So now we have some land in Rigaud and the possibility to build on it. We started thinking about what sort of a house we could build and how much it might cost. We regularly watch programmes about building houses and escaping to the country, it seems to be a British pass time, probably because their is so little land and opportunity to build in the UK. We looked into various ways of building a house and began to realise how many different ways there are to do it. We were also interested in building techniques that had minimal environmental impact, which in itself offers a whole multitude of options. Before very long, we had fallen in love with the idea of building our own house and living somewhere with plenty of space and fresh air. Also, every time we visit Montreal we notice how crowded and expensive the UK seems when we return. Building our own place is just too good an opportunity to miss, and we don't want to live our lives wondering "what if?" It seemed like our business could easily be run from anywhere with a broadband connection, and their is plenty of money available in Canada for gambling research anyway. The cheap price of building and the equity in our UK house means that we might end up with no mortgage, or at least only a small one.
House building in Canada is quite different from the UK. Bricks and mortar are rarely used for building, other than as a facia material. Bricks don’t insulate very well and houses need to be capable of dealing with extreme cold and heat. Many people don’t realise how hot it can get in the Summer, much hotter than the UK. Some kind of timber frame seems to be the best choice as wood is plentiful, copes well with the climate, and is widely used for building in Canada. Traditionally, houses were built by stick framing, meaning that the frame of the house is made of lots of small pieces of timber nailed together to form a structure. However, this technique means that all the walls are structural, and not very good for open plan designs. Also, it can be difficult to insulate with more modern high performance forms of insulation that require large, uninterrupted, cavities in the wall to produce a near airtight seal. Stick framing is old technology and better methods now exist for efficiently building a home. We will keep you posted of all the other options that we explore.
Oh yes, one other requirement is that we have to build a house of at least 2000 Sq Ft, excluding the basement, to get a building permit. Our current house is 600 Sq Ft so it is going to be a lot bigger than what we are used to. Luckily, there aren't too many restrictions on what you can build as long as it's not too hideous.
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