week 12: Building permit was approved 22-Mar-2011

Yes. Bulding permit was approved. Work can now start properly.
Here are some pictures from this week.
 

The house and garage exact spots were marked by the engineers from Kirkkonummi municipality.

The house ground has now been prepared for the steel pillars (paalutus) that will be knocked into the ground for 7-10 meters until they reach solid ground. The pillars will installed next week.

There is now electricty for the works.

Spring is not yet here but weather was beautiful this Saturday morning when I ran/ walked from home to the land and back (about 8 km in total).

week 11: Old cottage and some tress are gone

Snow was cleared to the side and road was made. A bit of snow as you can see.

Road ready

The sad cottage wating for its faith :(. At least we tried to recycle all material possible.

Half done

Wood is being collected and recycled (usually used for burning).

Also windows/ glass will be recycled

Cottage is gone making way for the house place!

Some fir and birch trees that were in the way had to be taken down. We'll use the wood in the new house's fireplace.

to give away working fireplace KASTOR HELO

The previous owner of the summer cottage said it was used as the source of heat for the cottage.

Homma etenee!

Tontille kulkee rekan kantava tie ja mökki on melkein purettu ja lajiteltu. Ens maanantaina 21.3 saamme rakennusluvan ja 23.3 tulee rakennuksenmerkkaajat kunnan puolesta paikalle. Myös vastaavamestari näyttäytyy tuolloin tontilla.

Purkujäte on lajiteltu siten että kallista sekajätettä syntyy mahdollisimman vähän. Puu menee poltettavaksi ja sementti Tammisaaren kaatikselle, jonne se rahdeista huolimatta on edullisempaa kuskata Espooseen verrattuna. Peltikatto meni metalliromuksi, ikkunat ja ovet on säästössä. Ikkunoita saa hakea jos joku niitä tarvitsee.

Takka on edelleen hakusessa, mutta kaakelitakka se on! Nyt on kaksi vaihtoehtoista toimittajaa: Tulikivi tai Vuoleri. Vuoleri on pieni perheyritys ja takka oikea kiviuuni, joka on päällystetty kaakeleilla. Sen lämmönvaraamiskyky on hyvä juuri kivisisuksen ansiosta. Tulikivi on iso ja tunnettu valmistaja ja heidän takat on mielettömän kauniita ja kaakelit korkealaatuisia... saa nähdä mihin päädymme. Tiedän näistä takoistakin jo liikaa eikä hintaerokaan ole ihmeellinen.

Sain tänään myös vahvistuksen talofirmalta että valitsemani keittiöallas voidaan asentaa toivottuun paikkaan niin että ikkuna avautuu! Hurraaa! Unelmani on ollut että tiskiallas on ikkunan edessä ja posliinia. Talotehtaan mukaan keittiön ikkuna on 92,5cm korkeudella mitattuna valmiin lattian pinnasta ja Ikean mallikeittiössä allas on 90,3cm lattiasta. Ihmetellään sitten keittiön asennusvaiheessa kun ikkuna jumittaa;D.

The land work has started TODAY!

Today we met at the land with the land works contractor, electrician and somebody from the water network association. We discussed about making the road stronger to last 40 tonnes trucks, where to put the waste land, where are the electricity cables in the ground, felling some trees etc.
Yes, now the visible part of the project starts, first with some snow clearing...

It's a question of Foundation

The land where the house will be built is made of clay (savimaa - old bottom of the sea) and therefore the foundation has to be made on pillars (7-10m long) that are standing on the firmer ground beyond the clay. Then on top of the pillars will be put hollow core floor beams of 26.5cm thick. Then insulating material 25 cm (Expanded polystyrene (EPS)) and a concrete floor of 8-10 cm thick into which also the floor heating pipes will be installed. Below is a picture I've taken of the way it sort of looks although our insulation is bigger than in the picture where I guess is only 20cm and the side plinth beam will be from solid concrete.

The technical drawing for our foundation wall structure looks like below (there's crawling space under the floor of at least 0.8m):

 The foundation is not coming from Lapponia house so we had to get the whole package from another company.

We had asked quite a few companies for quotations but not many offer ther complete package ( pillars, beams, insulation, concrete floor casting, etc). We got basically offers from 2 companies for the complete package: Basso (via Lapponia sales agent) and Me-Perustukset. The initial Basso offer was 50 % (!) more expensive than the one from Me-perustukset. Only after Basso found out the fact that we got a much cheaper offer from ME, Basso also came down to a much similar price. But then we did not want to consider their offer anymore as we felt Basso initially tried to ripp us off. Also Basso's offer did not include making the ventilation holes and also it requires to pay separately if the foundation/ concrete needs heating during the colder season.

The round prices of the offer we accepted from Me-perustukset for our foundation and pillars  (materials and installation) including the terace were:
- plinth beams and floor beams (sokkelipalkki ja ontelolaatta) - 18000
- steel pillars (teräspaalutus) 112m  - 4500
- concrete floor casting  - 3000
- steel net and EPS insulation - 2700
- foundation and water drainage design - 1200

So far I have been happy with the service from Me-perustukset and the sales person speaks very well english (Mikko Kuoppa - Update Nov 2011 - Mikko left the company we were told).
Even more of a pleasant surprise was that the during the design fase, the Me-perustukset planner came with a proposal for a different set up of the foundation which needed less plinth beams and steel pillars than were quoted in the initial offer and therefore we got a reduction of 2000 euro in the total price!

See also our other post about foundation:
http://project-eco-house-finland.blogspot.com/2011/04/week-16-foundation-is-fast-and-furious.html

UPDATE Nov 2011: 

We concluded not to recommend anymore ME-perustukset due to the fact that they have been delaying our garage foundation for very long during the summer and the contact person from ME was saying many times that they come next week, and then next week etc. And when they came they have made the garage pillars too weak. Our head-designer / vastaava meestari asked them to correct it and after couple more weeks they came and made the pillars again but then once again they were wrong (not fulfilling the standards). ME-perustukset contact person mentioned that the garage foundation was being made by a subcontractor of theirs but that does excuse them, I would say.  The third time went right, after our head-designer explained them on the spot what went wrong.
Now, due to delays and frost coming up, we decided to postpone the finalization of the foundation until next spring...

Katso linkki laatoista ja pintamateriaaleista

http://project-eco-house-finland.blogspot.com/p/interior-design.html

House model pictures updated

Here's the link to the outside pictures of the house model
http://project-eco-house-finland.blogspot.com/p/house-package.html

Also a link to an interesting book we've also bought:

Permit to demolish the cottage is HERE!

Yes, we got the permit today and cottage will go next week.

Last weekend we moved out all the interesting furniture, carpets (pestyjä räsymattoja!) doors, super old coffin dated 1804 and some glasswear. Friends got some chairs, a lamp, plankets and a cupboard. For the kids I took some pots and pans to play with outside while we are cleaning etc. in the house.

Trees are marked with red paint and now we just wait for another week until machines arrive and start making the road and dig.

We also met our electrician and went through the plan for lightning and plugs in the house. That seems to be all in order. Sooner or later it is affordable to change halogens into led pulps, in Germany they were already selling those pulps rather cheap.( http://www.lighting.philips.com/main/lightcommunity/trends/led/index.wpd )

Latest events

Back from holidays! Greetings from Switerland, Germany and France, went driving around and met friends. In the meantime spring had arrived also to Finland and snow is melting fast!

Called today the county to find out if we could demolish the cottage already soon. Apparently it is possible to split the application in two and get licence to tear down the old cottage much faster than the actual building permit which is coming in 2-4 weeks. So if we are lucky, cottage will go already next week. If we could save the cottage we would absolutely fix it and stay there for few months. In our case there is permit only for one house on the plot. So in order to get the building permit, old building must go. That is a shame.

Coming weekend our friends are coming to empty the cottage and take everything worth something and the rest can go. We will recycle everything possible from the house; windows/ glass, metal, wood and insulation materials. Old doors I will keep and figure out later what to do with them. I would like to make a table or wall decoration from the old wooden front door. Past would follow with us and as I have told I adore old shapes, colours and textures.

This weekend we will also mark all the trees with some red spraying paint that have to go.