This past week the interior of our house was transformed while the surrounding terrain got torn up in a renewed burst of activity. Our drywallers were speedy and got all the boards up in the space of a week! There’s still a way to go but it’s looking less and less like a construction site. The same can’t be said about the outside, where the excavator has been pounding through bedrock to install our septic system and hydro trench.

We had originally planned to have the septic system and well installed while site was being excavated last summer/fall, however, we couldn’t make the timing work with our schedule and the limits imposed by our construction mortgage. We found that the bank’s appraisers use a template to assess progress that is based on a typical urban house where service connections involve a simple tie in to City services. What they don’t consider is that installation of a septic system and well in a rural area is more complicated, awarding them few percentage points towards the overall completion rate, despite being some of the bigger ticket items. The City of Ottawa also imposes seasonal load restrictions on roads during the spring thaw, so we had to wait for those to be lifted before the heavy equipment could be brought in to complete the work.

Getting our hydro hookup has similarly not been straightforward. Our electrician originally thought our property was under Hydro One jurisdiction, even though we’re in Ottawa, and applied for approval back in the fall (determining jurisdiction is apparently not as straightforward as geographic boundaries nor, oddly, something either company can over the phone). After making it to the front of the queue, he learned that our property was under Hydro Ottawa after all and had to start over. Then there was a long wait to get a new pole installed, followed by a long wait for confirmation of whether we’d be charged for the new pole (we weren’t) and then back and forth over whether we could run the hydro line around or driveway (which would be less costly) or would have to go under. Hydro Ottawa decided it had to go under the driveway and would need to be encased in concrete. We’re now waiting for a series of inspections and keeping our fingers crossed that the driveway can be put back together by end of week so the septic installation can wrap up.

Our tasks for ourselves for the coming weeks are to insulate and drywall the garage wall that’s shared with the house, select paint colours and tile, and beginning assembling our kitchen cabinets, which we plan to install ourselves.