Today was the official inspection of the basic installation. Installation was completed one week ahead of schedule and there was just one minor note to the installation team. So now there are walls, windows, roof, and frame for the ceiling on the first floor.

Now the most interesting part begins – getting the house ready on the inside. Completion of the basic installation ahead of schedule gave an opportunity to make concrete floors before Christmas, let them dry up over the holidays and proceed with the rest of the works right after the New Year.

Yesterday cold water pipes and sewer pipes were connected and placed inside the house – where the showers, toilets and sinks will be. Today installation of styrox (thermal insulation) has been started.

Well, not really But the roof is ready. As well as a lot of other minor tasks are completed,  and balcony and terrace are taking shape on the back side of the house. Now I just hope that  all planned works will be completed on time – by December 19th, and I still will manage to get floors done before Christmas.

After just one working week it starts to look like a real house. And it is a lot bigger than we expected. It is nice to walk inside – gives a brilliant perspective on how it is going to look like when it is finished and on how much is there still to be done.

This day has come!

I met with the installation crew few days ago – really nice guys from up north. Brought back all the memories about living in Oulu. They pointed out some things that still needed to be done before the house elements comes. Mostly small preparations – ordering scaffolds, ordering radon isolation for the top of the foundation wall and making sure that foundation for internal load bearing walls is made (been a bit of disappointment – contractor promised to do it a week ago, but didn’t show up).

Installation of the wall elements is done right from the truck they came on – speeds up the work quite a bit since there’s no need for arranging temporary storage and ordering a separate crane.

Installation of all elements and the roof is supposed to take about a month – so hopefully everyhitng is done before Christmas.

Filling the ground to bring it to the planned level didn’t start as planned. It was delayed for almost two weeks and still didn’t start when I had to go for a 2 weeks US trip. The plan was that when I come back everything is ready for inspection, so it was time to start to get worried. Long story short – after two weeks of managing the project remotely and coordinating work of different contractors in a timezone 10 hours behind Finland everything was done. All proper layers of sand, insulation and water isolation were made inside and outside the foundation, surface water system was installed and ground slope around foundation was made correctly.

And there still is a week before the house block start to arrive from the factory. Good work! And it started snowing today…

Foundation is practically ready. Forms are taken away. A couple of small things are missing still – fixators for the columns, base for fireplace and base for internal load bearing walls. But that can be done a bit later as well, and now it is time to start bringing sand to bring the ground level to the planned height and install surface water system. There’s still a month to go before first truck from house factory arrives.

Base of foundation is made and now it’s time to put “sokkeli” or foundation wall on top of it. These works went quite smooth – new forms were assembled on top of foundation’s base, insulation placed and concrete poured into them. Just waiting for concrete to dry.

It took two weeks after the blunder with ground works was discovered to restart the foundation building. After all it was not that bad – we’ve discovered that neighbours got a permission to raise their house almost 70cm, so there was a chance to raise our house for another 10cm and put drainage pipes around projected garage and the house foundation locations.

First base of foundation had to be made. Installation team worked like a well-oiled machine – forms were assembled in a few hours. The only problem was that they were assembled in a slightly different place than where they were supposed to be. Inkoo construction inspector who came to check on the progress approved unplanned house location change. There was a bit of pressure to make decision fast, since trucks with concrete were already waiting. In the end of the day concrete was poured into the forms and base of foundation was ready. Yahoo!

Ground works were finished just a couple of days before the scheduled foundation works start and the result looked quite all right, although I didn’t do a really thorough inspection.

I made sure that foundation builders are aware of the changes in house location and ground height.

After foundation works have started today in the morning I got a couple of strange calls from the builders – they were wondering whether they came to the right construction site and whether they got correct house blueprints. In the end of the day it turned out to be improperly done ground works – ground under terrace, porch and bay window was not prepared at all.

Big blunder that cost time and money. Foundation works had to be postponed, and since all contractors allocate time slots at least few weeks ahead, prospective delays do not look good.

Ground works are progressing quite good, despite of the small hiccup in the beginning. It is time to put the pipes into the ground. Sewer and water pipes are ordered, a plummer will come to make sure pipes are placed into the ground correctly, and another plummer from Inkoo municipality is coming to make sure connections to the municipal systems. The day and time is agreed and everybody gathers on the construction site.

But what was supposed to be a one hour job turned out to be a day of wasted time for everyone. Pipes were placed into the ground and water pipes were even connected, but sewer connection was simply impossible because of overlapping problems – as soon as the hole was dug up to get to the collector it started to immediately fill with ground water. When water pump was brought (I didn’t yet have electricity connected, so thanks to the neighbours who allowed to use their connection) and water was pumped out it was discovered that sewer connection is incorrectly made and it is not possible to connect the pipes. By that time working day was over for municipal plummer, so fixing and connection had to be postponed.