I've been "lurking" for a few months and I must say I'm addicted to this site. You all are very knowledgeable and I've learned a lot. Adam in Cheyenne, WY

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Concrete Complications

Posted to 95821-Addition by Douglas in Sacramento, CA on 6/24/2008 4:36:52 PM

This is a learning experience, alright.  The framer, who comes very well recommended by several general contractors and tradespeople I know, gave me a sheet of paper marked with where he wanted his holddowns placed by the concrete guy.  I gave this sheet of paper to the concrete guy before we started.  This turned out to be a huge problem that hopefully others will learn from.  Read on.

Concrete guy showed up on a Monday and started digging trenches for our footings.  He rented a bobcat and hired a laborer to help him  finish the digging.  I hired this concrete guy because he gave us the lowest bid, and also seemed competent and knowledgeable, his references seemed to check out, he was licensed, but most importantly seemed very honest and likeable.  It took a little longer than I had expected but I wasn't too worried because he said it would only take about three days and I didn't have the framer scheduled to show up for girders until two Fridays later.  Turns out the concrete guy was very hard up for cash and had a pay-as-you-go cellphone which didn't have any minutes on it, so all I could do was leave him a message at his office and he would call me back when he could.  He spent the rest of the week setting up forms as the dirt was much harder than he had expected.  His laborer, who only lives a few blocks away from us, showed up at 6am on Saturday to square up the footings.

Over the weekend, my architect came by and we measured and found out that the forms weren't properly square.  I had also noticed that if the foundation was poured as in the plan, the pass through from our existing family room to the addition would have been oddly narrow.  I discussed that with my architect and we agreed that the addition should be slightly wider, and that this would not cause any additional problems as long as the truss mfgr. was notified of this change.  I told the concrete guy to fix the forms square and move one of them out for the pass through.  He said that this was a change and would charge me $100 for additional labor, which I thought was fair so I said ok and sent him an email to confirm.

Anyway, it took him longer than expected (who knew?) and he wasn't ready for the inspection until a week later, on Monday.  He scheduled the inspection but didn't tell me that he wasn't going to be there.  We left home with the construction fence locked and thus the inspector showed up but didn't have a way to get in.  So there was no inspection that day.  I had called him to see if he would be there but he didn't receive my message until afterward. 

The next day (Tues.), I had a friend of mine show up and do some stuff around the house and attend the rescheduled inspection, which he did, as I had to be at work.  The inspection failed due to rebar in the wrong place and the forms weren't properly reinforced.

The concrete contractor fixed the issues on Wed. and rescheduled an inspection for Thursday.  It passed.  I left a message for my plumber to add his forms, if he needed any, before the pour.  I called my architect/consultant to come by and take a look but apparently his car had broken down and wasn't able to.  The concrete contractor attended the second (third scheduled) inspection.

The pour was on Friday.  The concrete guy apparently misinterpreted the paper I got from the framer as locations for the j-bolts, not the holddowns.  So, we didn't have enough holddowns or J-Bolts and they were all in the wrong place.  Also, my plumber claimed that the concrete guy told him the pour was at 10 am but he arrived at 10 and they had already started pouring.  So he had to put in blockouts when it was almost too late, and he missed a sewer blockout.

That said, I was excited that we now had a concrete foundation and probably wasn't nearly as critical as I should have been.

He showed up the next day to see how it turned out.  I was a little hesitant because I never had my architect come by for the review but did notice that the crawlspace access was not where it should have been.  He had blocked this out the day before the pour and I should have noticed, as it provides an access under the jacuzzi tub which has extra reinforcement, meaning that the distance from the bottom of the girder reinforcements to the ground would be less than 18 inches.  I discussed this with him and he didn't want to break out concrete, which I didn't want him to do either, so he proposed that he dig out an area to allow someone crawling to get to the 18" area outside the tub area.  I decided this would be ok, and paid him all but $200 to ensure he would return to do this, which he did, when he brought his guys back to help him remove the forms. After that I paid him the rest.

Due to the missed and failed inspections, the framer had to postpone his girder install until after his planned vacation.  His original plan had been to come by for the girders and then let us inspect, install plumbing, etc. and then return for the rest of the framing.  So he just went on his vacation and we planned for him to start after he got back.

Are we having fun yet?

Photos

Pier footing hole	Concrete form set	How our backyard looks now

It's Showtime!

Posted to 95821-Addition by Douglas in Sacramento, CA on 6/2/2008

The plan checker told us we needed seismic engineering for the shear walls, which our architect/designer had hoped we could avoid.  So another $1000 for the engineering and minor edits by our designer, and back to plan check. 

With these corrections, the plan checker gave me a verbal ok on the phone.  At this point I wanted to get final bids from our subs with the shear engineering changes before spending more money on permits and taxes.  The only difference was the hold downs added about $250 - pretty minimal - and the trusses were also about $250 more, but this must be unrelated.  Meanwhile I rebid the lumber from another lumberyard and they thought that the other takeoff was a little bit excessive and trimmed it down by $1000.  (I sent this revised takeoff to my framer and he hasn't gotten back to me about it yet so I'm assuming it will have what he needs.)

So, everything is still more or less what I had anticipated.  My wife has 2 weeks left on maternity leave and she has been busy.  Went to the school district and paid $1400 in school tax, and then today back to the building department and another $1200 in fees, and 2 hours of waiting for them to find our stamped plans, while porting a 3 month old baby (which apparently helped to expedite the process), and we have our building permit.

Our demolition started over the weekend, while we were out of town.  By this evening the concrete had been cleared and we now have a place to build!

Of course, we are already spending more than I had hoped, as some of our demo people are working hourly.  We had expected this and planned for it but it still is scary, and I'm trying to make sure everything else is accounted for.  A lot of little things too...extra tools that I didn't realize I needed, etc.

Meanwhile, my foundation contractor seems to be having an issue with his liability insurance but hopefully it will be resolved by tomorrow when he is supposed to start.  I told him it is important that he have it. I thought I had asked him before when I originally interviewed him but I may have missed that question - I guess better to think of it now than never.  We have a few backup candidates if necessary, but despite his insurance issue I like him more than the other people I talked to.  In addition to being the lowest bidder he has consistently seemed to know what he is talking about, his references checked out, and has always been honest and forthright with me. One of his references did note that he is not well funded and this seems to have been the cause of his insurance situation. 

Photos

Nothing much more fun than spray painting what you want removed.	Wow, it's really started! No turning back now.	This formerly was how we step from the family room into the backyard. No longer.

Plan check

Posted to 95821-Addition by Douglas in Sacramento, CA on 5/12/2008

Well, after several weeks of trying to gather bids by finding subs mostly on craig's list (there are many) I was stressing out in a big way and it was affecting my job performance (of my real job, that is).  You would think that self-employed people would at least return phone calls, especially during a big slowdown, but I guess a lot of these people are self-employed because they can't hold down a real job.  Some of them were very responsive and  but many were not, and I was wasting way too much time and energy worrying about it. 

As it turned out, a friend of mine who formerly did a lot of construction but had recently switched to plumbing was between jobs, so he has been helping me round up subs.  He did a lot of this in the past when he was a job superintendent, and has done a great job and really enabled me to keep my sanity.  He will also give me a very good deal on the plumbing work (by throwing in a redo of our existing 50 year old plumbing for the same cost as another plumber would charge just for the addition).  This ended up taking at least 20 more hours of his time than I originally had budgeted so I will need to be more careful in the future, but no regrets.  He doesn't have a GC license but does have a plumbing license that he can use.  Originally I was going to hire him to do the framing as an employee along with some other guys he does a lot of work with but this became very expensive complicated very quickly with the worker comp insurance, taxes, etc. so he agreed to just do the plumbing.  He also knows a lot of trade people some of whom we will probably end up hiring.  I was really impressed by the bid he got from a fully legit framer he holds in high regard.  He also did a great job helping me sell the job to potential contractors and subs, and see who was really willing to earn money by doing trade work, since we weren't leaving any fat in the budget for "overhead" etc.  As a result of this several framers we talked to decided not to bid, which was just fine.

One thing he pointed out to me was that my elaborate web site with an RFP (per the OB Book) and detailed specs (per the McGuerty-Lester book) was scaring a lot of people off.  Most of these guys were put off by a lot of conditions, and some frankly just dont like to read long documents.  So I took those docs off the web site and just left the plans.  For those curious, the web site is www.freewebs.com/NandDBuilders/

(Sometimes you need to delete the final /)

So we were able to come up with a firm budget that will work for us, with about 15% of the total to spare before we run out of money.  We are financing this through a refinance and line of credit, without a construction loan.  Anything above that we will just need to dig into our personal spending money, what is left of it.  I made an effort to be very careful that we capture everything because this does not leave much wiggle room.  That said, in my experience if you know you will run out you can usually finagle a way to get it done. 

Since we had a budget we could work with, we brought the plans to the county for plan check.  We had to wait a while at the county but after they were submitted they took less than a week to come back to us with changes, thanks again to the recession.  The only major thing was we needed to submit engineering.  Our designer thought we might be able to get it through without engineering but the code changed this year and it is now required. Luckily the engineer also was not busy and was able to do the engineering within a day of the designer giving it to him.  I am reviewing them this evening and we will probably resubmit tomorrow.

After we get the plans back we can line up the subs and start scheduling work.  We're starting about 6 weeks later than I had originally hoped but I'm not too concerned about that, as long as we can stay on track after the work begins.  The original plan was for the construction to happen while my wife is home on maternity leave, but that's really a mixed bag because the noise will probably be unbearable. 

More to come.

Collecting bids

Posted to 95821-Addition by Douglas in Sacramento, CA on 3/16/2008 9:14:19 PM

Our designer finished the plans in late February and I was going to take them down to the building dept. for permits but then I thought I better get some bids to see if this really makes financial sense before spending any more money.  However, about a week later our son was born (March 2) and needless to say the construction project is now priority #2.  I took a week and 1 day off work for paternity leave, hoping to get some time in on the project, but with family visiting, etc I really only spent about a day on it.  Some time also evenings and weekends when possible, often with bottle in one hand and keyboard/phone in the other.

That said, I've received 2 bids for lumber so far and waiting on 1 more, and I'm trying to compare them.  It's complicated because they are not apples-to-apples and I don't know that much about lumber, so it's taking me time.  I've also received a bid from an electrician and waiting for bids from 3 more, and also waiting on bids for plumbing and framing. 

The framer I talked to said business was very slow, but my impression from the electricians is that they don't need to lower their prices much to get work. 

I found the lumber yards by googling lumber in my area, and also in Stockton (about 1 hour away but one of the most construction depressed cities in the US right now).  I found almost all of the subs using craig's list, although there is a good chance I will hire a GC I know that I had hired in the past for a smaller job for the framing and some general oversight.  Most of the people I've found on craig's list are self employed and they post their license number right there, which I can check on the CA State License Board web site.

We were able to finance our addition by refinancing our house and taking some of the cash out, and then the rest on an equity line of credit.  So, hopefully no construction loan. (unless things get ugly)

If you want to check out our web site, which has our plans and bid information (much of it copied from this webs ite) posted, go to www.freewebs.com/NandDBuilders .

Photos

Why things are going so slowly. Left to right: Doug, Sammi, Levi (1 day old), and Nancy.

In design

Posted to 95821-Addition by Douglas in Sacramento, CA on 1/22/2008 11:16:38 PM

Since my last entry we interviewed 4 designers and hired one of them.  Here is the play-by-play:

• Interviewed Designer 1 on December 22, 2007.  We found him on Craig's list.  Seemed competent and very easy going, low pressure which we liked.  He does his drawings in autocad and was willing to give us a copy of the file when complete.  His pricing was straightforward, 75 cents per sf of existing house + $1 per sf of addition, to total around $1800, payable in 4 installments.  However we ended up not selecting him, mainly because he had less experience than the others, and all of the others noticed a complication with our roof which he didn't seem to think was much of an issue.
• Interviewed Designer 2 on December 26.  We found him on Craig's list.  Does all work in Autocad and quoted the lowest price, but only verbally (around $1200).  He seemed somewhat disorganized and he casually noted that he "overbuilt" his own house.  For these reasons we did not hire him.
• Interviewd Designer 3 on Dec. 26 also.  He was recommended by an architect we know (who does much more elaborate projects than ours).  He does work either by hand or autocad, but he said work by hand is faster.  He charges the highest price, verbally quoted $4800 (approx $100/hour).  He seemed eminently competent and could do the job for sure, and was well recommended by our architect friend and 2 other references, who are contractors.  His drawings were very slick, with a google map, etc. He also noted that he would provide site supervision and review at no extra charge, an important consideration for us.  He mentioned that in Britain (where he is from) owner-building is much more common and he was very comfortable with that, and could refer us to some good subs he knows.  Most of his work appears to be in more exclusive neighborhoods than ours.  His references noted that he has a very fast turnaround and he actually has 2 people working for him.
• Interviewed Designer 4 later on dec. 26.  We found him on Craig's list.  He charges $25/hour and gave us a range of the cost of the job, between $1800 and $2200 depending on our iterations, etc.  Does all work by hand, on pencil and paper.  He also previously was a construction superintendent and offered to provide oversight, again important to us.  He is definitely "old school" and works slower but seemed very knowledgeable in construction, design, etc and seemed to give a lot of attention to our roof issue (see below).  Requires a retainer of $450 up front, and then collects balance after plans are approved. 

We narrowed it down to #3 and #4 and I checked references.  Both had excellent references, and I was leaning to #4 due to the much lower price.  One of his references allowed me to come to his house which I did, and we spent about an hour talking about his project.  Our main considerations were to ensure that the addition did not look like an addition, that the customer was happy, and that the designer seemed honest and easy to work with and that his quoted price was similar to the final price.  #4 fit all of these and also could provide us with construction advice/oversight so we selected him.  The only reservations I had are that he works a little more slowly and he doesn't seem to want to say much about construction cost.  However I will have some people I know who will likely do our framing and plumbing review before we finalize.

We had a few iterations of design and pretty much nailed it down last night.  Another friend of ours who is an architect (but doesn't live in our area and thus declined to do our project) suggested that our new addition have windows that are similar to the existing house, in order to make it not look like an addition.  I had our designer incorporate such windows which he noted were "out of style" but our house was built in the 1950s so that sounds about right. 

Also, since our bathroom design is very tight  he needed dimensions of the whirlpool tub we are going to install.  Thus this is the only item I need to buy now since we don't want to just specify something to be ordered later (at full retail).

I've been checking out Craig's list for these and found a fantastic deal - someone was selling 2 new tubs that had been in his garage for a few years for $100 each.  The OBB community may give me slack for (1) taking the 60 inch tub instead of the 72 inch tub - space is at a premium in our design - and (2) immediately offering $150 even though he was selling for $100.  I did this because I wanted him to feel like he was getting a good deal and to take it off the market, since getting the tub required a bit of finagling since I don't own a truck and it was 80 miles away in Concord, CA and I didn't want to get there and find out it had been sold to someone else.  At any rate, it was MLK weekend so I had the time to get it.  We rented a minivan at the airport because there was a great deal for a from Dollar on the Southwest airlines web site.  (I avoid Uhauls at all costs since they are old dirty trucks, expensive (when factoring 60c/mile) and they take up to an hour to check in and out, since all of their paperwork is literally on paper).  Anyways, we drove to the airport, rented the minvan, parked the car in airport parking, and headed down to Concord.  It was exactly as described, and the seller even emailed me the link to the spec sheet on the internet.  It turned out to be a white Maax Saturna model, probably retails around $1500-2000 for the 5 foot.    The picture below is blue but the one I got is white.  Obviously as-is without warranty but I can handle the risk for that price.  I hope I can find hardware/faucets/etc to fit; I don't know if the sizes are standard or not. Comments?

Total out of pocket costs for the jacuzzi tub were: tub $150 + van rental $51 - dollar coupon $25 off + gas $26 + airport parking $7 = $209.

The seller told me that he got them from a friend that had a bath store and had them in his garage for a few years, planning on installing them but never did.  He just wanted to get rid of them to get the space back in his garage.

Our designer said he would need another 6 weeks or so before we can submit plans to the county.   So I will be sitting on my hands for a while.  Hopefully I can get him to give me things as he completes them (framing instructions, etc) to pass on to potential subs for comments & suggestions.  I'm slightly nervous that we won't be able to start on time; our plan is to be in construction while my wife is on maternity leave (ambitious? perhaps), breaking ground mid-april.  But I'd rather start late than not think it through carefully.

Regarding the roof issue I mentioned: The existing roof over the attached garage of our 1954 one-story ranch house is 2 feet lower than the rest of the house, and the addition will come off the back of the garage (with a pass-through from the existing TV room) and the addition's roof will tie into the garage roof.  Thus the roof of the addition either needs to be 2 feet lower than the rest of the house - meaning ceilings will be about 6 feet high - or the floor of the addition will need to be level with the garage, not the rest of the house, or the roof pitch will have to be much flatter, or we will need to remove the garage roof and raise it.  Since "not looking like an add-on" is a priority for us, we will take the high road and raise the roof, as they say, so that the floor of the addition is level with the rest of the house and ties into the garage roof properly, with the same roof pitch.  I have a strong fear that these types of issues will send the budget into the ionosphere so I need to manage them carefully.

Photos

Saturna tub picture from Maax web site (ours is actually white and the jet fixtures are plastic, not chrome)	Pictures of the backyard of the existing house. The addition will come out from the garage, where the roof is lower and currently there is an overhang over the patio. The addition will come out to the edge of where the rose garden planter in the foreground is.	The addition will be wider than the garage, and will connect to the existing house via a walkway that enters the TV room just to the right of the sliding glass door on the left side of the picture.
	Between the new wing and the existing rear wing on the left (currently our master bedroom) there will be a deck.

Preliminary preliminaries

Posted to 95821-Addition by Douglas in Sacramento, CA on 12/18/2007 1:43:29 AM

We gave our real estate agent the bad news (that we would not be buying) and she was incredibly supportive and understanding.  In fact she recommended adding on.  If anyone needs a good agent in Sacramento who won't pressure you may I suggest Debbie Davis @ Lyon Realty.

On Friday I went down to the Sacramento County building department to get a flavor of what the inspectors would be expecting from me, since I really had no idea beyond what I've read in these two books.   There was a super-helpful young woman there named Jennifer Lopez, who goes by J-Lo (and claimed she was first) and she walked me through the steps and told me the sequence of how to get my project permitted.  First I need plans, then I submit 3 copies to the building dept. and wait a week and pay about $1800 for fees.  They will return the plans to us with edits that our draftsman/architect will need to correct, and then we have 180 days before our first inspection.  She gave me a list of the multiple inspections, some of which are multiple inspections, but I still don't quite understand the order because they didn't really jive with what I had expected the sequence to be.  For example the first inspection is foundation, but the next is a multiple inspection of floor framing, rough plumbing, and under-floor ducts.  Anyways, I'll have to get help on these things later from someone who knows what they are doing.

On saturday I dusted off Microsoft Project, which I have used previously on day 1 of a project but that is about it, to build a preliminary project schedule.  Nancy's due date is the 2nd week of March and we are aware exactly how ambitious we are being by targeting construction to begin the week of April 6.  Yes, it will be crazy but the one advantage we have is that we can build nearly the entier project without any interruption to our existing house, because the addition will be behind the garage with only one hallway connecting to the family room, which we can open at the very end.  My first cut of the schedule, which is probably completely wrong but does include all of the inspections that J-Lo explained, will take us to move-in in mid June, right about the time Nancy goes back to work.  But today I spoke to our agent's husband Dennis who is an architect, and he seemed to think that it would take about 8 weeks just to a finished shell so that schedule is probably not possible.

Here is my first draft of the schedule, based on what I have read/heard and the permit process, including our planned stop-work vacation in May and subject to many, many changes.  If you have any better idea, please let me know where I am dead wrong and where I am somewhere close (if anywhere).  Note that this is for a 625 SF addition to a 1400 sf house (although the stucco will need to be removed from the outside of that wall), on a flat lot with a crawl space type foundation, except maybe under the laundry room.

Demo Patio	1 day	4/9/08	4/9/08
Reroute sprinklers	1 day?	4/10/08	4/10/08
Excavation	1 day?	4/11/08	4/11/08
Pest control of addition area	1 day?	4/14/08	4/14/08
Foundation	3 days	4/15/08	4/17/08
Inspection 001	1 day	4/18/08	4/18/08
Address issues from inspection	3 days	4/21/08	4/23/08
Under-floor framing	2 days	4/24/08	4/25/08
Under-floor rough plumbing	1 day	4/28/08	4/28/08
Under-floor ducts	1 day	4/28/08	4/28/08
Inspection 002	1 day	4/29/08	4/29/08
Address issues from inspection 002	2 days	4/30/08	5/1/08
Rough plumbing: sewer & water	2 days	5/2/08	5/5/08
Inspection 003	1 day	5/6/08	5/6/08
Wall framing	2 days	5/2/08	5/5/08
Inspection 123 (Shear wall hardware roof diaphragm)	1 day	5/6/08	5/6/08
Roofing	1 day	5/7/08	5/7/08
Interior framing, windows, doors	3 days	5/7/08	5/9/08
Rough electric	3 days	5/12/08	5/14/08
Top out plumbing	1 day	5/12/08	5/12/08
HVAC	2 days	5/8/08	5/9/08
Inspection 004:  Combination frame (frame, rough electric, top out plumbing, HVAC ducts)	1 day	5/15/08	5/15/08
Address issues from inspection 004	2 days	5/16/08	5/19/08
Insulation	1 day	5/20/08	5/20/08
Drywall and taping	2 days	5/21/08	6/2/08
Inspection 127 (Gypsum/ 2nd sided shear)	1 day	6/3/08	6/3/08
Stucco	1 day?	5/20/08	5/20/08
Inspection 113 (stucco scratch coat)	1 day	5/21/08	5/21/08
Tile bathroom	3 days	6/4/08	6/6/08
Bathroom fixtures and appliances	2 days	6/9/08	6/10/08
Inspection 099 (Residential combination final)	1 day	6/11/08	6/11/08
Painting	5 days	6/12/08	6/18/08
Trim	5 days	6/12/08	6/18/08
Move in!	2 days	6/19/08	6/20/08

Photos

Here is a crude approximate drawing of what the addition might look like. It is the wing in the upper left corner behind the garage.

A vision

Posted to 95821-Addition by Douglas in Sacramento, CA on 12/13/2007 4:58:49 PM

Last night we decided not to buy a new house and instead add an addition onto our existing house.  We need a bigger house as we are expecting our 2nd baby in March.  Given the housing market slump we were hoping to pick up a repo/foreclosure while keeping our own house so we would not have to sell, as we would have to ask a really low price to sell in this buyer's market.  Finally, we just realized that what we could afford (in addition to the extra $1000 per month in day care expenses) would be about as big or smaller than our current house.  We were thinking about moving partly for the house size but also for a better neighborhood school, although we do like our current house and our neighbors, and we may be able to get our daughter into an "open" school which apparently are very good. 

Meanwhile, we had been toying with the idea of building our dream home at some point when we could afford it, and also had thought of adding on over the past few years but never actually did.  We have plenty of space in the backyard - in fact our lawn currently is a lot bigger than we can handle.  I bought the OBB a few years ago and another book The Complete Guide to Contracting Your Home: A step-by-step Method for Managing Home Construction and read both of them, which together seem to give us a basic outline.  I am rereading the important sections this week.

We have had a basic idea of what we want to do for quite a while - put the addition behind our attached garage, adding a master suite, small office/bedroom, and laundry room. 

Posted by Mike in Marion, OH on 12/13/2007 Mike's Forum Posts: 6 Journal Entries: 44 Interview Answers: 140 Average Forum Rating: 3.78 Image from Mike's blog 12/13/2007	If you are building for yourself right now is the perfect time. With the housing market in a slump subs are eager and waiting for work. I have had most subs start a day or two after I call them only inquiring about there schedules. Not only that you have the upper hand in bids. In a good housing market they have the upper hand.
Posted by Joseph in Berkeley, CA on 3/3/2008 Joseph's Forum Posts: 0 Journal Entries: 5 Interview Answers: 62 Image from Joseph's blog 3/3/2008	Douglas, we moved out of our house on 9/20/2007 to tear it down to make room for the twins that were born 9/27/2007. My wife is amazing, she holds it together with four kids in a two bedroom apartment while I'm up at our jobsite everyday (weekends too). Stay strong throught and don't forget to take family time. Joey see my project at EUREKA HOUSE