You may have noticed that we’ve been a little quiet on the house front for the last couple of weeks.  Well, you’re right. We have, and the main reason: WINTER.

Now on a normal year, we aren’t winter’s biggest fans, but this year we’re especially bitter as the sudden influx of full blown arctic weather has essentially thrown our construction schedule to the wolves!

Okay, to be fair it’s not totally Winter’s fault, since according to the original schedule we were planning to have had the house structure up and closed in by now. But thanks to the 4 week permit delay, and then all the craziness with the footings, and the foundation, we’ve been forced to still be working outdoors, and enduring the less than ideal weather conditions.  And here’s where the “winter blame game” begins.

Being so close to the lake, has it’s benefits….in the summer.  In the winter it means ‘lake-effect’ snow at your doorstep.  In the winter when your property has a 12ft. whole in the ground, it means 2ft. of water and and potentially ice pooling at the base of your foundation…awesome.  Essentially, we’ve figured out that our proximity to the lake means we have a high water table, or in other words, you don’t have to dig too deep to hit ground water.  At the deepest area of our foundation hole, the water literally bubbles out of the ground – so fast that within a few hours of pumping it out, it refills.  You can imagine the challenge of trying install weeping tile and the waterproof membrane for the foundation in those conditions. Combine that with extremely cold temperatures and exposed foundation walls & footings, you’ve got a recipe for disaster.

We’ve been lucky so far, that the cold temperatures and water (that’s now beginning to turn to ice) hasn’t caused any major damage to our foundation.  But now it’s a bit of a race against the clock and the elements, to get the framing started so we can backfill the hole.

We’ll keep you posted…