and flows to the footing drain. This dries out the wall. Because Platon is not adhered to the wall, the wall can crack, shift and settle over the years without affecting Platon’s performance (although hopefully that wont be an issue).

Next step, back filling.

Big house, little house

It's interesting to watch the new house rise up out of the ground and it will be great to move in when it is finished. The new house is certainly bigger than our current residence, but with the hole dug and the foundation exposed it looks particularly big. Interestingly though, the footprint of the new house is not that different than the house we demolished. In fact, the living space on the main floor of the new house is about 200 square feet less than the former house. Even counting the garage, the footprint of the new house is only about 200 square feet bigger than the footprint of the former house. The difference, of course is in the second floor, which is where the additional space is added.

Foundation poured

On Thursday or Friday, they poured the concrete for the foundation walls. They removed the forms on Friday.

Forming the basement

Last Thursday, they formed the basement.

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