Warming up in the basement

Catherine taking a break to warm up.  It got to -18C on December 12, which was a long day finishing the vapor barrier and then sweeping the snow out of the main floor.   Next year we will smile about this as we watch the snow swirl around from inside the house with a nice cup of tea (or glog...).

Keeping the basement warm

The ICF foundation does a great job of keeping the basement warm.  December 5 brings electricity to the house via hook up of the main panel in the basement, with some outlets and on December 12 also hook up of the power supply to the pump for the well.   Since the phone was also hooked up this week, technically we have power, phone, running water and septic now available (roughed in at least).   Thanks to Danny McIver for getting us power and making a heater and blower available.   It is now hooked up to keep the basement from freezing.  Bob is here showing where he put temporary insulation in the subfloor and is now installing vapor barrier - this is to keep things snug so that we do not freeze and heave that newly poured basement floor.  

Snow everywhere

Looking good from here on the outside too.   We have found that without the soffit installed in the gables and gable ends that we are getting snow blowing into the main floor on the inside ......so Don is going to do that as soon as he can.

Finally the north and south sides are shingled!

Early December sees the shingling done on the north and south sides including gables.  All that is left is the west and east side porch roof shingling, which we are leaving until spring because we need to stage off of these two sections of roof to install the east and west gable end siding and soffit.  These two sides are fully protected with ice guard and they are good an watertight for now.

There is so much snow that you cannot actually see that the shingling is done, you will have to trust me on this.....   Note that it looks sweet now with the windows and doors in place.

Sweeping and covering the roof to finish shingling

The last of the shingling in November required beating back the snow on the roof and covering it in preparation for the next day's work.   

November 25 and it is a long cold walk to the outhouse

Winter is a little merciless this year.  Catherine gazes out the window of the trailer and thinks warm in preparation for her next visit to the outhouse.   It looks as though the snow is going to stay.   This week we see temperatures down to -12 C and that made the propane furnace in the trailer work pretty hard.  Bob kindly gets up in the night to switch propane tanks when we run out.   Not the camp shower still hanging on the post but it is frozen now!

Jim installs the door hardware

Jim has to keep moving to keep warm, it is getting pretty cold for doing fiddly work like this but it is great to get this done so that we can close the place up.

Sausage roll in place

The sausage roll is shown set into the space between the window frame and the top of the window opening.    We did the same for the door openings.   Once these are in place we Tuck taped the whole outside frame and then put a settling board in place over this to cover/trim it and seal it up.   

Bob holding a window/door sausage roll

You can see how bundled up Bob is - late November is cutting it close for getting windows and doors in for northern Ontario!  Bob is holding one of the "sausage rolls" that we made out of 6 mil plastic vapor barrier, pink fiberglass insulation and Tuck tape.  The bags are squared and loosely packed to allow for them being compressed in the opening at the top of each window and door in the log part of the house.  These "sausages" allow for insulation, vapor barrier and an air seal while the house settles.

Window and door frames next

Here is a window frame set in between the two side spline assemblies.  A space is left between the top of the squared frame and the window opening to allow for settling and vertical compression of the logs (will be 6% nominal).  A piece of roll foam is set at the bottom of the frame and toed into the slot in the wall for a water and air tight fit.

Putting in the window and door splines

Ronn has come back to put the doors and windows in the log walls.   Here he is holding a "T" shaped spline that goes on each side of the windows and doors, set into the slot in the logs so that they can slide by the window frame as they settle and compress.   Note the memory foam to keep a seal on both the inside and outside while this is happening.  You can see the colour of the stained outside wall and the unstained inside wall in this shot.