Last week was a pretty frustrating week for me, especially on The WI-1 House. I asked my electrician, plumber, HVAC guy and carpenters to have their rough inspections completed by Wednesday, in hopes that it would actually get completed by end-of-week, so we could start insulating today (Monday)…
Well, electrical and plumbing got completed before the week was over, but HVAC and framing didn’t happen until Friday afternoon. Even worse, nobody from our crew was there when the inspector showed up. Ultimately, the inspector left a note indicating that he wanted us to call him, but without any details. When we called him later in the afternoon, he had already left for the weekend. We had no way of knowing if we passed or if we hadn’t…and if we hadn’t, why not. So, without know why we failed inspections (or even if we failed), we had to hold the insulation crew off and let them know they’d likely be starting mid-week instead.
This morning, we finally got in touch with the inspector and he mentioned that the one concern was some fire-blocking in the basement, which would need to happen *after* insulation. In other words, we didn’t need to hold off insulation at all. But we did, and now we’ve lost a couple more days… 🙁
Anyway, on the bright side, we’ve passed all our rough inspections — electrical, plumbing, framing, HVAC and deck footers. Hopefully, this week we’ll pass our insulation inspection and deck framing inspection, and then we’re on to sheetrock, paint and finishing.
Hopefully I’ll have some pictures in the next few days to post…I’ll probably be out there next week or the following to check on progress and get everyone coordinated for finish work. As of now, our schedule looks like we’ll be finishing the first week in November (best case) and our rehab budget stands at about $110,000, which is about 15% over our $95,000 estimate from earlier in the project (actually, the original estimate was $75,000, but we revised the renovation plan — and the budget to $95,000 — a week or two later).
Sorry to hear the bad news but like you said, at least the rough inspections are done. I am impressed that you can pull this off long distance. I hope the rest of the job goes well.
What is putting you over budget? Is it the delays or is it because everything is costing more than you guys thought?
Sending positive vibes your way…:-)
Hey Luis,
Thanks! We’re over budget for several reasons:
1. We keep adding to the scope (it’s a higher end house, and I want to ensure that we can meet the price point);
2. We keep running into surprises (like the structural issues, kitchen design issues, etc);
3. Contractors are a little bit more expensive up there;
4. Most of all, we’re not nearly as good at managing budgets from far away…it’s easy to just say, “do it,” as opposed to go to any reasonable lengths to reduce the price when something comes up.