Oh boy, here is where things start to get fun!  Today saw the start of the real work laying our under slab rigid insulation.  I only got one layer of it down, but did a pretty darn good job of it if I do say so myself.

What we are doing here is putting down two layers, of 2″ thick rigid extruded polystyrene insulation – this stuff is actually made just up in Valleyfield, QC, which is just around the corner from our summer cottage, so it’s good to know our money is staying in Canada.  It also has a nice “shiplap” edge so you can easily mate each successive piece to the previous.  Each layer of the 2″ insulation has an R-value of 10, so in total we will have R-20 under our slab – double what the Ontario Building Code requires.

Installing this stuff is super easy, if a bit time-consuming.  You basically start in one corner and start laying out pieces until you get to the end, cutting the end piece to size.  You start the next row with the leftover bit from the end of the previous row, to give a bit of offset in the seams, and eventually the whole area is covered edge to edge.  It only really gets a bit tricky making the cut-outs for the sump-pump pit and radon ventilation pipe, and when you have to cut odd shaped pieces to fit in at the ends (or around corners), but my table saw makes short work of it!

By the end of day 1 I was able to get the complete first layer of insulation installed, and started taping all the seams with ‘tuck tape’.  Tomorrow I’ll finish that taping and then lay down the second layer of insulation (weather permitting!)

This is entirely un-exciting, but a simple fact of building a house – under your basement slab the Ontario Building Code requires the installation of a vapour barrier.

Typically, and in our case, this is 6mil plastic sheeting.  It comes in rolls of 20’x100′ and is a bit unwieldy to maneuver, but once cut to size (with a generous overlap for the seams),  it lays down quick:

The first order of business after the foundation guys were done removing the forms for the walls and damp-proofing, was to get in there and clean up the inside of the basement walls so that I can readily attach rigid insulation to it.  If you look at the following picture of the basement walls you can see the concrete “nubbies” I have to remove to make sure the insulation will sit as flush as possible with the wall.

Basically how you remove these, is you just whale on them with a hammer and smash them down flush…only really takes a couple of good whacks to each one, but it’s a bit of a hassle for the higher up ones as I have to move my ladder around to reach them easily.  After that is done, we’ll be laying down the vapour barrier, then the rigid insulation that goes under our basement floor slab.

After the foundation footings had been poured, the crew came back to set up the forms for the basement walls, and to have them filled up with concrete.  These crews can get these forms up pretty quickly, they started in the morning about 8am and the walls were poured by the end of the day.  This included them dropping in four 5’x4′ forms to create void spaces in the walls where our windows will go.

After they pour the walls, they take the wall forms off and this is what we’re left with:

Then finally, after they get all the forms off, they apply the waterproofing tar-like stuff to keep any water from seeping through the walls:

Things are looking good!

Just a couple pictures of them pouring the concrete into the foundation footings.

After the pour the footing, the install the sump pit and connect it to the “Big O” drainage tile around the exterior perimeter of the footing:

Finally, the “stone slinger” shows up and shoots about 20 tonne of stone into the interior of the footing to fill in the area, and around the outside of the footing to cover the drainage pipe:

After the foundation footings crew came in, the well driller showed up promptly the next day (Tuesday June 10th) to start drilling our well – unlike city folk we have no municipal water or sewer services so we’ve got to drill a well for our water, and have to have a septic system installed to take care of…well, you know  🙂

To select a spot to drill the well, we first started by selecting a location which was the prescribed distance from our septic system location (50′ minimum), and also where would be a good location for the water lines to enter the foundation.  From there, the well driller used his “dowsing rods” to check if there is any water below ground, in or around the area.  In our case the rods indicated water at a spot close to where we selected so we decided we would have a shot there.

Anyone who knows me, knows that I am not one to generally buy into such things like dowsing, but really it didn’t make any difference to me how the well driller picked the spot – I was going to just trust his judgment regardless of how he made his determination.

They started drilling at maybe 9am and had hit water at 140′ by around 11am.  They “shocked” the well (basically the dump in a bunch of chlorine) and capped it off, and were set to return later for a yield test.  That day was today, and as it turns out, our well is artesian, which means we hit a good vein of water under positive pressure, that will just flow naturally to the surface through our well – if we ever have a power outage situation, we’ll still be able to get water from our well – great news for a well!  We had heard there was good water in this area and this experience seems to have borne that out.  Also, perhaps some anecdotal evidence for dowsing rods?

This week has been a busy one – first off we had the foundation crew in to set up the forms for the foundation footings, after they were done I installed the “radon ventilation piping” as recommended in the latest Ontario Building Code.  Basically this is just 4″ PVC pipe that has holes drilled along one side (typically used in septic system weeping beds) and runs around the interior perimeter of the foundation footings, and then come up through the basement slab, where it is for now just capped off – but at a later date could be vented outside.

I guess right now the townships around these parts of eastern Ontario just don’t know if radon gas will ever become an issue, but it was only a few hundred bucks and a couple hours of time to lay the pipe in place, and why not do that now before pouring our basement slab floor – a lot easier to do it now than to add it later if radon ever does become a problem, I figure.

We ordered and took delivery of 140 sheets of 2″ x 2’x8′ XPS foam and 150′ of weeping tile drain (for radon protection).  We also got a 20’x100′ roll of 6mil poly to use as a vapour barrier under the XPS.

The XPS foam we will double up to give a total of 4″ of foam, or R-20 insulation under our slab.  From there we will staple down our 1/2″ hePEX tubing to provide the radiant heat in the basement slab.

In the old days, we would have been out there with shovels and pickaxes, busting our asses digging through that rocky, rocky soil.  Thankfully, we were able to leverage some modern technology to assist us with the excavation.  All told the job was done in about two hours!

Because there is bedrock about 2′ down across our site, we couldn’t go very deep, but, we may be able to arrange a walk-out basement with this setup!

Today, Heather and I spent the afternoon staking out the site for the excavator who is arriving early this coming week.

This was a really good opportunity for a time-lapse video, but unfortunately we don’t yet have a good DSLR camera, so did not get the opportunity to set it up – we *are* looking for recommendations for a decent DSLR!  Right now the current contender is the Canon EOS Rebel T3i but if anyone else has other suggestions we’d be happy to hear them!