Cowboy Concrete Contractors

Before I get into too much detail about the last month, I have a very important announcement to make. If anyone in Saskatoon is ever wanting to get a contractor in to pour a concrete slab, DO NOT, under any circumstances, hire Milan's Concrete. Having booked Milan, and his self confessed 'very professional' crew we were disappointed to have to cancel pouring the basement slab due to a poor weather forecast. We were more disappointed to have to cancel a second time when the house was flooded and the rain continued to pour down. What really annoyed us was cancelling the third time. Having got ourselves out to the house early one morning to check conditions, and with concrete due to arrive at 9am, we received a phone call at 8:30 from the 'very professional' Milan to tell us that we should cancel the concrete. Apparently his weather sense told him that we were due to get a huge downpour that day, and there was no way we should go ahead. In fact, there was no rain that day, and when we tried to rearrange the pour we were told that the 'very professional' Milan was not going to do the job after all. The fool had wasted 3 weeks of our time, at a time when we were starting to get very stressed indeed about making some progress on the house.

Just to recap that paragraph: DO NOT USE MILAN'S CONCRETE. EVER.

Anyway, moving on to happier things. Since I last updated the blog the Tuffs arrived in here in Saskatoon for their building holiday. We managed to create enough space in the flat to accomodate the four of them. They arrived late on a Sunday night and we had little idea of the whirlwind to come. At 5:45 we started to get a bit more of an idea. Being woken up by Mollie saying "I can't wait for the day to begin" left me trying to bury my head under the pillow, as I was fully prepared to wait a few hours.

The arrival of the Tuffs coincided with the end of Lea's life as a member of the working community, as she started an open ended period of unpaid leave from her job. Now she is a full time builder, as we desperately race to get the house closed up before winter arrives.

The first task for Lea and the Tuffs was to get the basement completed so that we could get the basement slab poured. This involved filling the basement with 5 inches of polystyrene insulation, installing a vapour barrier and, finally, installing around 1000 feet of rebar and tying it all together. This all went very smoothly, and set us up nicely for the saga with the highly unprofessional Milan (the last time I will mention that idiot, I promise).












My fears about having two small children on site remained, but the girls were very well behaved, and their whole stay passed without any real incident. In fact, it seems the biggest incident involved Nikki, who managed to get hit in the head with a floor joist during the operation to get the first floor joists in place.










Luckily the day we chose to raise the floor joists was not too windy, and over the course of a few hours we managed to get all the joists into place. We had to keep the kids locked in the car while the crane was on site, but they seemed pretty content to just watch from a distance. It turned out to be a roastingly hot afternoon, and once we were done it was a welcome relief to be able to collapse and have a rest. We still have some joists remaining, as we have not yet made any progress on the garage, but hopefully we will be able to make a start on it soon. I look forward to finally getting the garage up, so we have some storage space, but I can't see it happening anytime soon.














Midway through the Tuffs visit, they made the trip over to Alberta to see something other than the prairies. This coincided with a field trip for me, and left Lea on her own for a few days to make some progress. The weekend that the Tuffs returned coincided with the long awaited 80s party. A trip to Value Village provided both Lea and I with our outfits. I chose to go as Mr. T, while Lea went for a (not very) classy 80s hooker.


















As it had been a very hot day before we went to the party I found myself somewhat dehydrated the next morning. With the weather forecast predicting 36 degrees the following day, I decided that another day slaving away in the sun might not be the best idea. As a result we took a day off from building (shock horror), and headed to Waskesiu for the day. This was a much better option and allowed me to lounge around on the beach, and rehydrate in the lake for a few hours. Waskesiu seemed like a great place, and once this house is finished I hope to be able to spend more time at the lake (in true Saskatchewan style).

Once we were back in building mode it was time to get the subflooring on to the first floor. This went surprisingly well and with the help of the Tuffs we got the job done in pretty good time. The only gap this left in the flooring was the space where the stairs will eventually go (when we will actually get some stairs is anyone's guess). In order to prevent too much rain getting into the basement we are now in a constant cycle of nailing tarp down over the gap, watching the tarp get blown off and nailing it down again. However, we are due to have the basement slab poured tomorrow (by a different contractor) so we may soon be able to do away with the tarp for good.












Last weekend, coinciding with the start of the football season back home, we had a 'super sunday' of our own. Mum and Dad were back for another week, the Tuffs were spending their last weekend in Saskatchewan before flying to Vancouver, and the neighbours (Stan, Nicole, Cassidy and Carter) came over for the day. We set out to have the exterior of the basement walls finished, the polythene wrapped around, the weeping tile in place around the footing and the gravel in place on the weeping tile. This looked like being a big ask, but luckily Stan brought the 'Gator' over and we were able to truck the gravel around the site all day instead of hauling it in a wheelbarrow. This was comfortably our biggest workforce on site (12 people), although 4 were kids and 2 were pensioners. However, we managed to get everything done and made it out for the Tuffs leaving dinner feeling very satisfied with a busy days work.










That pretty much brings us up to date. Mum and Dad have been with us for the past week, and will be heading back to Simo and Arin's on Sunday (bad luck Arin!). Lea has been working them hard on the building site, while I have spent the days sitting at my desk at work.

Our only piece of non house related news is that we have received our passports back from the High Commission in London. We now have our shiny visas, and are very close to being permanent residents. All we have to do is leave Canada, and then return so that our visas can be activated. We will not be going anywhere until the house is sealed up, but then we need to decide if we will race to the border and race back straight away so that we can keep building. or if we will make more of a trip of it (I am eyeing up a trip to Vegas so we can win enough to pay for the house).

Anyway, that's all for now. We have concrete arriving at 7am tomorrow, and I need to be up at 5am to get out there and make sure the hosue isn't under water again. I think it's probably best if I try and get some sleep.

Hopefully the next update won't take quite as long as this one did. Tune in next time for news of the basement slab, the first floor walls and maybe even the roof.

Until then..........