At Home In The Woods

[Obed]

Tile Work

The first 3 pictures are the master bath.
The second picture is the hall bath.

The 4th picture is the laundry room facing the W/D connection. Note: The floor slopes to the middle where there is a drain in case the washer tries to flood the house. I had a co-worker whose washer flooded two floors of the house. We hope to prevent that nightmare. The smaller tiles enable the tiles to be sloped toward the drain.
The 5th picture is the laundry room facing the laundry sink cabinet.

None of the grout has yet been installed.

 

[Obed]

We now have breakers in the panels and powered outlets in the upstairs hallway and kitchen. The panel on the right is for the basement. I can open a 200A breaker at the outside pedestal to disconnect power to either panel. I really like the idea of being able to work in the panel without it's being hot.

The orange wire hanging down the wall on the right is for the well water pressure tank; the electrician's helper installed it today. Note: The electrician has not done any of the electrical work; his helpers did all the work. The electrician was hardly ever here. If I had it to do over again, I would ask every sub during the bid process what parts of the work they would personally perform and what percentage of the time they would be onsite while their workers were working. I don't mind the subs having crews; what I entirely dislike is having unsupervised crews performing the work. For electrical, I really wish we had had a licensed electrician who was onsite whenever his helpers were onsite. I would not hire this electrician again. Please forgive the rant.

Phone Conduit
In the back right corner you can see a 1" grey conduit going through the concrete wall. That conduit pipe is just stuck in the hole for now; it won't stick out of the wall when we're done. Our hammer drill is not big enough and we don't have a big enough drill bit. So the electrician said he would drill it for us. However, the workers kept forgetting to bring the drill bit. A few days ago they drilled a 3/4" hole and told me I didn't need the conduit to run through the hole or that I could reduce the conduit from 1" to 3/4" at the wall. I didn't like that idea. After several days pestering them, they finally got the hole drilled to the right size today. The hole slopes so that water would have to run uphill to come in through the hole. The hole is below grade.

The conduit runs from the basement to close to the electrical pedestal by the driveway. When the phone company pulls their phone cable through the conduit, I'm going to ask them to pull a Cat6 cable of mine at the same time. I'm not sure what I will use the Cat6 cable for but like having it their. If we install a light at the pedestal or any security equipment out there, I could use the Cat6 cable to control them.

 

[Obed]

Heat & Air
We got the H&A units mostly installed. The outside unit requires an electrical disconnect installed on the outside wall. The third picture shows a grey wire coming out of the wall where the disconnect needs to be installed. Both the electrician and the H&A sub both claimed that they "never" install the disconnect but that the other guy "always" installs it. After you've heard claims like these for the umpteenth time, you get so you don't believe half of what the workers tell you when it comes to getting out of work.

So my wife got disconnect installation prices from both the H&A guy and the electrician and asked the H&A guy to do it because he was cheaper. There's a part of me that thinks the disconnect should be part of the electrician's job original bid and now he's just trying to get out of doing it or trying to get extra money. Let's face it; every house will have one of these so why wouldn't that be part of the electrician's standard job? How is this disconnect different from wiring up the outlet for the refrigerator?

 

[tony Cecil]

I sure agree with you..Seems like the electrician would be responsible for the disconnect....I wonder what the inspector would say?....surely they have to have some opinion on this as they have on everything else ....It could be that the A/C guy would have to connect his equipment to the switch, but electricity is electricity...Tony ps You are almost there and I know you will be pleased with yourself..

 

[dstig1]

Yeah that's the electrician's job, for sure. But I think you have discovered that you did not find a decent electrician already. It is a big problem with residential electricians - many of them look at it as scut work, best I can tell, and they cut corners and try to bang it out as fast and cheap as possible. I bet he is using the push-connect outlets too (where you just push the wire in the spring contact socket on back of the 29-cent outlet and hope it remains connected and doesn't cause a fire from a high-resistance connection in a couple years). Well why not? It's fast and cheap! In my place(s), I only use screw contacts and spend the extra money for commercial grade outlets. They are only like $1 ea, which is a trivial cost increase but the quality is way higher.

For my money - fire the electrician and do the rest yourself. But not everyone is comfortable with doing that.


Make sure you seal around that conduit with hydraulic cement. I hate below grade foundation penetrations...

 

[brin]

Obed...With the electricain be sure he does not put your freezer or refrigerator on a GFI receptacle ..if he does and one of those trips while you are away....all your food is lost. I hate those things unless they are only used by a sink or near water. After our final inspection I took all the unecessary one out. Also if your electrician is wiring you phone lines be sure each line is a homerun or if you ever have problems with a short in a line it will be a big job to isolate the problem.

Misery loves company...If it is any consolation, when we built our house I had an electrician that was difficult to work with and looking back I should have fired him in the first couple of days...You are not alone. I had minutes to go before the building inspector was to arrive for my final inspection..and I had to do plumbing and electrical finishing touches at the last minute...Not fun...but I passed the final and we moved in.

It seems some of these subs will let you down right at the end...they have drawn most of their money and could care less...the bad ones that is...Hang in there...this too shall pass...LOL

 

[srs]

Tile Work

The first 3 pictures are the master bath.
The second picture is the hall bath.

The 4th picture is the laundry room facing the W/D connection.

None of the grout has yet been installed.

Obed, tile work looks really good from the photos you supplied. Tile spacing look nice, grout lines are straight and equal in size.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

I don't get the 44 day occupancy or loose power. My utility let me hook up as soon as it was weatherproof, which meant there was felt on the roof over the panel. As long as your paying the bill, why would they shut you off just because you don't have occupancy.

anyway, the house is looking good.

 

[dstig1]

My guess is the 44 days is to stop people from abusing it. Get the temp power and then stretch it out for a couple years...That sort of thing. Does seem arbitrarily short though. Who knows how precise they will be on that too. They may not get around to coming out to do anything about it for a few weeks or more after. Things get forgotten like that.

The other key point is that having a CO is not the same as having to live there. You can get the CO once you meet a set of criteria that is basic level stuff (functioning bathroom, kitchen sink, insulation/drywall, etc). It doesn't mean you are necessarily ready to move in. So you do what you need to get the CO and keep plugging away to finish it off to truly livable. Even if that means you cobble togther something to mount the kitchen sink into, even though the cabinets have not arrived yet, for example...

 

[Obed]

I straighted up the mess below the culvert. Originally I had haphazzardly dumped a bunch of brick and concrete debris below the culvert. It ended up to be a big ugly pile. I really didn't like being able to see the brick and concrete rip-rap right beside the driveway. This week after work I tossed the whole pile, brick by brick, down the gully. I loaded some rocks from the waterline trench and put them below the culvert near the road in a more orderly fashion. I like the looks of the natural rocks as rip-rap much better than the bricks, mortar, and concrete. The bricks, mortar, and concrete are still acting as rip-rap to resist the gully's washing out, but they are now farther away from the driveway and less noticeable.

 

[Obed]

The leaves are getting more colorful each day now.

The weather continues to be incredible, sunny, lows around 40 and highs in the mid-70's. Good weather for digging. We have had very little rain.

 

[Obed]

Obed -

You're experiences are sure an eye-opener for myself, and I'm sure many others. At one point I thought I would sell the house we're in, and use the $$$ to build our retirement house, but now I'm definitely re-thinking that strategy.
Great news on the power, but 44 days is the first week in December.....do you think you can get an occupancy permit by then? I think you mentioned being in by Christmas before.....
You're very lucky to have a wife so privy to the construction processes and such a hard-charger.....it's like you have 2 GC's on the job! I'm afraid I won't be quite as lucky as you down the road.......
Anyways, you're doing great, keep plugging away and best of luck with timely progress!

Frank

Frank,
At some point in our house building project, I'm sure I was thinking, "What have I gotten myself into?" But once having started, this is not the kind of project that you can quit. You have no choice but to keep going until you finish. Having never built a house before and then building this one acting as our own general contractor has been very overwhelming. You don't know how to build a house until you have built a house. After we finish this house, doing it a second time would be much, much easier. Not that we intend to do it again.

And there are lots of frustrations. There's the government red tape you have to fight through. In hindsight, the county would easily have given us a waiver to live in the camper while we build. However, since we got evicted from the lot in the adjacent county, we were leary of asking permission to live in the camper beside the house. Our county building commission and zoning office has been very good to work with. Yes, I don't like having to get "permission" from the government to build and live in my own house. But putting that topic aside, we have liked the county employees we've dealt with.

Unfortunately, the building inspections have been completely useless. The inspector allowed the original framer/construction manager to sidestep some glaringly obvious code violations. I actually wanted her to come down hard on him but she just rubber stamped everything. After we got a new framer, we got those issues fixed ourselves without the help of the county inspector.

Personally, I believe the inspection process in our county has absolutely nothing to do with ensuring quality homes that are built. The inspections are there for purposes of assessing the value of the house for tax purposes. Without the inpections, the county would have no legal ability to see the inside of a new home to determine how much to tax the owner but would have to tax the house solely based on square footage and location. Our county bases part of the property taxes on an assessment of the quality of the house (below average, average, above average) for flooring, exterior siding, interior walls, etc.

The government red tape frustrations have paled compared with dealing with the subcontracors. This project has taught me to listen to what the subs tell you with a bit of skeptacism. I'm certain many of our subs think that we are a pain in the rear to deal with. I don't apologize for this. We demand quality work and those who try to cut corners will find we will make them re-do the work. The agreement sub signs before they start working is to do the work according to the code and according to the manufacturer's instructions. When work is does not meet this criteria, we make the subs tear it out and re-do it. That policy has cost us extra because of wasted materials. You'd have a hard time trying to get the sub to pay for the materials you made him tear out; however, we don't pay them for the extra labor.

The three places I don't compromise are foundation/concrete, plumbing drains, and watertight integrity. We have made the subs re-do the work or do more than they intended for several items related to these items. For example, we made sure the framer's workers installed the windows per the manufacturer's instructions. I bet few if any of the workers had ever read window installation instructions; the instructions for our Anderson windows were quite detailed.

I don't make these comments to try to disuade someone from building a house but I do think a person should understand what they are about to get into if the person does decide to build. I suspect that after we get settled in the house and life returns to normal, that we will be glad we built the house and that we were as involved in the process as we have been.

Frank, based on your thread about building your garage, I believe you are quite capable of being the GC for building you retirement home. In your case, I'm not sure I would build the house with or without a GC while you are working overseas. My dad had the house I grew up in built by a GC while my dad was working out of state and that building project didn't go very well. Regardless of whether or not you use a GC, as the homeowner, you have to personally inspect the work if you want to ensure you get quality work done. Some of out plumbing drains below the basement slab would have run uphill if we had not personally put a level on the pipes ourselves.

Obed

 

[Obed]

Originally, we were going to have the framer install the porch railing and decking. However, after seeing how the framer did our back porch posts, we might not have him do the decking and the railing. The framer has done a reasonable job framing our house but the decking and railing might be too much "detail" work for our tastes. So we are looking at having the finish carpenter install the decking and railing on the porches. We asked the framer to install the back porch posts at equal intervals so we could have equally sized removable screens between the porches. The posts ended up being "equally spaced" within an inch - meaning the spacing between the posts varies up to an inch. Bummer. Unless we move the posts, we cant have equally sized screens.

Yesterday I removed 8 of the 12 back porch posts, all the posts exept for the corner posts and posts beside the house. We are going to have the trim carpenter re-install the posts at even intervals so that all the screens except for one or two will be the same size. I scored on this job; I got the wife to ok the purchase of a saw-zaw so I could remove the posts. I've been wanting a sawzaw for a long time; we already have a battery powered saw-zaw but it can only saw about one 2x4 before the battery is dead - pretty much useless.

I used a pry bar to lift up each post so that I could get the saw-zaw blade under the post and saw off the toe-nailed nails. I then moved the bottom of the post around until it became detatched from the top plate above the post.

I left a post propped up in the middle and sitting on a 2x for a little support until the posts are reinstalled.

 

[bdeboer]

The orange wire hanging down the wall on the right is for the well water pressure tank; the electrician's helper installed it today. .

Obed, orange jacketed wire is number #10. Earlier you mentioned the well guy wanting #8.

 

[jinman]

Obed, I hope you have better luck with your posts than I have ever had. Whether it's treated posts or cedar posts, mine always seem to bow or twist a bit. You can start out with them perfect, but they move around on you. It might not be a full inch, but as they cure they will move. The round lathe-turned posts seem to be much better, probably because they are laminated or made of kiln dried wood. Metal, plastic, or cast would be ideal. I wish you luck with your posts, but I think that by this time next year, they'll not be exactly where you put them.

 

[Obed]

Obed, orange jacketed wire is number #10. Earlier you mentioned the well guy wanting #8.

You're exactly right. I'm kinda surprised you caught that detail. I was wrong earlier. The water pressure tank is supposed to be #10-2.

Obed

 

[Obed]

Obed, I hope you have better luck with your posts than I have ever had. Whether it's treated posts or cedar posts, mine always seem to bow or twist a bit. You can start out with them perfect, but they move around on you. It might not be a full inch, but as they cure they will move. The round lathe-turned posts seem to be much better, probably because they are laminated or made of kiln dried wood. Metal, plastic, or cast would be ideal. I wish you luck with your posts, but I think that by this time next year, they'll not be exactly where you put them.

Jim,
The pressure treated posts are already a little twisted. We probably won't get the removable screens made for a while. Hopefully most of the movement will be over by then.

Obed

 

[bdeboer]

You're exactly right. I'm kinda surprised you caught that detail. I was wrong earlier. The water pressure tank is supposed to be #10-2.

Obed

No problem, glad you didn't have to make them change it.

 

[shane]

Obed, I hope you have better luck with your posts than I have ever had. Whether it's treated posts or cedar posts, mine always seem to bow or twist a bit. You can start out with them perfect, but they move around on you. It might not be a full inch, but as they cure they will move. The round lathe-turned posts seem to be much better, probably because they are laminated or made of kiln dried wood. Metal, plastic, or cast would be ideal. I wish you luck with your posts, but I think that by this time next year, they'll not be exactly where you put them.

My brother used to have a big, black cast iron bell mounted on top of a 4x6 PT post about 8' tall. It was hilarious to see how much that post bow back and forth with the changes of the seasons. He used to joke with people that some days it moved so much it would ring the bell. He finally got tired of it and cut it down.

 

[Obed]

Cabinets
The cabinet maker owes us a proposal for building our cabinets with the changes that he and my wife have worked out. He was supposed to get us the bid this past Friday. Today my wife asked him when he would be finished installing our cabinets. He said he couldn't start working on them until after Thanksgiving.

So my wife went to see our second choice cabinet maker this afternoon. This cabinet maker can have our cabinets installed in 3 weeks. They have 8 guys in a shop building cabinets. We are going to get a new up-to-date bid from them.

We've decided to change cabinet makers. In addition to not being available until after Thanksgiving, the original cabinet maker increased his bid by 60% for some minor changes we asked for. After we got a new bid from the other cabinet maker that includes the changes, the original cabinet maker's price now is almost double the next bid. Included with the original cabinet maker's new bid was an invoice for "design" work he did. We had already paid him $550 for design fees. When he was asked for some more changes, he said they would require more design fees. My wife asked how much and he said $150 to $200 and my wife ok'd that. His invoice had a $640 charge when we were expecting $200 for design work. Now we're having discussions about that fee.

I believe we will like the new cabinet maker. There were some things about the original cabinet maker's design that I wasn't thrilled with. He buys a lot of his components instead of making himself. For example, he orders the doors from someone instead of making them. I had expected a "custom" cabinet maker to be more "custom" work than he appears to be. The new cabinet maker makes the doors and includes a lot things standard, for example quarter round at the bottom of the cabinets; the original cabinet maker was going to charge extra for the quarter round.