Framewalk

My framewalk today went very well aside from all the muddiness at the construction site from the last three days of rain. Tried my best not to get it all over my clothes but I lost the battle. Anyway, I met with Matt from Mattamy (I'm pretty sure Mattamy wasn't named after him). He was really nice. I found out that he's from England and has been in Ottawa for four years. He currently lives in a Mattamy home in Fairwinds in Kanata.

He took me around the house to each room. He pointed out a bunch of things including the electrical, structural things, measurements, etc. Everthing seemed to be in the right place and in order. Potlights and switches are in good locations, and all of the extra outlets/cabling I bought were there. All of the insulation and vapour barrier was up too.

Some interesting things that I learned:

• the common walls (i.e. ones that are shared with a neighbour) are double drywalled (two layers). I'll be curious how much sound and noise will come through the walls;
• he mentioned that it will likely be that joints where drywall meets certain framed areas may buckle and separate because of the house settling and the moisture/air stabilizes. This will be taken care of at the 1-year inspection;
• there is a switch which operates the main bathroom fan located on the main level near the thermostat. Makes you wonder how bad one's business could be to have to turn on the fan from downstairs, eh? :) Actually, it's just to help push air out especially during the first year to reduce buckling/shifting/separating mentioned previously;
• bathroom GFI switches are all connected to one switch located in the powder room;
• new code has all of the bedroom switches connected to a GFI type switch in the main circuit panel.

Matt said that everything is still on schedule and that the drywalling will commence early the following week. There is still a few little things to take care of in my house prior to the drywalling. Outside, they have started to do the brick work.

I took a bunch of pictures while I was there. It will be handy to have them in the future if I'm ever wondering what's behind my walls. I've uploaded some of those pics on my picasaweb album.