Today I was at the house to take a look at what has been going on. Honestly, not much progress but maybe something is happening behind the scenes. Inspections? In the past week Ryan has:
- Installed our sub-panel as requested (their mistake so no charge!)
- Moved the laundry room plumbing and electric to what was in the plans
- Moved a few of the recessed lights,
- Added the garage door and other exterior doors
- Insulated the entire house - except for the attic
- Moved more crappy clay soil onto our site
Our PM provided a date for drywall to begin next week but there are still a number of issues that need to be dealt with:
- The laundry room drip pan drain is still in the wrong spot
- The foyer is still missing framing for a small wall
- There is a rafter blocking one of our attic accesses
- Another portion of the attic has no attic access
- Several studs are very loose and need to be braced or replaced
- Several windows don't lock as if their misaligned
I also found out today that Guardian did not run two of my paid-for wires to the back of the wall mounted TV. We're completely missing a coax cable and the data cable runs to the wrong spot. Not terrible issues but they're going to have trouble running the new cables through a wall that has already been insulated, foamed and boarded with plywood. I would have assumed that the PM would have been looking at this but that's not the case. If I wouldn't have pulled back some insulation then this error would have been covered in drywall and unnoticed until after we closed.
This may be a piece of advice that is given in all these blogs but it bears repeating: Keep an eye on everything that goes on in your house. If you don't know much about construction ask a friend who does or bug the crap out of your PM to show you everything. Verify everything. Ask questions about everything. If something doesn't look right note it to your PM. Visit your house as much as you can so you can observe what is happening. We're lucky in that I have a background in construction and know my way around electric and mechanicals.
We're keeping a running list of questions and replies during this process. So far we're at 100 and I expect we'll be at over 200 by the time we close. I figured that at some point the PM would figure out that I know what I'm talking about and address the issues before I noticed them but instead I think he's using me as an extra set of eyes to watch over his subs. In any case I think he's going to be sick of me by the time this is over. No worries though as we'll have a great house at the end - and I'll invite him over for barbeque when we're settled in.
Between our many moves and our kid's sporting events my wife and I finally had time to go shopping for a few of the necessary items we'll need when we do close. We're keeping a list of needs that adds up to a staggering amount of money. Our purchase last night was at Home Depot - a new refrigerator and a dryer. The refrigerator is an GE Adora model with french doors in the slate color to match our other appliances. We found a dryer that matched our current Maytag Bravos XL washer - highly recommend those models if you're in the market. Delivery is for the day after our scheduled closing so we're holding Ryan to their estimate for that date.
Other items on our list and their budget include:
- Closet organizers for the bedrooms - $1300
- Ceiling fans - $750
- Sofa(s) - $4000
- Dressers - $1500
- Concrete patio - $2500
- Fence - $8000
- Paint - $1500
- Window Treatments - $2000
- Kitchen Table - $1500
- And a whole bunch of little stuff that won't fit in a single post
One of my major gripes about the plumbing was that the pipes are all very loose. Well, per the PM and several internet posts the CPVC pipe that is used needs to be loose to allow for expansion and contraction of the pipe. Makes sense.
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