Natasha Chiam

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The BIG hole in the ground

Natasha Chiam

.....is filling up!

Two days after the BIG house move, our contractor had the excavators on the site to clear it out and dig the big hole for the new house!

Even with the actual house moved off the lot, there still was A LOT  of work to do to clean up the site and get it ready for excavation.  I believe the finally tally was 12 full dump truck loads of both concrete and the remainder of the house debris that was removed. The kids and I have been making almost daily trips to the house (which really is only a 5 minute drive away from our current house and a nice walk for all of us)!

This is the third house that we have built 'from scratch' and every time, I am always amazed and somewhat shocked when what we have been looking at in 2D for months starts to take shape. This house is no exception.

I don't think I quite appreciated how big a 2500 square foot bungalow really is until I saw the really BIG hole that took almost three days (it was raining for one of them) to fully excavate. Now granted there is an extra 3-4 feet all the way around for back-fill and all but it is still huge!! This can also be attested to by the not-so-small mountains of dirt piled all over the site!

Part of building the Natural Urban Home involves using technologies and products that will increase the energy efficiency and sustainability of our house for years to come. We decided to build the whole house with ICF (insulated concrete forms) and the product being used is called LOGIX ICF. Using the Logix ICF system is going to give our whole house increased energy efficiency with an thermal resistance rating of R-50 and will also reduce the sound transmission from the outside (and also from the inside--our new neighbors do not need to hear me screaming having calm rational discussions with the kids!) by about 50%!

My son is really digging this process because the ICF blocks look like HUGE Lego pieces and really he is not that far off. They all fit together like big building blocks and it is amazing how fast they can put it all together!

Yesterday was concrete pouring day and there was NO WAY my little man was going to let me go without him to see this process. We arrived at the house just as they were priming the pumper truck! The whole street was blocked with three concrete trucks and the huge pumper truck. He was in construction site heaven!!

The nice thing about building the house and being able to be there almost daily to watch the process is that we get to meet our neighbors too! We met the lovely elderly couple who live across the street from the new house and the kids have already been invited over for cookies!! And ahem...don't tell Natural Urban Dad, but I met the mailman too and well...let's just say that I will really be looking forward to getting the mail once we move!

And that is where we are at with the Natural Urban Home. Next week they will be working on the flooring system and then starting on the main floor ICF forms. Our fabulous contractor, Grant Plamondon from Serenity Contracting and Design, is confident that we will have the roof on the house way before winter hits, and at this rate I can't see why not!

It is a wonderful thing to watch a dream unfold before your eyes!!

Natasha~

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Summer Blog Challenge posts for August 19, 2011