Building a house ...

Getting final window$ quote$. Overall its a small house, but we’re putting a lot of money into the structural side of things, building to L/480 rather than L/360, extra energy efficiency, LVLs where 2x’s would suffice. Extra fire blocking, and some ease of construction things like inter floor utility chases. Not going for the most sq ft per $. Building the way I want, which ain’t cheap. But I’ll sleep better than saving money to spend on fine furniture and fancy carpets.
 
Basement walls getting poured this week. Lots of questions from them today about where the various wall sleeves go. Finally said tolerances are +/- 6" for the sleeves. (not counting the two windows and the chimney flu) That made them happy.
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woodchucker said:
is that rubberized waterproofing being sprayed on? Looks good, I'm curious my foundation is smooth, what is the texture on the outside for? and why stepped? Or is that some kind of insulation or water barrier and the green is just a sealer on top?
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Yep, the blue-green stuff is a rubberized waterproofing. Forms were brick textured so that's the way it came out. Not something I asked for but don't see any downside to it. The forms were aluminum, that was a huge amount of forms (two tri-axle crane trucks), most of them 3' x 9' panels. As @dkemppai surmised, there is a stepped brick ledge slightly below final grade. I'll have quite a bit of backfill to do once I get the sewer pipe extended out. Two loads of gravel coming tomorrow as a start, that'll be enough to set a secondary perimeter french drain. The footings were poured with "form-a-drain".
 
I haven't built a house, but if I did, I would put a 2x4 or 2x6 on edge between studs where toilet paper, towel rods, etc go.
 
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The last place I built, framed with 2x6s for more insulation space. I had considered off set 2x4s but the gain wasn't enough to off set the costs.
 
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