Well with the temperature at minus 24 today without the windchill not much is going on So I thought I would write a bit more.

Problems galore. City has refused my building permit as they say my basement window foundation does not have enough rebar and they say the pads will not carry the load. They require letters from engineers stating that they will or detailing how it should be done. OH OH I have already poured the foundation! Even though it has passed I want the house to be structurally sound.
I contact my architect and she says no worries happens all the time go see this engineer. I contact them and they say forward all the info and they will do a quote in a day. Well they tell me two more letters and $800 and they will be ready in a week. Week passes by and I get an e-mail letters are ready and come pick them up.
Problem is the letters state I need extra Re bar around windows as my basement is 9 Ft. It also states I needed an extra 1' on the thickness of my pads. This is not an issue as I had them over pour the pads in height and thickness. The windows have me concerned so I call the cribbing company that did the windows. Turns out they poured them with the extra Re bar as they knew the code on 9 ft ceilings and it was standard.

I submit the engineers letters and wait.

The excavation company calls me as they now want to dig out the grade beam. This where the attached garage sits on. He needs me to mark the grade beam on the foundation. I have no clue how to do this and tell they guy and ask him if they can do it. His reply is " that is why you hire a project super" So now I try and find out how to do it. I have limited luck and call the excavation guy back and tell him I checked the local universities and colleges and they dont offer Project Super courses and I need him to mark the grade beam. He gets his guy to do it. Now the cribbers come in to do the grade beam pour.
Well another call from the foundation people saying my grade beam is marked wrong. I head out to the site and a young kid tells me its wrong. He says he can mark it for me but I need the excavators back to clear more. So I get that down and the foundation folks come back and pour my grade beam . I end up calling the foundation guys boss and ask him if it is OK if I give the Kid a gift card as a thank you as he did such a nice job. His boss was in shock as he usually only gets complaint calls and appreciates a compliment call. I end up giving the kid a gift card to the Keg Steak House. He was very happy.

Its been a week now since I submitted the engineer letters and I get a phone call My building permit is approved


I am now ready to Frame and it is Dec 1st Way behind schedule

More pics please.

That is, if you have more to follow along.

Empty Lot



Form Pour

What experience do you have in home building? I was also curious about the pour without a permit or inspection. It amazes me the city will take a builders word that it will be built to plan. I have seen so many builders cut so many corners its redic. I am an architect and had a client that was doing a tear down here in Dallas. I asked him about the permit and he said since the pad size of the house was the same as the old one he did not nead a permit. I said ummmmmm yeah OK. Well after he had the frame up he was red tagged and got his ass handed to him by the city.

Good thread OP. I am looking at doing something like this as well. I built my own house and it really wasn't that hard. Just frustrating sometimes.

Good luck OP, will be following along.

Zilch nada none. An earlier posts details that.

The inspection occurred after the pour and weeping tile installed. It was standard procedure to do this as the city was backlogged with permit applications.

The one key quality you require is patience. Lots of delays and as it is my first one mistakes will happen keep them cheap and minimal is my strategy

Your not kidding about this one. When I built my house all the subs where from Mexico/Central America and they would use the "language" barrier constantly. I would tell them to do things a certain way and they would do it the way they wanted. I would then tell them in Spanish and all of a sudden they reply in perfect English. Except for my framers. They where all white dudes. They were slow as hell but man they did a great job. I think finding the right subs is one of the biggest parts of building a house. If you find good ones you can almost just let them do their job and check when they are done.

I was going to pull the trigger in late 2006 on a $600K spec. I am soooooo glad I didn't. I will be following your thread OP.

Funny thing is you look at the second photo of the vacant lot you can see a bungalow in construction. That one sold for around $570,000 in 3 weeks. It was a small developer that did two houses a year. He told me I overpaid for my framers. I paid $9 a sq ft while I had one guy that could do it for $6.50 sq ft but could not give me references. Going rate was $8 sq ft but I had a complex truss design as I have 11 ft ceilings in my great room. Well turns out he hired my framer to do his next project.
I also pointed out some mistakes he made on his house. Though we did compare costs on many parts of the building process. I will give him a call when I am done to compare notes.

Now for a continuation on the process

House 1 it is Dec 3rd and I am ready for framing and my framers are way behind due to truss issues on the other house and weather delays. I have been lucky as no snow and moderate temperatures have been the norm. Little did I know we were about to experience record snowfalls and deep freeze temperatures. My Framers are hoping to able to start on the 15th. Tough to find other framers in that short time frame. Problem is my basement is filling full of snow and nothing I can do to stop it.

If I had to redo this house I would have told the framers you need to take two days and get my floor on or I have to hire another crew. Though if I can avoid I will not be building in the winter again at least the pre lock up stage.

Bulldozer Special I am currently living in which is tough as only 600 sq ft. We are in the design process with the architect. My partner has gotten involved as he may buy one of the units.

This is moderately mind-blowing in a city the size of Edmonton



Things are done in an almost completely opposite way where I'm at. Full plans, including structural, mechanical, electrical, etc. are submitted for review and approval prior to breaking ground.


Whatever compelled you to disregard the plans and order up an additional 50 cu. yards of concrete is something bordering on the mystical. Glad it all worked out.

Hope this isn't coming off as confrontational in any way. Building methods differ everywhere and it's very interesting to learn about the process up in Edmonton. I worked on a friend's house in Oregon many years ago and when it started raining I was like "Okay, guess we're going to cover things up and come back tomorrow" and everyone else was like "What are you talking about?" and we worked straight through the downpour (for several weeks, in fact).

Not the forms but the pads the teleposts sit on. It added an extra metre(yard) of concrete. Cribber asked me if I wanted to overpour them as he said some builders do. I said yes turned out to be a wise choice


I am assuming that you mean suck it up and work through the cold. Many think that but the reason it shuts down as working in extreme cold ruins tools. Many use power nailers and the extreme cold freezes the lines. Many companies have policies as to how cold they will work in. The equipment is expensive and companies will not risk

Take today with the windchill it was minus 37 It could be dangerous to work outside in those conditions. I expect a phone call again tom. canceling my electrical trenching as it will go down to minus 0 tonight


Electrical, mechanical and plumbing all caught on individual inspections. The plans show all the structural details and are submitted prior to approval

Continuing on with my story Framing is delayed even further due to the weather. Record snowfalls and extreme cold have delayed my framers. Reality is they will not be starting till Jan 1 st.

End of the street on the right is my lot. So much snow I have 4 ft of it in my basement now

Keep it up. Interesting. This is what happened 2 months ago and is recorded in your notes?

Unclear of what your asking but this is approx two months ago correct. Getting close to the present day

Here is everything the city requires for a building permit application

PLAN SUBMISSION REQUIREMENT DETAILS


Plot Plan or Site Plan to show the following
 north arrow, scale and date of preparation
 municipal address and legal description
 dimensions of the site (property lines)
 dimensions and location of all proposed and existing structures including cantilevers and overhangs and distances to property lines
 dimensions/location of existing and proposed accesses to the site
 elevations of finished grades, bottom of footings, top of foundation wall, finished main floor

Block Face Plan - see Mature Neighbourhood Overlay Information package (available on the web)

Floor Plans to show the following – minimum scale- metric 1:100 imperial 1/8”
 dimensions of proposed structure
 all levels and square footage of each level
 dimensions and layout, location of walls; doors; and windows (include sizes) and use of all rooms/areas

Building Elevations and Sections to show the following
 all sides of the house
 building height
 finished ground level
 exterior finishing materials
 materials and assemblies of materials forming floors, walls, roofs, decks etc.

Manufactured structural component information required to be submitted (see Standata 06-BCI-015)
 Supplier letters for roof trusses, floor joists, and/or structural beams & columns
 Layouts for:
a) roof
b) floor joists of simple or continuous spans
Note: Where continuous spans are incorporated into the design, the layout schematic should also show all joist and/or beam reactions and all construction details that are covered in the manufacturer’s product guide
 Manufacturer’s design drawings for all manufactured structural components not covered by (a) or (b) above
 Beam calculations where loads are being transferred to the beam other than through uniform loading covered by ABC 2006 - Division B - Part 9.
 Design of engineered columns where loads exceed 8000 lbs, including pad footing details

Aspects of building that may require professional or engineer involvement (stamped design/engineer letter etc)

 foundation construction not in Code (PWF, ICF, etc.)
 foundation design where geotechnical information indicates it is required
 foundation lateral bracing for wall length, height or backfill condition
 grade beams & piles not per Standata 90-DR-092
 structural concrete (slabs, brackets, etc)
 retaining walls connected to building or required for building integrity
 complex roof or floor (stick framed or engineered)
 flush connections for built up beams  exterior walls exceeding Code height limits
 dimension lumber joists exceeding Code table limits
 cantilevered joists not in Code
 masonry supported on wood frame
 concrete topping on wood floor system
 construction with uncommon housing materials (steel, precast concrete, straw bale, SIP, ICF, etc.)
 installation of renewable energy devices (solar collectors etc)
 exterior cladding systems not in Code
 hydronic heating systems
 spray foam products and installation

Guessing you plan on making what 100k a year for yourself? I just threw out a number.

Got it-- sorry for jumping to conclusions. In your photo "Form Pour," where are these pads located? How are the teleposts secured to the pads?


Not at all. I just meant that I'm genuinely curious to learn about different building practices and just threw in the experience in Oregon to (confusingly) illustrate the point.



Understood.



Again, this is just a different way of doing things that doesn't seem to make sense- I think there are advantages to having everything checked and signed off on before the heavy equipment rolls in- but vive la différence.