A single mom and her three girls will soon be moving into their new home in North Central Regina. Not only is it their first new home, it is the first home of its kind in the province.
Trina Pelltier and her three daughters are anxious to move in. That will happen in a few weeks. Their home is two storeys, but it has no basement. Instead, it is perched on a super strong steel and aluminum frame. Pelltier helped build it. She likes the concept:
“I’m kind of relieved because I don’t have to worry about basement flooding and all the extra stuff I don’t really need.”
It is called a multi-point foundation, a technique that has been used for decades in the Arctic where the freeze-thaw cycle destroys conventional concrete basements — resulting in cracked walls, heaving floors, and shifting homes.
It is a pilot project for the builder, Slingshot Residential. Project manager Rob Sentis says it’s a stronger home built at a lower cost:
“We are calling it the Foundational Change Project and its purpose is to design a model home in North Central Regina that we can duplicate again and again and again. So we are playing with people’s expectations a bit by eliminating the basement, but we are giving them as much storage upstairs in the attic.”
This is the first of three affordable homes being built in North Central Regina by Slingshot Residential. Their goal is to revitalize inner city neighbourhoods home-by-home.
SaskHousing is contributing $93,000 to the project through its Summit Action Fund.
The Pelltiers expect to be in their new home by early December.