A House In A Field
The story of a house. In a field. And how it gets there.
Strip Clubs, Blizzards and the Art of Contractor Engagement
A bit of a slow week on Dash Landing. Bid packages went out to the contractors a few weeks ago and are due to Rob tomorrow. Based on that information, we’ll decide who gets our life savings.
This will not be our first time at this particular rodeo. In fact, it’ll be our fourth. And while we’ve generally had good luck (Knock on wood), we’ve had our fair share of experiences.
Some of you will remember Everlyn Avenue in Medford. Redefined the term “starter.”
Cute older house that needed basic updating, but the original owners had done two terrible additions. Leaky, drafty, poorly organized — truly awful.
When it came time to tackle that section of the house, our neighbors recommended an affordable contractor in the neighborhood. We spent time with him, talked about our budget, our hopes and our plans. Called a few references, shook hands and got to work.
Fabulous hire. Never missed a single day at the site. The work was done as promised and as scheduled. Saved us money with a few clever suggestions.
The only “odd” thing was the after-hours communication. We were given two phone numbers. The primary was his house in Medford. If there was no answer, we were “…free to call him down at the club.” And by club, he meant the Squire in Revere — the “North Shore’s Premier Gentlemen’s Club.” But it worked.
Our second experience was here on Flying Point Road. After talking to a couple of builders, we hired a contractor that had done work for our parents. His plan was to use our house as a “winter project.” Pour the foundation in late fall, build a weathertight shell and spend the winter working on the inside. Takes a little longer, but it’s a great way for a builder to pass the slow season providing that the weather cooperates.
Which it didn’t. The time from foundation pour to final punch list marked one of Maine’s toughest winters in history. Cold? So cold that air compressors and generators wouldn’t work for weeks. One blizzard after another. There was a period where we got 6″- 12″ of snow every day for over a week. Completely and utterly shot his budget.
But another great experience. The guy built a house that has been rock solid for twenty years. A few understandable grumbles about his bad luck with the weather and “I’m a builder, not a snow shoveler,” but a real trooper. (Unfortunately, it also proved to be his last house — he soon left the contracting business…)
Our last project was also here at Flying Point Road. We built the original house on a really tight budget and wanted to add a few amenities — a mudroom, a living room, fireplace, etc. Hired an architect. And after talking to a few builders, we hired one of the more “known” contractors to handle the addition.
Complete train-wreck. Our simplest building project proved to be the most difficult. Every single bill was wrong. Missed orders. Wrong orders. And if we deducted the time that the crew spent smoking cigarettes in our basement from the final price, we would have been issued a large and glorious check.
But ultimately, that’s not why we’ve decided not to invite that builder to bid on Dash Landing. Let’s face it, bad projects happen. And it was fairly clear that the site manager on our house addition was a complete chowderhead. (A Maine term.)
It was the “follow-up.” Six months past the five-year warranty period, we had a small problem with one of the windows in the addition. Not a big deal. But it was like they had never heard of us. And the price they gave us to fix their work proved to be 2x more than anyone else that we contacted.
The four builders bidding on Dashing Landing are great. Part of the local community. Fantastic reputations. We met with all of them on multiple occasions before sending out the bid packages. And it was really clear that all of them really want to build this house. Not only has Rob created a beautiful set of plans, but it’ll be one of the most visible houses in Freeport.
We have no idea how this will turn out tomorrow.
But we know it’ll be an experience.
Sadly, this counts as progress…
Fairly quiet week on the home front. Lots of questions from the contractors (e.g “Are the cabinets in the MBR with or without doors?“), but overall fairly uneventful.
With one small exception.
Our comrades at Fairpoint informed us that the CMP pole placement plan was deemed acceptable. They are now waiting for a right-of-way from the town of Freeport. Once that is received and the papers are stamped by the proper authorities, they’ll be moved to the Construction group. Where I’m sure we’ll start the waiting/hassling/hoping cycle all over again.
Which, unfortunately, counts as a day of progress.
And here we go…
Barring a last minute hiccup, thirteen pages of highly “nuanced” building specification (e.g. “…Test(2) prior to substantial completion = .5 air changes per hour at 50 pascals“) and seventeen pages of drawings are about to land with a resounding thud on the desks of our favorite contractors. Three week turnaround.
A few tidbits are below. Should make for an interesting January.
This nail might win us the Nobel Peace prize.
We had always heard about the contentious relationship between contractors and architects. Like the Hatfields & McCoys. Or the Red Sox and Yankees. Maybe not like snowmobilers and cross-country skiers, but close. And since this is our first time working with an architect — who seems quite nice — we were never sure “why?”
Until now.
Last week, we were told that the contractor and architect feud has its roots in the first phase of house construction — the foundation. Apparently, architects generally like their houses to “fit in.” They’ll set foundations lower in the the ground.
Contractors and excavators — on the other hand — prefer them “proud” and higher. Often leads to a drier basement. Easier to dig.
That last point is especially important in a bid process. A contractor can shave dollars off a bid by specifying a higher foundation. Which might be fine, but we’d rather it be planned than a surprise.
So rather than distribute the bid packages as promised last week, Rob and our excavator spent Friday morning with a transit level to get accurate elevations across the building site. It’s like asking Israel and Palestine get together to survey the West Bank.
And everything links back to this single nail. It’s “ground zero” for all calculations relating to the house, septic, barn and Dash Landing as a whole. The process only took a few hours, but it’s going to save a ton of arguing in a few weeks.
We look forward to returning to Norway.
We have never lived in the former Soviet Union…
We have never lived in the former Soviet Union.
But Debbie likes thrillers from that time period and Steve had to read Nabakov at Bates, so we believe we’re eminently qualified to make the following statement :
The individuals running Central Maine Power and Fairpoint were trained deep within the Soviet collective — probably in the late 40s, early 50s. Might have been involved in the famous “State Commission for Electrification of Russia,” but we believe it is far more likely that they were parking garage attendants.
Quite frankly, we’re tired of talking about electricity (and the lack of it), but we’ve promised to share the “how it gets there” of 7 Dash Landing and it’s clear that Central Maine Power and Fairpoint are playing a far bigger role than we ever anticipated.
A bit of the background is here in “Three Options and a Plot Twist.” After a long, slow dance with CMP, they ended up telling us that the utility poles in the neighborhood actually belong to Fairpoint and we’d have to talk to them.
When we then called Fairpoint, they told us that they couldn’t even come to the site before we had a driveway and an approved E-911 address. Which is a remarkably unhelpful policy given that we needed to know if electricity was going to be a financial show-stopper prior to purchasing the lot. But we went ahead with the deal based on the CMP visit.
Fast forward a few months. The Kardashians have provided the framework for an acceptable road name. Our friend Dallas is doing a beautiful job putting in the “Karen” driveway route up over the hill. We’re ready for Fairpoint to do their magic so we can dig the utility trench up to the lot.
Debbie makes the call. After seven billion transfers to reach the Engineering group, she gets a promise of “7 to 10 days.”
Yes, but we have a man sitting on an giant, diesel-guzzling excavator charging us by the hour.
“7 to 10 days.”
Debbie calls back in five days to confirm the appointment.
“Are you getting a phone line, Comrade?*” Uh, we’re not sure yet. We just need you to put the poles in so we can get electricity.
“That’ll be 7 to 10 days.”
Seven days later, we get a phone call from Fairpoint. “We went to the site today. There’s nothing we can do here. You need to call CMP first.”
But CMP said that those were Fairpoint’s poles?
“Yes Comrade*, but CMP needs to tell us where the poles are to be placed.”
Of course they do. Debbie calls CMP again.
“We can come out to the site and engineer the pole placement. That will be 7 to 10 days.”
Debbie goes into pleading mode because of the man sitting on the giant, diesel-guzzling excavator charging us by the hour.
A few days later, we now have stakes along Lower Mast Landing indicating the location of future utility poles.
Who wants to call Fairpoint and tell them that their markers will soon be buried in snow?
(* We made that part up because it makes us laugh.)
More driveway.
There’s yet another post underway about our “kremlin-esque” experience with Central Maine Power and Fairpoint, but — frankly — it wears us out.
Let’s just look at how the driveway is progressing….
‘
Driveway
We’ve (almost) got a driveway.
Always the last Tuesday before Black Friday…
Monson slate, North Jay granite, Warren Red Birch, Maibec shakes…today will be known forever more as “Bid Specification Day.” (Always the last Tuesday before Black Friday)
At 8:00 this morning, we sat down in front of a table in Portland filled with construction details. Shingles, shakes, flooring, metal roofing, ventilation membrane, windows, counters — you name it, we saw and talked about it over the next two hours.
Each and every item is now listed in a 12 page bid specification package. There are a few little details to be cleared up in the plans and packages to our four contractors should go out next week.
And I’m guess that our next new special day will be “It Costs That Much? Day” Always the last Wednesday before Christmas.
‘
‘
A House In A Field 