Really glad we found the site when we did, almost make some huge mistakes; but luckily reading about other owner-builder jobs help sway our decisions in the right direction. Barbara Pinet

Jim's Forum Posts: 8
Journal Entries: 18
Interview Answers: 1
Average Forum Rating: 4.35



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Sewer and Water

Posted to RehmannSchreiner by Jim in Maple Grove, MN on 4/2/2007

Sewer and water has been run to the house as of this morning! Yay!

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Juggling Schedules

Posted to RehmannSchreiner by Jim in Maple Grove, MN on 3/28/2007

It's great to be an owner-builder! This week we're juggling schedules for the siding/stonework/roofing company, the excavator, the fireplace installers, electrician, HVAC, plumber and the framing company.

Met with the electrician last night at the house and marked where everything is supposed to go. Even marked the outside of the house, which got covered up with Tyvek at 7 this morning. 

Met the fireplace installer at 8 this morning and realized that the "doghouse" on the back of the house needs to be modified, because we want a hearth in front of the fireplace. That means that the overhang on the doghouse is too close to the vent now, so the overhang needs to be chopped off.

The roofers are going to try to have the roofing materials at the house on Friday afternoon so the excavator can rip up the 170-foot-long driveway to lay the sewer and water pipes.

Meeting with the plumber and heating folks on Monday morning to figure out where all the runs go!

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Framing

Posted to RehmannSchreiner by Jim in Maple Grove, MN on 3/19/2007

Framing is going along at a great pace! The walls are up, the roof is going on. We just hope for good weather for the next few weeks. We've made some "tweaks" to the plan, and the framers have been very gracious about it.

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Mud!

Posted to RehmannSchreiner by Jim in Maple Grove, MN on 3/13/2007

Ladies and Gentlemen, do you know what happens when 33 inches of snow falls in one week and then melts the next week at your job site? It's called mud, and it's particularly heinous when your soil is clay. We now have ruts in the driveway that are over two feet deep, caused by the 4x4 forklift that the gentlemen are using to haul supplies from the cul-de-sac back 200 feet to the wooded job site.

Tomorrow, Superior Concrete and Masonry is bringing in 8 truckloads of gravel. Because of weight restrictions from the freeze/thaw cycle, they need to make numerous trips to keep the weight of each axle to less than 5,000 pounds. Once the gravel has been dumped in the cul-de-sac, they'll smooth the drive a bit and dump the Class 5 on it. Hopefully that will bring the road back up to grade.

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Trouble in Paradise

Posted to RehmannSchreiner by Jim in Maple Grove, MN on 3/9/2007

Okay, we visited the job site tonight and there are a few things wrong. A lot of the transoms are in the wrong place and a window or two are not where they are supposed to be... oy. We'll get it straightened out on Monday morning.

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Walls

Posted to RehmannSchreiner by Jim in Maple Grove, MN on 3/7/2007

Our walls are going up today and tomorrow! The guys from the framing company have absolutely no personalities. It's like we're in their way whenever we stop by to take pictures. But they are doing a good job anyway!

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Flooring

Posted to RehmannSchreiner by Jim in Maple Grove, MN on 3/7/2007

The plywood floor for our main level is in!  Yay!

Snow...

Posted to RehmannSchreiner by Jim in Maple Grove, MN on 3/2/2007

Okay, blizzard time in the Twin Cities. Work has halted for a few days while we get dumped on... about three feet worth of snow. This means that we'll be taking the snowblower over to the lot tomorrow and clearing off the 150' long driveway.

Mick is out there today moving the trusses out of the cul-de-sac so the city will plow. The framing crew may work this whole weekend to catch up.

Framing

Posted to RehmannSchreiner by Jim in Maple Grove, MN on 2/26/2007

Framing started today (hoohaa!). They only got as far as the green board tied down with hurricane straps (here in MN?!).

There is a TON of lumber sitting out in the cul-de-sac, including trusses, wallboard, plywood, insulation, and so on...

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Walls

Posted to RehmannSchreiner by Jim in Maple Grove, MN on 2/21/2007

Yay! We have walls!

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Poured Walls

Posted to RehmannSchreiner by Jim in Maple Grove, MN on 2/19/2007

The forms for the poured concrete basement walls are going in today! The concrete pour is going to happen tomorrow; Tuesday, February 20th! 

Because of the slope of the rear of the lot, we needed to eliminate one lower-level window, much to my dismay.

Footings Going In!

Posted to RehmannSchreiner by Jim in Maple Grove, MN on 2/12/2007

The concrete footings for the foundation walls went in today, February 12th. We had two weeks of below-zero weather here in Minneapolis and it finally warmed up yesterday, so we got the footings in at 4 this afternoon. The concrete pumper showed up along with a "flock" of concrete trucks and they pumped the concrete into the 2x10 forms that the crew had laid down during the day.

Tomorrow the concrete will cure while they set up the forms for the poured walls, which should be poured on Wednesday or Thursday.

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Variance

Posted to RehmannSchreiner by Jim in Maple Grove, MN on 2/5/2007

We got our variance from the city on 02/05 so we were allowed to meander the driveway around the three large oak trees in the center of the driveway. We finished cutting down the other 50 trees sometime at the end of January.

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Excavation

Posted to RehmannSchreiner by Jim in Maple Grove, MN on 1/26/2007

Excavation is in full swing. Adam has removed nearly 60 truckloads of clay from the site, and we've had it trucked to a farm about 6 miles away where a guy is going to build a house next year. By finding somebody who needs the fill (online using Craigslist), we've saved $4,000 in disposal costs.

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Trees

Posted to RehmannSchreiner by Jim in Maple Grove, MN on 1/23/2007

Tommy and I had to do an emergency tree removal this morning. The excavation is going to start tomorrow, and there was one tree that was too close to the dining room and leaning over the main part of the house. We took the morning off from work to do it.

Insurance / Surveyors

Posted to RehmannSchreiner by Jim in Maple Grove, MN on 12/1/2006

Have two surveyors going out to look at the land this weekend, and have insurance quotes from a few companies on Builders Risk Insurance... Things are proceeding!

Trees Part II

Posted to RehmannSchreiner by Jim in Maple Grove, MN on 12/1/2006

Yay... the nice man at the city got back to us and informed us that the person who does the certificate of survey may simply note where the trees are and what kind they are to see if we need to replace them once the ones come out for the lot. Of course that kind of survey is going to cost a lot more...

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Trees...

Posted to RehmannSchreiner by Jim in Maple Grove, MN on 11/30/2006

Will the fun never stop? After removing twiglings from the lot this past weekend, we finally approached the City of Maple Grove to find out why some of the mature trees have silver tags embedded in them. Turns out that nobody at the desk knew, and that everyone who should have known was gone. We found out that our lot is in a "forest preservation" area of the city, which comes as a big surprise because the developer across the swamp bulldozed most of his down so he could put up 45 townhouses. Now we get to go deal with cutting and replanting!

Bids have gone out for the subcontractors and I met with one of the possible excavators at 7 this morning at the lot... in the dark... He's not sure he can make it a walkout, but the other one I met with earlier this week was positive about it. Oh... and that darned Yorkie of Madhu's barked the whole time.  :o)