The framers have installed about half the trusses by the end of the workday today. With the crane booked again for tomorrow afternoon they should be able to have the rest of the trusses on by the weekend.
Note the middle truss is doubled and both sides are covered in a layer of 5/8 drywall. This is a continuation of the fire protection to reduce the likelihood of fire spread between the houses.
This is the very useful BoschHammer. Without this tool a terrible job would be impossible. It is capable of loosening football sized rocks, commonly found everywhere you need to install a sump pump in a basement in Calgary.
Installation of just the basin for the sump pump is needed at this stage of the project. The weeping tile will soon be connected to the basin and if groundwater levels rise enough the basin will fill with water, to be pumped back out to lower ground. Varying soil conditions are encountered when excavating for the basin. More often than not, terribly rocky and hard soil in an undisturbed and densely compacted form is found. The only solution here is use of a large hammer drill with a spade bit to chisel out the ground to the proper depth that. This is one of the many nasty jobs encountered when house building. A human powered shovel or pick cannot possibly remove the packed rocks. Lacking the large budget to purchase this tool, I rented it from the nearby Home Depot.
Use of one piece shower/tubs allows for an economical product for secondary bathrooms. These tub showers are large and often impossible to carry upstairs. For this reason we usually try and deliver them to site just before the crane arrives to lift the roof trusses. For the master bathroom we tend to use fully tiled walls and bases. Here is a series of photos from today of a tub shower being lifted by the crane and placed into the second bathroom upstairs.
I booked the plumber to get going on the basement plumbing so we can inspect it and have authorization to pour the Slab.
Half a day was all it took to get the pipe work roughed in. It is extremely helpful to have someone who knows the code to do the tricky parts. Since I don't know any code I was used as the gravel mover. The next job is chipping out the solid rock ground and getting the sump basin in. This is one of the worst jobs in construction that I also tend to inherit.
Here is the happy plumber finishing the first basement rough in
With all the truss and lumber package now sitting safely in the front yard the framers can safely commit to hiring the crane.
Roof assembly should begin Monday. We will use the opportunity to borrow the crane again to hoist our bathtub units. These don't really move well up the stairs plus they are awkward to pick up by hand.
One would think that when you write a cheque to pay for the entire purchase price of a house and hand it to your lawyer that the deal is going to be irrevocably closed and you will never have to worry about title problems or issues related to the ex-owner.
This is not always the case. One of my properties supposedly clear title has been troubled now twice as if it is haunted by the previous owner. In the first instance the ex-owners ex-wife was carrying a bunch of unsecured debt that she undoubtedly was defaulting on. Her banker decided to apply a writ to the title of my property. Thanks to the sellers lawyer being so slow in clearing the ex-owners names off the title the bank was able to get what appeared to be a sizeable lien on my property.
When I received this letter from the land titles office I was suitably aggravated and my first call was to my real estate lawyer. Fortunately my lawyer at the Urban Law Group is Zac, an old friend of mine from elementary-high school and I know his cell number so I can get in touch with him quick. He had a nasty letter drafted up to the lawyer of the bank who put the illegitimate writ on my house and they acted to remove it.
Since the sellers lawyer has not done his job to clear the title of its old financing, these old mortgages linger on the title in a way that continues to frustrate me. In the past five months, the sellers lawyer has had to do this work, it seems reasonable to expect they would be able to comply.
My bank is preparing to assist me with some financing for my next project, and guess what the last of many hurdles I need to overcome is? That's right, the title looks terrible due to all the old mortgages appearing as if they are in place on the title. I look foolish with my banks credit department after telling them the property was unencumbered, and now we have to chase the sellers law firm to get them to do their job (that they were paid to do in August). Here is a heavily redacted version of the letter sent yesterday to the other law firm. Lets hope they move quickly on dealing with their responsibility regarding this matter (and I can proceed to get my project financing in place).
Note the lawyers still use fax to communicate. Maybe fax is the best way to get paperwork over to the law office.
“Dogwhistle NIMBY’ism”
“Going from two units to four this close to a train station. I don’t understand why this is so hard”
A builder (no relation to me) applied (in April of 2016) to rezone a 50 x 120 ft R2 property on one of the quieter interior streets of Killarney (corner of 21 ave and 35 st), but still very close to the train station and major road network. The property is dimensionally suited to a four unit row house. The vote at the council hearing was a vast majority rejection of the the application.
The dissenting views to the rezoning rejection were from Mayor Nenshi and Councillor G.C. Carra. Not surprisingly, these two are my favourite City thought leaders on inner city development issues. The Mayor is well known for comments relating to rezoning applications near train stations about the absurdity of spending hundreds of millions of dollars on transit only to disallow enough people living within walking distance of the station to actually utilize the capacity of the infrastructure. Councillor GC isn't afraid to callout community members for opposing any type of change or added density because they don't like it. The quote 'dogwhistle NIMBY'ism' is his preferred description of this common strategy.
Council appears to be placing a lot of emphasis in recent applications on the amount of consultation the applicant does with the neighbours and the local community association, not just the planning case made by the staff. I don't have a problem engaging the neighbours for my projects, and I would be willing to invest a lot of time to accomplish meaningful consultation. In this instance the applicant did a poor job of consultation, regardless, the location could be a great spot to build a successful row house project. I would be very excited to build on that property as my clients would love to live there. For that reason I would have made a greater effort to consult the community. This Council created the RCG zone for the exact purpose this application was made, to integrate some gentle density into a predominantly semi-detached established community and provide a lower cost of entry to those with sub $800k budgets. This will not take place given the Council decision.
The problem with adding density is that the existing community residents largely hate it. Most objections are couched in such a way as to disguise the true underlying contempt and rejection residents have toward more people living close to them. Established residents of Killarney detest more cars parking on 'their' block (maybe someone will be parking in front of their house), more shade from larger buildings (they like to be adjacent to underdeveloped property with mature trees and a low roofline), and just the idea of a tiny bungalow being replaced by townhouses is enough to rouse an angry mob. There is no way to 'consult' people into forming a different view when positions are this hardened. Killarney residents see new development as only negative, as an attack on their lifestyle and home values, and builders as greedy and exploitive opponents.
This is the reality of attempting rezoning of property in Killarney today. The builder needs to be extremely aware of what location he is purchasing and the likelihood of rezoning success before undertaking the long and costly process. The owner of this property has now tied up around $550k of his funds in a house that is likely not inhabitable for over a year (and counting). This is very costly for a small business to use cash so unproductively while incurring a lot of cost to carry a vacant house (property tax, utility insurance really adds up). I have studied every block in Killarney, and I selected the most likely spot to successfully rezone a property when I was purchasing land. This led to a great outcome for me when my application was almost unanimously passed despite objections registered by the community leadership. The powerful political force of NIMBY'ism cannot be underestimated by the builder in Killarney.
For those blog readers interested in my evaluation of the likelihood of successful rezoning of a Killarney property, feel free to contact me. I have counselled numerous other builders on how to do the rezoning work, likely costs, and estimated their chance of success. There are plenty of exceptional locations remaining in Killarney for rezoning to take place.
Some of the most critical and most difficult work that must be done when building in established areas is connecting the new utility services to the existing infrastructure. Unlike in a new subdivision, this must be done among the occupied homes surrounding the subject property.
We have already shown in detail how the sewer and water lines are connected at the front of the property beneath the city street. With this complete, we now must tackle the remaining utilities, gas and electricity. With a typical laned property in the inner city, electricity tends to be overhead in the alley, and natural gas is buried in the alley. Today we managed the underground portion of these installs.
Where this can get complicated is trenching and sharing of the service corridors. While the electricity is high overhead in the alley, common practice is to connect the overhead to the garage, and then run it underground in conduit to the house. Power is then run back to the garage in the same trench after the panel. This means multiple conduits are needed, plus the communications wires need their own conduit as well. The gas line needs to be run fully underground from the alley to the back of the house where the gas meter is located.
Staging of the gas and electrical underground work becomes critical at this point. Once the gas is connected, it cannot be safely operated on top of. So what needs to be avoided is having to re-trench above the gas line to put the electrical in. The obvious solution is to use the common trench and lay conduit for the electrical while the gas is going in.
This is a critical step because the builder only has one opportunity to do this. He must be available immediately as the trenching begins to have the electrician on site when the gas company starts work. The gas company uses its own contractor and has no obligation to collaborate with the builder and his trades. If the builder doesn't coordinate this work this will create a huge amount of trouble later because the electricians contract always says 'trench by others'. It would become the builder's responsibility to dig a second trench on top of the live gas line. This could mean a huge amount of hand digging and is not a good use of anyones time or budget.
All of this service work is eventually buried, largely invisible, and must be very boring to the casual observer, yet it is so critical to the project. You could argue this is some of the most important work that is done to make a house livable. Even the fanciest mansion would be uninhabitable without taking care of the utility services. We pride ourselves on getting this done properly and in a professional manner. A good way to evaluate a home builder would be to investigate how quickly and effectively he or she manages the servicing of a project. There are considerable lead times, planning steps and documentation requirements that all must be done long before the underground work begins. I have done all this so we are ready to go on getting the work done.
At this stage in the process (we are framing the second floor), we now have sewer and water hooked up, gas run to the riser at the houses (meter comes later), and conduit laid so the electrical service can be made to the houses once the garage is built in the spring. This has involved three subcontractors, multiple permits, inspections, and excavations, closing the street and alley, thawing frost, mobilizing machines, clearing the yards of construction material, and over $20k in expenditures.
The service hookups set us up for success later. For example, we need a lot of water to mix stucco, drywall compound, and adhesive for tile. We need heat to dry the drywall compound once taping is done, and to lay tile, so we must be able to run the furnace (gas and electricity), and drain condensate from the furnace (sewer). Once the houses are wired, we need temporary circuits for tools and lights, and to run the furnace fan. Without these being taken care of by the builder, the trades will show up to a dark, cold house and refuse to start work. Possibly this is not a problem in the summer, but in winter not having the utilities ready is a scheduling fiasco. At this point I am confident I will be able to get the furnace running and the lights turned on well before drywall begins. All of the finishing trades will be provided the essentials to allow them to work effectively. Nothing generates complaints faster than a shortage of heat and lights at the job site. I have found that the sooner these issues can be dealt with the better for all involved.
Gas line is the yellow pipe. It will be connected to the gas main tomorrow in the alley. The grey conduit is empty and ready for wire that will come later. We have to have the garage built so there is some where to moon the meter. We must build the garage later not just because of frost in the ground but also we need the space for waste bins, machines, and framing material.
Not having to hand dig this trench is a huge relief for everyone involved. The machine time is provided by the gas company, only they are allowed to work in the alley due to the extreme hazard. They cooperated with us as we ran out of conduit and had to run to the hardware store.
All backfilled the conduit risers are stickup up well above the surface, lets hope they don't get destroyed before we are ready to do build the garage. The work is now basically invisible, but having a furnace to warm the house once the drywall is done is a major project milestone.
No crane pictures from today as it all happened early but as promised the stairs were hung.
The heavy upper section is hung and braced at the middle wall
Here are some photos of how we will leave the stairs until the finishing stage. Purchasing these stairs early in the job is a good way to avoid the frustration of temporary sets that never work well and unsafe ladders. All of the remaining trades can now work efficiently and safely.
Lowers just set in place.
Looking down. The basement stairs should go in next and the stairwell can be used to access the lower level. This is good because we have basement groundwork to do soon.
When building in the inner city, you can sometimes enjoy a partial view from the upper floor. The land slopes toward the river valley, and the downtown core is all in the valley, so it does not take much height to get a nice city view. If the neighbours are all older bungalows then the view is usually clear above the roofline. With the floor just installed I had a chance to climb the ladder and take a look from the top. Looks good!
Looking east over the neighbours rooftop, a clear view of the Calgary skyline.
The framers were at work again today prepping the second floor for so the lumber can be hoisted by the crane tomorrow. The detail they were finishing was the second floor cantilever. A cantilever generally protrudes out of the side of the building into the four foot setback area.
The reason the side cantilever is only allowed on the second floor is to make sure there is room for fire or emergency access down the side yard. Or at least I think this is the reason, I've never read an official version. Regardless of the policy on cantilevers they require additional fire rating, and can be tricky to build. They add cost in terms of framing time, fire rating material, engineering, and spray foaming. The bottom of the cantilever needs to be spray foamed as that is the only way to really ensure it wont be a cold spot in the upper bedroom. It also has to be strong enough to carry some weight of the roof. A sagging cantilever would be a framing disaster we'd like to avoid.
It is debatable if the side cantilever is truly necessary. They are almost always featured on the inner city duplex because the houses are slightly too narrow at 21 ft wide to allow for two good sized second and third bedrooms. The cantilever seems to add just enough extra space to make the layout work. Without the cantilever we have found that bedroom furniture can fit poorly.
The detail we like to use is to notch the joists so that the top chord remains continuous where it passes over the wall. I will show a drawing and the actual framing detail that was finished on site today. It avoids a lot of messy dropped beams and ugly details that really hurt running ducting later on.
The photos below show the notched costs being placed over the double ply beam. In photo 2 you can see the space just below the top chord of the joist where it was cut out. Hangers and blocking are nailed on both sides of the beam, and from below you can see how the cantilever is hanging into space. This design is extremely effective in this project because we have cantilevers above the front door and also out side side in the same corner area. The third and fourth photo show this best. I can't think of a better way to retain structural strength and have dual cantilevers. Skilled framers make this look easy, but like most construction tasks it only looks easy until you have to try it yourself.
We have installed all kinds of stairs over the past five years, and in my view, the best kind is known as 'integral landing', more on this later (and yes we are using this type of stair on the current job).
For compact inner city jobs like we basically always must build, constraints are a common problem. The higher we make the ceiling (which we like), the more treads we must add, and this eats horizontal space (we don't like this). For example it is common to have to squeeze 16 or even 18 risers into a semi detached house that has high ceilings and 14 inch joists. This can start to really encroach on hallway space or even render rooms unusable. We can't have that sort of problem so the art of stair design is a really important skill to hire out.
Lacking any kind of stair design or fabrication skill, I turn to my supplier at Built-rite. Troy is the guy in charge and he knows stairs, that is all they do every day at Built-rite and they have a nice shop on an acreage east of Calgary where they pump out massive volumes of treads.
I had Troy come up with a carriage style closed rise integral landing U shaped three piece assembly for this project. While that may be a lot of jargon, I think the stairs will be super nice once complete, and that is what is important. These stairs are one of many custom touches I am incorporating in this project, while staying on budget and on time (hopefully).
Carriage style refers to the notched stringer, integral landing means the flat landing is connected to the treads (no posts needed), and closed rise means there is not a gap between each tread. Once installed the upper stairs will have a look of almost being suspended in the air and adds to the open concept feel of my layout.
The open rise style of tread is significantly more costly to supply and finish, and doesn't add a lot of value to my concept. This type of U shaped stair does require a lot of railing, and this alone adds a signifiant sum to the budget. There are far less costly ways to install stairs in a home. A straight run, as an example, between two studded and drywalled walls would only cost a few hundred dollars to supply and not require much railing either. A custom staircase and the many finishing details can add tens of thousands to the low cost option. Here is a photo of the upper piece of my U shaped stair. The structure is largely 1 inch plywood glued and laminated together. We can't lift these easily, but fortunately we have a crane booked for next week to load lumber and it will hoist our stairs into position as well.
This is the third piece of the upper floor set, lying on its side in the snow. We will have to use a hoist to get these hung at the top of the stairwell and braced against the middle wall. These will be a great custom feature in the semi.
Our framers are back and healthy, and the weather has improved by about 15 degrees C so we are seeing some progress on subfloor two. The second floor structure is trickier to put on than the main, it features some cantilevers, a stairwell opening in the middle of the building and various notched joists and hanger details.
With continued good weather forecast we may see them try and make up a lost day by working the weekend. That will be a great way to make up for some lost weeks over the holidays. Here is a photo from the progress today, we will be seeing the floor sheeted and with any luck the stairs hung.
Looks like the joist package is all installed and floor ready to be screwed down. Filling that large stairwell opening with some stairs will make it a lot easier to get up there (and keep the snow out)
The flu-sick framers just didn't get better and we spent the entire week short of a full crew. Today was the first day we had three guys back. This means we are now a full week behind schedule and this is impacting my next trades that I have booked, from windows and fireplace all the way up to the first of the mechanical trades.
By now we were supposed to be framing the second floor bedroom walls and preparing the site so the trusses could be delivered and craned up on the roof. I would also be able to plot on my custom staircase on the main and make sure it will work as well as I want it to. Despite these challenges I suspect the framers will be putting in a big week next week to make up some lost days.
The main floor has turned out quite well, and the evolution of this floorplan has continued to improve via an accumulation of many small tweaks. A nice feature will be the ceiling height change in the area over the kitchen where it rises from 9ft to 10ft.
Here are some shots from today when the framers were raising the first of the many joists.
Electric in floor heating in the master bathroom is a true luxury feature in an upgraded inner city property. I like to use the schluter brand system where the heat cable feeds into the ditra underlayment that the tile is installed on.
The heating cable is about $500, the ditra $3.5/ft and the thermostat can vary between $100-300. For about $1000 plus some install cost and a dedicated circuit at the panel this upgrade can be included in any new house.
What was not clear was how much the system costs to operate on a daily or monthly basis. Given that our low electricity costs today are as much fee based as consumption based further confuses the matter.
By upgrading to a newer touch screen thermostat that is much more feature rich than an earlier model we can now track heated floor energy consumption. Prior to this I had no way to know how much electricity it would take to hear the tile.
Using two heat cycles in the morning and late evening, it appears the system is using less than $2 per week. $2 a week for the entire heating season does not seem too bad given how cold the tile floors can feel when the system is off. A consequence of having a skylight in the master bathroom is the room will be colder than if the glass area was smaller. My advice is to put this system in any new or renovated master bathroom. It is a nice upgrade and appears very cost effective to operate each winter. It is also a feature impossible to add if the house is finished.
This is the delux touchscreen thermostat I installed. The other model I removed was programmable but has a very cumbersome interface. This unit is far superior to that one. I used a roughly estimated cost of 5 cents per kWh so the unit can track consumption cost on a daily or even annual basis.
With the huge dump of snow over the New Year holiday, our framer arrived back to the site to find the houses once again full of deep snow. Now it is hard to clear out because the snow must be shovelled through the windows rather than pushed off the sides.
Two of the three main framers are off sick, either they didn't get their flu shots or it is something else related to the season. I neglected to mention that if we were on schedule the second floor would have been on and the snow would have been easily brushed off rather than fill every possible crevice and stud space inside the main floor walls.
At my other site there has been an unexpected but welcome development, the Atco contractor has dropped off the ground heating unit. This will thaw the ground enough so they can disconnect the gas line in the alley. Once this gas line is done, we can have Atco sign off the disconnect and I can pull the demolition permit at City Hall. I am not sure when I am going to proceed with the actual demo, it is a costly process to fence the site and dump the waste and without immediate plans to build on the site (no Development Permit) it isn't a job that needs rushed.
Winter construction definitely adds a layer of difficulty and often cost for the builder. Since the winter season is so long in Calgary we must make the best of it. At least it does not rain here in winter!
This looks to be a propane fired ground heater rigged to a trailer. I have not seen this used before. I do remember in the 'old days' they used to dump a bunch of coal under a barrel cut in half and leave it to smoulder for days. Avoiding the toxic smell of that is a welcome improvement. Hopefully they get it done quickly so the neighbour across the alley can get back in their garage.
On this blog we have commented often that inner city land prices did not correct much during the depths of the horrible recession we are 'still' suffering through. This may be because of ongoing scarcity but also because the builders, as a group, can't seem to exercise common sense when it comes to buying land.
With just a few signs of economic recovery since the Trump election, such as Liberal pipeline approvals (won't have any impact on the economy in the short term), OPEC deals to manage supply (notorious cheaters will do what they always do and pump even more), and an oil price scraping along over $50, the builders have rushed back into buying land at nosebleed pricing levels. The surest way to undermine your building business is to overpay so much for land that you can't salvage any margin at the end.
The builders must know something I don't about 2017, or they just have this inherent optimism that is necessary to engage in gambling on low margin spec home projects. Land prices are now back almost to the heights of early 2014, yet the finished home market is much softer and will remain so until the job market and buyer confidence improves. Sellers have been quick to cash in on their properties and the builders more than willing to big up the few available R2 properties. This would have sold for $100k less only 8 months ago...
Christmas arrived on December 23 for this seller, as the land sold at $40k over the asking priced. I felt the asking price was already too high...
Builders are among the first to point out slow processes, costly fees and bureaucracy at City Hall. I've done this a few times on my blog already. What is also true is that some departments and functions work really well and the staff there do a good job and serve the taxpayer (me) promptly.
My first example is the tax department. In order to get street parking passes for my 33 st job site I needed to show that I was the taxpayer of record. Once I identified the correct staff email address (can be a challenge) I had the new tax roll paperwork with proof of ownership in my inbox within a few hours.
My second example is the Calgary parking authority. They regulate parking permits in the controlled areas. Residents get a pass to allow them to park in certain areas. As a land owner in the k1 zone I was possibly entitled to two visitor passes. These will allow me to park outside my job site while I am doing the work to get it built. I can be a visitor at my site, but I can't get a resident permit (there are a lot of rules related to this I don't claim to have scrutinized). More than likely I will end up violating the parking restrictions so I need to retain some ability to plead ignorance. Once I provided the correct paperwork to the staff they issued me the passes immediately and they arrived in the mail two days later (100% free of charge even!).
A little paperwork and I can now park my truck in front of my threeplex project location. The k1 zone controls who can park near the Westbrook train station (nobody can except residents).
My final example is the waterworks department. I completed a service kill when I was installing my new sewer system at my duplex project. After submitting proof of completion to the staff they issued my $4250 refund in less than three weeks. It is always a relief to get that fee back because the security payment is a real cash drain for builders with multiple demolition permits outstanding. Hopefully one day the City will let builders with a track record of successful service kills avoid the security deposit, or at least allow one deposit to be used over multiple projects. I will tweet a photo of this cheque to the Mayor and ask him when we can stop swapping this cheque back and forth between us.
The first of my two service kill refunds is now returned. I have much better uses for these funds than sitting in the City Hall bank account, so I am very grateful the City staff process these refunds promptly.
There is a large amount of post permitting interaction between the house builder and the City staff, and it is always a relief when they respond quickly. In another month I will have two townhouse projects in front of the planning department. I'm hopeful they can approve my applications as promptly as the parking, tax and waterworks departments did.
The framers are making good use of the chinook that ended the cold conditions and have started raising the first walls. I like a four man crew on a duplex because both sides can be framed at the same time. This seems to make it progress a lot faster. The rear living area features a 10 foot ceiling and this tends to create a nicer feel for the key main floor spaces. Ten foot ceilings make for stairs with many risers, so we are trying a different approach to this project where the main floor height increases to 10 from 9 foot at the stairwell. We also dropped the foyer one step and this defines the rooms a little nicer and diminishes the tunnel like feel that infill houses can have. We met our stair manufacturer on site and we are looking at some unique yet really practical ways to add some wow factor to the main floor stairs.
By the end of the week the main floor walls should all be standing. The next lumber package is the most expensive delivery because it includes the structure for the second floor. The various cantilevers and beams mean we need substantially more material than the main floor structure. The roof package is quite reasonable on these homes, since the trusses are mostly just 2x4 material cut and shaped at the factory. The companies that make these roof packages are extremely efficient. Lumber cost for these two homes is around $40k, far from the most significant component of a new house project today.
The first walls go up at the duplex project.
I hired a high quality crew of framers for my duplex project. Two of the guys on the crew I have wanted to use in the past but they were always too busy. They also tend to work on mansion type houses in the most expensive Calgary neighbourhoods. This led me to assume their cost of framing would be beyond my budget.
Once the recession hit they suddenly got a lot less busy and adjusted labour rates accordingly. So the future owners of this project are going to be getting a very well framed house by great carpenters.
One of the tasks they include on this project is screwing off the floors. The floor sheets get nailed and glued as they are laid as this is the quickest and easiest way to finish a floor. Screwing the sheets on each 16 inch centred joist is a lot more work. It also takes a costly drill and expensive consumables in the form of screw clips. For this reason floor screwing has become an "upgrade" item and a cottage industry of guys who just do floor screwing has developed, and they charge by the square foot.
Opinions also vary as to when the floors should be screwed. Some say to do it after the house is Drywalled. My framers disagree and do it immediately while the glue is still wet and the floor is unobstructed by walls. Right away is the easiest way to ensure every sheet gets the same amount of screws. So not only will our buyers get a well framed house they should get one without squeeks that could form over time if the nails loosen as humidity changes (calgary is subject to many humidity swings each year).
The first house I built for myself I screwed the floors down by hand using a cordless drill. It was a small house but it took forever and I enlisted my spouse help out with a second drill. It was really hard on the back and the knees. If I can find that photo I will post it. Here are some shots of how it is done by pro framers.
The first half of the floor is freshly laid and screwed.
Here is the real reason floor screwing has become an upgrade. So framers can recoup the cost of the pricey tool and many screws that are consumed by each floor.