| Sat |
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| Fri July 4!!! 2008 |
Oh how diligent our
framing carpenter workers were to come bright and early on the fourth
of July! They finished putting down the plywood floor all over the area
to be rebuilt. I decided that I'd have to sweep the glass shards away myself on the back side of the house where the ground slopes downward. It was really the worst there.. It was so easy with the special rake I purchased for that purpose. Wish I'd done that a long time ago. I'll do the southside next! Something odd was that the bricks were missing from around the foundation between the pool and my bedroom to be area. Senor Roberto Torres said he didn't know who removed them. There was sand under them. Lots of it. Looked odd. Later Roberto called for me and informed me that he was going to build dthe overhang on the back side of the house 2 '. I said "No you are not." He insisted yes, and I insisted no. He said the 4' overhang was not drawn in on the approved copy and I pointed out neither was a 2' overhang... it was only 1' on the incorrect "approved" copy, but 4' on the interim most recent drawing which we'd discussed already was different and needed to be taken into consideration,. He said he would have to stop and take all his men and leave...and he had Alberto, Obrio (I forget, but it was one of his sons, Francisco and a total of 5 or 8 framers here to work all weekend. I said do what you have to do, but I wasn't interested in rebuilding half the overhang I had before. Glenn called Jay, and Jay said he'd never discussed anything about a 4' overhang on the back (south) side of our house, just on the west side, and I reminded him he did and specifically we talked about the "overlooks" which I felt the architect might have to increase the size and/or otherwise alter... and he corrected me and said they were called "lookouts". Glenn was so upset he didn't want to talk with me until later I played the recorded conversation. Jay forgot I had recorded that conversation, because Glenn wanted to know what all we discuss when he's at work and that seems the most intelligent way to make sure I give him correct information. Jay insisted we'd never discussed them in any case, and he told me that I was preventing the work from getting done with all _my "changes". LOL... but speaking of changes, he did earlier repeatedly tell us that we could make changes to the inside areas and also any windows could be reconfigured at no extra charge as long as they took up the same size as the ones the engineer had written in for the wind load report. In order to facilitate getting the project going asap we did agree on was that the frame of the house wouldn't change except we had to get rid of the cantelevered backside because we couldn't have the brick wall with that. I like the brick wall, and think it served a function, besides esthetics, so the 4" he described as us gaining seemed like a bad tradeoff and we nixed that to save our brick wall. And these changes were to be finalized for the final drawing on Thursday at 5:30 but Jay called and said his mom needed him for some reason, so we tentatively planned for the next day at lunch, but then Glenn told me they decided to wait til Monday because what can the archect accomplsh over a 4th of July weekend? After we hung up, I emailed him this below:
Glenn is still upset WITH ME, even though he says I'm right on this. He doesn't understand how two extra feet of overhang can make such a big difference in shade comfort and prevent water damage on the side of your house.. |
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| Thu 7-3-08 |
Today Robertos Crew,
Alberto, Francisco and Omar spent the day putting up the final floor
joists and then capped it with the new plywood. Arron came over in the
morning and together we painted and sprayed the Bora-care I purchased
yesterday on the fungus infected wood that was revealed when the
plywood floor covering was removed from Glenn's Bedroom. Arron mixed
the one gallon of concentrate with 3 gallons of water. Guess thats 3 to
one which is what was recommended to remediate fungal infection,, but
if it was for preention, we could have added 5 parts water to the one
part Bora-care. I asked Jay about who was coming over to fix the hole in the roof, and he said he'd send someone tomorrow... I said on a holiday? He said yes, they would be working on the holiday and Sat. and Sun. also. |
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| Wed 7-2-08 |
Senior Roberto Torres
insisted the floor would be ready to inspect by 4:30 pm, but the lumber
was a few hours late so that couldn't happen. They removed the plywood
covering Glenn's bedroom, and I was depressed to see it had black and
white mold stuff on the top of the joists and a couple of the boards
had fungus mycelium growing on one or another of the sides. I called
Larry Cerro over for a fire consultation and he pointed out several
details. The basement stairwell side foundation wall needed joist
reconfiguration to balance the weight on the concrete blocks and take
the pressure the brick veneer. Wood had been left in place when Paul Price had made the basement door on both sides. I went to the Lesco company where I purchased some Boracare to treat the fungus. Bora-Care will also treat for termite prevention. Jay said he would cover the gaping hole on the portico roof tomorrow. |
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| Tue 7-1-08 |
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| Mon 6-30-08 |
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| Sun 66-29-08 |
| April & May 2008 |
Met with Glenn's chosen contractor... Jay White
of Paul Davis Construction and then with Architect - got preliminary
drawings to review and revise Applied for permit which was rejected due to cantelevered design... Still waiting to find out whats the new plan? |
| June 2 |
Monday
or Tues? Roberto brought a couple of guys by to remove old concrete
blocks, the old joists, and generally prepare for the new. |
| June
3 Tuesday |
Tues or Wed, Roberto came by and worked some more. He saved the old joists for me, and laid them at the far West side of our yard. Thanks Roberto!!! |
| June
4 Wednesday |
Wednesday |
| June
5 Thursday - |
Met with Jay White Thursday to discuss progress, and corrections to house plans including electrical needs? |
| June
6 Friday |
Friday |
|
June
7
|
Saturday - Picked up larger architectural floor plans, electrical plans, and elevations. None of the changes we discussed were on the plans... Guess I need to talk to the architect about that. |
| June 8 | Sunday |
| June 9 Monday |
Ryan
and
another fellow came by at set out the new concrete blocks for someone
else to come and work on, at some time in the near future. I asked if
they were going to put the rebarb thru and vibrate the concrete down,
and he commented that I knew a lot about the process. He said yes,
someone else would be doing that, but that they would do it that way.
They left and came back later, and do some more domolition of the south
side concrete walls. |
|
June 10 Tuesday |
Arron & Ryan are here, and Ryan is going to town on the concrete
wall, removing the old bricks neatly so the new ones will be
structurally sound. Looks like he's really doing a great job. Wednesday |
| June 11 Wednesday |
Nothing happened building wise. I need to book an apt. with the architect to make corrections asap. Too busy today and tomorrow I think. |
| June 12 Thursday |
Nothing |
| June 13 Friday |
Nothing except I
met Jay at the Architect's office to go over the uncorrected drawings
so he could furnish us with corrected drawings and I could feel we were
all going to be on the same page. Jay said he didn't have a lof of
masonry work so had to farm it out, but the masons were working on a
bigger job, and would start our job later today, or if not, the head
mason assured me it would start TOMORROW. |
| June 14 Saturday. |
Nothing. Glad we didn't cancel our company coming over swimming because the masons didn't show up. |
| June 15 Sunday |
Sunday - I sent Jay an email about 'DRY ICE BLASTING" which could remove the soot from the brick wall I think. |
| June 16 |
Masons didin't show up again. I told Jay he
should start looking for somebody else to do that job and he said he
was one step ahead, and already had someone lined up for the next day
at 11 am to come look at the job.Ryan came over and used a pressure washer and washed the sooty brick
wall. When painted, I think it will probably be good enough. Jay said
he was the premier user of the dry ice blasting technology, but that he
didn't think it would be necessary on our brick wall because we'd be
painting it anyway. |
| June 17 Tuesday |
The masons showed up to rebuild the half lof the
brick walls that were waiting for over a week. I thought it looked like
an ok job, but my friend Torres said it looked sloppy to him. He said
he thought it would be ok. |
| June 18 Wednesday |
Paul Price worked on creating forms for the door
to the basement. He used the pressure treated wood left over from the
demolition removed from the floor of the closet area and bath floor
joists, that I'd asked to have saved. It was a shame to see that
pressure treated wood used for that, but I did tell him it was ok with
me. I had a very interesting conversation with Jay, about the rebar in the brick wall. I told him I say some on each corner, but only one piece ssticking out of the center of the south wall. We'd discussed the specs calling for rebar every 37" ... Jay informed me that the basement was not built to code before, with no rebar in the concrete which had been poured every few feet. I told him our insurance covered bringing the house into code compliance and he said not in this case, because it didn't meet code before and tkherefore, the city would not require it, so insurance wouldn't pay for that. I asked how much extra it would cost if we paid for it to be built to code. He said he had NO IDEA, he'd have to pour it before he'd know how much it would cost in extra cement, and rebar. I said after all these years in the business, you can't give me ANY IDEA til after you finsihed the job. No he said, Ms. Abbott. I do hate it that he always calls me ms abbott. When he does I call him Mr. White. I said well maybe I should have another cement person to come and give me a price on how much they would charge to do it. He said I could not do that, because this was his project, and he was to do everything on the project. I said what didi he care, as long as he got his 20% for the overhead and his profit. He said he had to make at leaslt 40% profit to stay in business. I said thats not what I understood our insurance deal was. He said he made up the extra 20% in profits on line items. |
| June 19 Thursday |
Jay ordered 300 feet of rebar and Alan and Ryan
put rebar everywhere I could see, in the concrete block walls...Ryan
put poured concrete slump into the forms Paul made. I realized that no
plumbing was on the plans for the North wall water spiggot, and the dog
washing station and Allen told me to draw them onto the permit drawing
so the future workers can see them. I realized that the current
drawings were uncorrected and asked how workers could start without
correct drawings. He said they'd been oked by the building code
inspector or else they wouldn't be in that box. Yet they had the bay
wall on the back, which Jay said failed the code. |
| June 20 Friday |
Ryan and Allen worked on preparing the cement
block walls putting rebar in them where possible. Unfortunately, they
didn't attach them at the footer, which would have been proper I
believe, but the rebar thru the top of the wall is the best they can do
now that the blocks had been replaced alreadly. I booked a 2pm appointment to discuss the plans with the architect by myself. After a week, he had not done anything, so I figured this was an good opportunity do get them done right. Though the $75 I spent hiring his attention for an hour wasn't that much, and I didn't feel he offered any insight on how the building could be improved, I did get some answers such as that the wind code info was false on the form copy I had and that was very puzzling... He said he didn't understand what Jay was talking about, that the bay wall was not approved. He said he knew of many other instances where such canterlevering was approved. He said this was his first job with Jay, and apparenlty his former architect has left abruptly, leaving Jay in a fix. |
| 21 Sat |
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| 22 Sun |
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| 23 Mon |
We had Superior Mechanical, Barrineau, and
Bensons all here today to help us figure out the best solution for our
HVAC. Superior never got back to me yet. |
| 24 Tues |
Charles Locke from Lockes and Lennox came by to discuss our ac needs. He felt we should go with a large system with the zone system for each side of the house. The filters only needed to be change annually or more with animals, but lordy they were $250 each! That could be a sticking point. |
| 25 Wed |
Don't recall any work being done today by Paul
Davis, though at lunch time he sent a subcontractor from Chiefland, FL
to discuss using his service to install 2 systems. |
| 26 Thur |
Talked with Tom of Design House about the errors
regarding wind loads and he said I should call the Allen Nobles
Engineering and ask why the max overhang was listed as 2'. I also told
him I didn't see any specs on the overhang on the back of the house,
and he said he had it as 1 foot, but he would change it to the 4 to
match most of the rest of the house. I think it may have been 5' but
don't have that info handy to prove whether it was 4 or 5. Bill Adams of the Allen Nobles engineering company looked at the paperwork, and said he recalculated the numbers and the hurricane clips should be H11 (or H14 would be better) and that he would inform the builder. Waiver of Liens is something we may need to get ourselves.... Gotta check on that. |
| Friday 27 |
Had a long conversation with Alesx Arbona who is
our home inspector for the city, and he is so helpful and explains
everything in great detail. He said we should get the proper
permissions permit revision before proceeding to wing it and hope for
the best so we wont' be disssapointed to have it done improperly.
Ronnie Spooner is his boss and I want to tell Mr. Spooner what a
fine employee I think Alelx Arbona is as far as the job he's doing for
us. 509.7420 Jay's no. 933-6647 Alex Arbona City Code Inspector (Ronnie Spooner is his boss) Verify Jay got my email. Make sure about email details on permit revisiion approval ask about waiver of liens Glass removal and smoothing of underhouse dirt Waiver of Liens, Jay said Certified Building Contractor is the same thing as a General Contractor. We'll need a letter of confirmation from USAA. 4:28pm Jay called to let me know he had Tom make up 4 sets of plans, I asked if one was sto put in the permit box, and he said no that tom would have to revise the plan again to accomodate the overhanging roof, and he wasn't going to submit it for review until Tom had revised it to work with the overhangs. But in the meantime he had the extra sets of plans to give to potential bidders for the subcontract work. I asked about the glass and the leveling of the dirt underneath the house and he said he'd have osmeone out here on Monday to do that. I asked about the light/water? leak in the portico by the pool. He said when the framers start work they would remove the underside paneling so we could inspect and take care of any potential problems. He also faxed glenn some prices for ac units from the man from Chiefland which Glenn email to me. |
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