After delays with excavation, we were excited to move on to the foundation and then framing where we would finally start to see our house take shape. 

Foam for our foundation was delivered on a stormy day at the end of August, precipitating a mad dash to the site where we ran around in the mud getting everything under a tarp so it wouldn’t blow away in the wind. The foam was neat though, like Lego blocks that fit together in a tidy puzzle.

Our house is being built on a raft slab foundation. This type of foundation forgoes footings below the frostline and instead ‘floats’ on top of the ground. A thick layer of foam insulates the concrete slab against freezing and frost heave. Loops of drainage tile and grading around the slab move water away. Benefits were that we could avoid blasting through bedrock close below the surface and cost savings due to ease of installation. The slab designer didn’t quite get the design right, overlooking the need to insulate between the heated house slab and unheated porches to avoid thermal bridges but our project manager caught this and was able to correct it during install.

With the foam laid, next came install of tubing for in-floor radiant heat. My toes are excited for this feature. We had tubing laid in the garage to give us the option to add a manifold to heat that space in future.

Things were moving along at a good clip when we hit our next little snag. A national cement shortage halted work for a few weeks while our project manager sourced cement for our pour. Luckily though, the wait wasn’t too long and the slab was completed by the beginning of October. A sealant was applied after the pour, which will need some touch ups toward the end of the build but this will be our finished floor. I thought it looked like the skating rink we’d cleared on the pond the winter before.

Foundation done we were ready for framing.