A Magical Mini-Tour

We spent the long, record-setting heat and drought-filled summer of 2022 on our Nordic 26 tug tied to the dock in Port Alberni. Week after week of glorious, dry, calm, sunny weather passed us by and we didn't go anywhere in the boat. There were a number of reasons for this, the main one being that we...

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House Build - Progress Report

It's been almost three months since I reported that the windows were now in at our house build in Port Alberni. At that time, we really thought we might be occupying the house by now. Instead, we are still waiting...waiting...and waiting. Sure, a few major hurdles have now been passed, but, there's...

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House Build- Windows are In!

Our house build pace has been painfully slow, but, now that the windows are in, it looks like there has actually been some real progress. The recent heat wave hadn't been helping. The window crew was installing in temperatures of near 40C. Even our site's cooling afternoon sea breezes weren't enough...

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House Build - Structure is up!

After the footings/foundation were complete there was another week or so of effort to dig trenches, lay drainage tile and connect up our sewer/water lines. Then, we waited for the materials package to arrive so that the actual house construction could start. It had been a year and a half of effort to...

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May - Out and About

While the house build is continuing, we've been keeping busy. Boat projects never end and there is always a long list of projects waiting for us. As we're living aboard until the house is built, the boat interior cosmetic changes were high priority. We've completed most of those. Now, we need to start...

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House Build - Footings/Foundation

Next step in the build, after preparing the lot, is to place the concrete footings and foundation walls. In our case, we only need concrete foundation walls on two sides of the structure as the other two sides are fully exposed and will be built using standard wooden stud construction. In this picture...

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House Build - The Wall

It's been over two months since I last wrote. Our house build progress has been slow, but, steady. First, the ground was poked and prodded by our geotechnical engineer to determine the location of the 'hardpan'. Unlike in Ontario, where the Canadian Shield predominates and solid granite is usually easy...

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