Yesterday we finally had our dishwasher delivered. We installed that it afternoon. We ran a test cycle and it seemed OK. Today we are giving its first real test.

Today the deck railings were delivered. The installer plans to start next weekend but does not expect to complete the installation until the next weekend.

Late this afternoon we noticed a lot of smoke coming over the hills just north of us and a lot of air traffic. The smoke was from a fire that was south west of Peachland. Hopefully they will get it under control quickly.

Today we said goodbye to our approximately 1500 sandbags. Many pieces of equipment and many people were involved.

The crew was on our lot for over 5 hours, however most of that time was spent trying to maneuver a large crane truck into position so it could pick up large bags full of sandbags.

We were quite concerned about the truck driving over our septic tanks and pipes on its way out, since it had been loaded with four large bags full of sandbags. Hopefully no damage was done to our system.

Other accomplishments included getting the bedroom closet shelves in place and most of the towel bars mounted in the bathrooms. We are still waiting for Sears to deliver our dishwasher.

The new tanks came last week and were successfully installed. We were able to turn the water on in the house and have it drain into our 6800 liter septic tank. It was great to have hot and cold running water. To be able to use a toilet and have a shower without driving anywhere was wonderful!

The installer then installed the septic field and started to install the pump in the pump tank. Unfortunately, the pump did not work so he could not complete the install.

We signed up to have the regional district remove our sandbags. Apparently they will pick them up from the shoreline. Good thing because we have quite a few.

On Tuesday, July 25th, we were expecting to have the septic tanks installed. The installer came in the morning and dug a big hole for the septic tank.

While he was working the plumbers came a day early to finish installing all the fixtures and the water filter systems. When the septic tank supplier showed up with his huge truck to deliver the first of two tanks it made for a very busy place.

Unfortunately after the tank was lowered into the hole, it was discovered that it had a defect. It was then loaded back on the truck and returned to the manufacturer for repaired. The tank will be repaired and recertified and this week. he septic system installer had to fill the hole back in because it would be safe to leave it open.

We will attempt to install the tanks on Monday July 31. Since the Elgin blocks for the field were delivered today, our installer should be able to start on the field soon after.

It has been a very long time since the last update. The primary reason is because of the Okanagan Lake flood. Most of the work stopped as we watch the lake rise to a level which was 77cm above its normal max. For a while it appeared that the water table could get high enough to cause water to enter the lower floor, fortunately it never got that high. For the last 6 weeks all of our energy has been going into trying to preserve our wharf and our property. One storm dislodged about 38 feet of our wharf from the pilings and it ended up at a neighbour’s beach. The piece that was removed was the part that attached to the shore so we now have an island only accessible by boat or swimming.

We were able to recover large pieces and they have been lifted onto our property.

However, since the storms during the flood conditions have destroyed or seriously damaged most wharves on the lake, it may be a while before ours is restored.

A second storm a week later took out a section of our retaining wall including the walkway down to the beach and started rapidly eroding the bank that was behind the wall. With the help of many neighbours and our son we were able to stop the erosion during the storm.

One of our neighbours was able to secure some rip rap rock that was left over from when Summerland had to protect one of their roads. The next day we had two dump trucks worth of the rock put along the shore where the erosion was happening.

The lake level has started to drop so we felt that we could proceed with getting the house finished. At this point much of the finishing has been done. This includes interior railing,

painting, tiling (except grout sealing), most electrical (except the pump room), appliances (except the dishwasher)

and most of the HVAC. The most significant work still to be done to make the place habitable is completing the plumbing and installing the septic system (which couldn’t be installed because the water table was too high). Exterior painting and the deck railings also still need to be done.

We have been looking at a number of septic system solutions. Building a support structure to allow parking over the field proved to be very expensive. We also considered connecting into a communal septic field down the road. However, getting the pipe from our place to a holding tank would be difficult. We are currently pursuing an approach where the field is done as 4 rows rather than 3 and we use concrete septic and pump tanks. This arrangement would give some more parking and would give access to our yard should we need more visits from dump trucks.

It has been a long time since the last post because we have been very busy buying stuff like light and plumbing fixtures, and trying to save some of our stuff from the Okanagan Lake flood. We have filled a large quantity of sandbags and placed them in front of the boathouse. However, because water was starting to come into the boathouse we had to move much of our stuff to higher locations in the boathouse. If the water gets much higher we will need to remove it from the boathouse and find other places for it.

Sandbags in front of boathouse. Water has continued to rise about 2″ per day since this picture was taken 2 days ago.

One of our builder’s guy has continued to plug away at installing all the trims and baseboards. Most of it has been done now, but there are some areas that could not be completed until the cabinets and baseboard heaters are in place.

The cabinets in the kitchen and all but one bathroom are now in place. On May 6, with the help of some very capable relatives, we installed our Ikea kitchen cabinets, including some challenging custom work to build the island.  The following week, the countertops went in, we installed one bathroom vanity, and our countertop builder installed a large vanity and countertop in our main bathroom.  We have asked our builder to install the last bathroom vanity since it needs to be anchored into an ICF wall.

Kitchen cabinets with countertops

We have also asked the electrician to install the heaters.  Once these are done, our builder should be able to complete the baseboards.

We have met with our septic installer and he is working at developing a revised quote which will include a concrete support structure to allow parking of 1 or 2 personal vehicles over a portion of the septic field. We are hoping that the installation can start soon but the flood might impact when it can be done.

Since the last post the flooring people have put down a sub floor on the upstairs area and have prepared the downstairs concrete floor for installing the vinyl plank flooring. All of the flooring is complete except the internal stairs.

A guy who works for our builder has been busy doing the finishing carpentry which includes installing the window and door returns, installing the trim around the doors and windows and as the flooring people completed areas of the house installed the baseboard.

We are getting prepared to install our cabinets. Last we week we took all the cabinets boxes up to our place and arrived the day after the flooring people had completed the upstairs. This was a very good thing because we were able to store them on the new floor in the house. Our plan to take the rest of the cabinet parts to our place next week and then start assembling cabinets. We are getting some experienced help on the following weekend to help hang the cabinets.

While we were in Summerland we met with our cabinet maker to get him going on constructing the main bathroom vanity and the kitchen counter tops. These will be installed after we get the kitchen cabinets in place.

Ang & Chris dropped by on the weekend and took these pictures.

A crew was in on Saturday and put the Weatherdek material on the boathouse roof.

The painter has finished the first coat of paint. Our builder’s crew is putting the trim around the windows.

Here is what the place now looks like from the dock. Some of the trim needs to be painted once the weather warms up.

It appears that the Hardie plank is done, at least as viewed from the south. It also appears that the open area at the back of the boathouse is now covered.

Our neighbour Sandra Broughton kindly sent us these photos of our place:

Other news: We bought our kitchen cabinets from IKEA which are sitting in piles throughout our Ladner house. We also purchased kitchen faucets.