Remembrance Day - Nov 11th, 2005

Remembrance Day ceremony at Kanata Cenotaph, November 11th, 2005

In Flanders Fields by John McCrae

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.


Bill Christopher - virtual memorial - Calgary Highlanders. Circumstances of death unknown. However... my speculation is that Bill was wounded at the battle of Hoogerheide (Oct 10/44) and then killed during the South Beveland action (Oct 14-31). This speculation is simply based on comparing the dates in the telegrams with the dates of the battles the Cgy Highrs. Some Google Earth coordinates on this here.

Ron Taylor - virtual memorial - Royal Canadian Artillery. Killed by a mine explosion. Circumstances of Ron's death are documented in the RCHA book "Right of the Line: An Anecdotal History of the Royal Canadian Horse Artillery from 1871" by Mitchell, MC, CD Maj. G.D. (1986). Here is the excerpt:

"November 17th was an especially sad day for the RCHA. Lt Hugh J. Bedell, the RSO, and his driver L/Bdr Ron F. Taylor were killed by a new type of mine. They had gone forward on a preliminary survey of the gun area to be occupied by the regiment in relieving 3rd Fd Regt with Porter Force. Having some knowlege of mines, Bedell had removed one of this new type for inspection by experts. It exploded while being lifted from the jeep. Ironically, Taylor was one of the few long-service men then slated for leave in Canada."

The real irony was that Ron Taylor was filling in for a fellow driver, his buddy Bauman, who was sick with food poisoning.

When Bauman got back to Canada, he named his son Ron in honour of Ron Taylor. We met Ron in Ottawa at the new Canadian War Museum this summer.

Picture of World War II graves from the Canadian war cemetery in Goosbeck, Holland. Some of these soldiers were killed during operation Market Garden, better known as "A Bridge Too Far" (movie info).
(Image from here.)

Day 217 - rain

Well, I guess it's no surprise that it rained today.

The roofers came and shingled a bit, and then stopped around 2pm due to the weather not being too good.

Stucco hasn't started yet. Any more delays and they will have to "tent" the house (put up tarps or plastic sheeting around the house) and heat so the stucco cures properly. No problem with that, except it costs $$$ of course. It's a shame the warm fall weather has been wasted on waiting...

Day 216 - shingles!

We got shingles!!! There are piles of shingles stacked in a few places around the house.

It was raining most of the day, but at least the shingles were delivered.

The winner of Ms Renaissance XL 2005: Freda Taylor-Christopher in the "Weathered Slate" competition.

Day 215 - lots of stuff!

Drive-up view

The returns are now built on the garage gables.

Exterior view for the piping for the boiler and the air exchanger.

Garage - the large rocks in front of the garage were removed from the backfill in the garage. This is in preparation for doing the garage floor.

The septic tank, now partially buried.


This is the trench where the pipe will run from the septic holding tank to the septic field.

The septic field.

Day 213 - Plan update

These are my notes from my meeting with Charles and Dave on Wednesday. Patrick, who carpools in with Dave, had to hang around while we had our discussion. Patrick - thank you for your patience, we appreciate it!

Nov 4 - Complete roof framing (including sheeting, gables, roof ribbons, strapping, returns)
Nov 11 - Complete framing interior
Nov 18 - Complete garage floor (est 3 days work, but allow 2 days for delays due to assisting other trades), and garage stairs (garage to laundry room, and garage to basement stairs).
Dec 2 - Ready to drywall. Call cabinet maker to take final measurements for kitchen, bathrooms, and laundry.
Dec 16 - drywall boarding complete (2 weeks). Have trim here.
Then comes...
flooring, cabinets, trimming, finish electrical, plumbing, HVAC.

Phew! There's a lot of work still to go, but there is time to make it happen.

Exterior Colours

We spent 4-5 hours yesterday (Sat) driving around looking at shingle colours. We had decided that our original selection (blog entry Oct 8th) of IKO Renaissance XL in Weathered Slate is what we want. We were distracted by the sample which appears very grey. Charles suggested that the dark brown colour for the metal valleys would go well with the shingles, so we are going to use that also.

On the stucco colour front, this photo shows (a) the stucco texture - this scan doesn't look too good and the colour is wrong. (b) the colour on the windows and doors, and (c) the leading choice for the stucco colour.

Powder room quandry

The problem with getting related things for different suppliers is that sometimes you end up with an Ooops! That happened in the powder room. We selected a vessel sink from Mondeau, but wanted the Kohler Fairfax single hole faucet. Mondeau doesn't sell Kohler so we went to The Orange Borg to order the faucet. Well, I guess we ordered the tall version of the Fairfax faucet (shown at top right) which would be okay for a deck-mounted faucet but is just too tall for a sink mounted faucet.

So we now need to return the tall Fairfax faucet (and pay a 15% restocking fee) and order the correct faucet. The silver lining in this cloud is that we found a sink that we like even better (Kohler Serif - K2075-1) which is a little bit cheaper. At least that will take the edge of HD's restocking fee...

Day 212 - Lots of progress this week

(click any picture for larger view)

Sat Nov 5th. We went out to the building site today to see all the progress. Lots of it!

As mentioned on Thursday's Day 210 - Heavy Lifting entry, there are still a few things to do on the roof. This photo is the underside of the garage roof. Note the gap in the sheathing at the peak of the roof - this is to let the hot air escape from the attic through the ridge vents. The webbing on the long chords on one side is visible here - this provides support to the chords so they don't vibrate and fail under load, thereby causing roof failure.

Day 211 - here is the septic holding tank in position. It sure looks a lot smaller here than it did when I was standing beside it.

See photo from Wednesday - Day 209 - for comparison.

Here is the other end of the septic system. Lots of fine sand here...

It's nice to see progress on this, as it needs to be completed before freeze-up (still a few weeks off).


Now for the VSP for some of the trades...

VSP - Plumbing. Here you can see evidence of the plumbing progress. The plumbing connections are sticking up through holes planned out in the floor. There is lots of piping in the basement! I will take a photo of that another day.

More plumbing... This is the boiler, hot water storage tank, etc.

Charles did explain to me once how this all works, but that was a while ago and I have forgotten. I will need to get Charles to explain it again.

VSP - ventilation. The ductwork is almost all in. This was where another oversight reared its head. I had assumed the ductwork could all fit through the webbing on the Hambro steel trusses. It's obvious it can't. This is a disappointment because the ductwork significantly lowers the ceiling in the area that was planned for a media room.

The size of a media room is determined by the ceiling height (for optimum acoustic response), so a low ceiling means the room would shrink signifcantly. This means we will need to put the media room in another location, which is what Dave and Charles suggested. This isn't isn't necessarily a huge problem, but it will mean that we have to be extra careful about fastening any basement partition walls to the floor, so the Hambro tubing is not ruptured.

This HVAC system is large enough for us to be able to add an air conditioner later, if needed.

Day 211 - Generators & pony panels

I met with Charles and Dave on Wednesday evening to go over the plan. Unfortunately, I seem to have misplaced my paper with my notes. Suffice it to say that we are confident the team can complete our building so we can move in at the end of January as planned.

Lots of stuff is happening... plumbing, hvac, electrical - as already discussed. Mark had a discussion with Dave the electrician about the generator ready panel. Dave's point was the generator ready panel was overkill, and he could accomplish the same thing at less cost with a pony panel. What Freda and I want is the ability to hook up a generator to power some key circuits (well, sanitary pump, refrigerator, freezer, a few lights, etc.) if the power goes out. And, to be completely honest, we don't really care if that goal is accomplished by a generator-ready panel, pony panel, or a whatzahouzit.

At the end of the discussion, Dave said he recommended putting in a pony panel for the generator circuits and Mark agreed with that.

Tomorrow (Saturday), we are going to make the shingle colour selection for sure - we will drive by some addresses that we got from the supplier. We are also going to go out to the site and see all the VSPs that have happened this week.

Day 210 - Heavy lifting - completed!

(click any picture for larger view) Photo from here.

This is an Antonov An-225 Mryia - the world's largest plane, and is used as heavy-lift cargo plane. Yes, it is slightly larger than the A-380 and way bigger than the Airbus Beluga. You can read more about the An-225 here. First flight: Dec 1988. Weight: 501,000 pounds empty, 1.32 million pounds fully loaded. 6 engines. 32 wheels.

So what does this have to do with anything?

Charles called me today to pass on the great news that the sheathing on the roof was completed. This means the "heavy lifting" (aka the hardest part of our building -- the roof) is complete!!! Fabulous!!!

This has been a long haul for the crew. It's taken almost 5 weeks to get to this point, but the end is clearly in sight. The many days of rain and very cool mornings took a toll, but it is really great to get this huge piece of work behind us. At Nortel where I work, we call that the heavy lifting phase of the project, which is why I made the references to the heavy lift aircraft.

Thank you very much - Charles, Dave, Chris, Sean, and Patrick!

Although the sheathing on the roof is completed, there is still some more work to do there: build the dutch gable on the garage, build the returns for the gable ends, install the strapping on the long webs of the trusses, build the chimney chase and the cricket, or in more colourful language - the duck's ass (you can read about a cricket here), and install the hurricane clips on the trusses.

Shingles
So now we're ready for the shingles. We had previously selected the Renaissance XL shingle in Weathered Slate (see blog entry Oct 8th). However... the colour of the sample Charles dropped by didn't match these pictures, so we got addresses of some houses with the various shingle colours on them and will drive by on Saturday. Fortunately, there is one street in Kanata that has all of the shingle colours on it, so we just need to go by there.

We're also waiting for the last shingling quote to come in so we can make a decision on that and get started.

Other accomplishments today
In addition to the roof sheathing being completed, Charles said the sand bed was laid for the septic field. The plumber was there today doing some rough-in, the HVAC guy was installing his plenums, and the electrician will be there tomorrow. One thing Mr Electrician needs to do is remedy the electrical panel as it not generator ready which is what we wanted (see blog entry from June 3rd - Day 58 - when I originally spoke with the plumber, electrician, and HVAC trades).

Things in progress
- finding a propane supplier (we're ready to make a decision after we talk to Charles about tank placement - Freda made all the phone calls for that)
- electrical layout: we have a draft we need to review with Charles
- security system: we have a meeting booked with a company on Thursday evening
- tile backsplash in kitchen: Freda is researching this also
- cabinet and flooring: Freda called these suppliers to give them a heads-up that they will be able to come and take measurements in a couple of weeks.
- COLOURS: Freda is considering various options and deciding on the colour schemes. This is harder than I thought! I guess that's one reason why why tract builders just paint everything "builder beige".

Freda gets some of her inspiration and encouragement from these shows on the W Network:
Candice Olson's Divine Design,

and also
Jane Lockhart's Colour Confidential

Day 209 - More VSPs

Nov 2nd/05.

The septic tank was just dropped off. It is upside down in this photo. The tank will be installed in the hole behind the kitchen, and then the effluent will be pumped up to the septic field.

This is the base for the hydro meter. We are waiting for hydro inpsection.

I wonder if we will get a Smart Meter?? Will have to see.


This is the electrical panel - looks like 200A but not a generator ready version...

Day 208 - is a baby Cat a kitty??

The baby cat!

Today:
- meter base installed and electrical panel in basement (should be 200A, generator ready panel)
- drain installed in garage (using the baby cat)
- plumber started work
- heating contractor should come tomorrow
- working on completing the roof sheathing

Tomorrow Mark meets with Charles and Dave to review the plan.