Hardwood Hardship....

One month and two hardwood flooring companies later and we still don't have hardwood floors installed in our home. Carpet is looking better and better by the day!

After finally getting in touch with the sales rep at the flooring company. The issue was escalated to the owner and a claim was submitted to the manufacturing distribution center in August ME.  It took four days before a claims adjuster was assigned and a case opened. My husband and I were praying the claim report would substantiate our concerns, that the hardwood floor was defective and cupped prior to install.

As we waited for the claim report, I had multiple arguments with the owner of the hardwood flooring company, whose stance continued to be that the damage to the flooring was due to humidity levels in our sub floor (which were high at 10-12%). He accused us of not having a completed HVAC system and central air running prior to install. I may not be a builder, but even I know that's ridiculous. 80% of people in New England don't have central air. I guess these homes must not have hardwood flooring? Or maybe you can only install hardwood floors in New England between the months of October and December?

Not only did we order hardwood for our entire home through this company but were were also paying them to install it. I just couldn't wrap my head around why they would move forward with the install if they didn't believe the humidity levels in our sub floor were not ideal. They had messed up and were literally trying to nail this mistake on us!

Back in the day hardwood flooring used to be stored outside among the elements. When it was delivered for install it required 2 or more weeks to acclimate. Today hardwood flooring is stored in temperature controlled warehouses. When it leaves the warehouse the humidity level in the wood is at 0%. Upon delivery (most likely in a non temp controlled 18 wheeler) and storage (god knows where) the wood takes on humidity levels of up to 7%. When the wood arrives at your home the humidity levels in your sub floor and the hardwood itself should not be greater than 7% total for a successful installation. Ideally it should be less than 7%. I wish I never had to learn any of this!

72 hours after the inspection an "inconclusive report" was shared. This resulted in a nasty email from the hardwood flooring company giving us 2 options. Keep all the hardwood and let them walk away or have the hardwood company rip out and return all 100 boxes of hardwood and give us a full refund so we could part ways. Guess which option we took..immediately!!

As soon as I got out of work that very day I drove straight to the another flooring company, shared my story and choose a new hardwood floor. Unfortunately the fastest delivery of the new flooring was 12 days as the mills in Canada closed for 2 weeks. And so we waited and finally 12 days passed and 100 boxes of new hardwood flooring were delivered earlier this week. We felt so relieved. It felt like we could finally move forward and start to finish the inside of our home! Until the owner of the new hardwood flooring company came out to take humidity measurements this weekend. Guess what, our sub floor is now at 13% humidity! No Go on the install! Hey at least this company is taking ownership and precautions to get this done right.

My husband jumped into action. He called every rental company, Home Depot and Lowe's in the tri- state area and secured a rental of 2 commercial grade dehumidifiers and fans. These devices are basically used if your house floods. They have a hose that you pull out of a window and they pump out 18-20 gallons of water a day! He brought them to our home and put them in the basement and first floor. Then he also borrowed two personal dehumidifiers from family and added those as well. Today we have FOUR dehumidifiers running! We are keeping everything crossed that in a couple of days these crazy machines will bring the humidity levels down in our sub floor. If not we may be installing these floors in October. I really hope it doesn't come to that!

The Devil is in the details...

 It is often the smallest of details which make it difficult or challenging to complete something. These details can prolong or ruin an otherwise straightforward task. 

And so 31 weeks, 217 days, 5208 hours, 314,850 minutes, and 18,478,807 seconds later (but whose counting) you finally get subcontractors inside your home to work on interior finishes. You tell yourself it's the home stretch. You finally breathe a sigh of relief and let the excitement wash over you as you see your choices come to fruition. You begin to picture yourself living in your new home. 

Drywall is completed, tile and hardwood floor are laid. The interior of your home begins to take shape. Progress picks up as teams of subcontractors swarm inside your house like busy bees in a hive each with a specific task at hand. Until.... (queue menacing music) one of the finish details hits a road block that knocks your sweet little building timeline on it's ass. 

For some reason choosing the hardwood floors for our home was a difficult task. In hindsight, it should have been an omen that hardwood flooring would eventually be problematic. I spent many weekends visiting established flooring company's in the area, getting pricing and samples before settling on a 4 inch wide plank oak pre-stained a walnut color from a local company. This company has a 20+ year reputation in the housing development community. 

Hardwood floors have to be down before your kitchen and counter-tops can be installed. The flooring company required a substantial upfront deposit and a 2 week lead time to order the hardwood from the manufacturer. Based on this timing I scheduled our kitchen cabinet delivery and install. 

There is a lot more prep to laying hardwood floors than you would think. Twenty four hours before delivery a de-humidifier was set up inside the house and left running to help remove any additional moisture from the air. Summer's in New England can get brutally humid. 

Once the hardwood arrived, the boxes were opened and the wood was given 48 hours to acclimate to it's new home. The de-humidifer continued to run day and night during acclimation. Finally the hardwood installers arrived and began the install. A vapor barrier was laid on top of the sub floor to ensure no moisture would touch the hardwood. 

On the first day of the install my dad called me at work to relay concerns about the flooring. I believe his exact words in my very best Greek accent were "Eh, where did you get these floors they are junk" They need to be ripped out and returned, they are warped and not laying flat on the floor" "How much did you spend on these junky floors?"

I didn't want to believe my dad. To appease him I contacted the flooring company and spoke with the sales rep to let him know of his concerns. He reassured me it was normal and the hardwood needed some additional time to settle and that the company stood behind it's products. Seeing that I didn't buy the flooring from the back of a truck, I convinced my dad that the rep was right and that it would all be ok. 

Today (the day the kitchen cabinets were scheduled to be delivered) the hardwood installer actually pulled my dad aside and told him he refused to continue laying the hardwood because it was too warped. He then left and had his boss come out. His boss took pictures and talked to my dad. Of course the boss only reaffirmed my dad's concerns. 

And I am notified at work, while facilitating a meeting with 10+ people. Whenever my cell phone rings I cringe if the caller ID is my dad, because I know if he's calling me during the day it has to do with some awful housing related emergency. As soon as I pick up he begins to yell that he was right and that the flooring has to go. In my calmest voice I say" yeah I'm going to have to call you back" and I excuse myself and go outside to find a place where I can yell and curse and vent. 

As I walk to the door any and all excitement I had about finish work at the house plummets faster than the NASDAQ in 2008. 

I try calling the flooring company but both the sales rep and owner at out of the office. I leave a message with the owner's administrator and implore her to get a hold of the owner and have him call me back. No one has returned my calls yet. 

Tomorrow morning when I get ready for work I will add a layer of armor to my business casual outfit so I can face yet another day of construction! 

Keep Calm And Build On....

In everyday life there is always someone you may rely on as an expert because of their experience, knowledge or problem solving skills. He/She is known as your go-to-person. They may be a family member, friend or co-worker. They are your one phone call from jail, phone a friend, talk off the ledge, hospital lifeline. Regardless of their role in your life they are important and necessary. Even more so when you are building your home!

One of the largest partnerships (outside of the bank) you will have during a building project will be with your lumberyard. The lumberyard works closely with the GC to determine initial building costs and as a supplier of the majority of  building materials. When you contract with a lumberyard you are assigned a lumberyard sales rep. The sales rep is given a copy of your blueprint and is responsible for going to your job site to assist you in measuring and determining the correct material quantities. You have no control over who you are assigned, it's really luck of the draw. You just cross your fingers and say a prayer that you can rely on this person. When you can't you learn to quickly identify and find their "go-to-person".

Before you order any materials through a lumberyard you are presented with an invoice outlining the vendor, quantity and cost. You have to either verbally or electronically review and sign off on this "order request" before anything is ordered. This process is done to minimize mistakes and delays.
Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.

This past week we finally ordered the remainder of our exterior siding, Maibec Cedar Shingles. We had discussed the vendor, color, quantity and cost with our lumberyard rep in nauseaum over the past month. Especially since we learned that our rep had miscalculated the total amount we needed for our project. An expensive mistake.

So when it was finally time to place the shingle order we thought we were both on the same page. Until this showed up at our job site at the end of the week. 16+ squares of the wrong cedar. If you are reading this and know the going rate for one square of painted cedar shingles (1 sq= 100 sq feet at $315 a pop) then you won't be surprised to hear that my head almost popped off of my head from frustration! It's a stereotype that construction workers can be vulgar. I'm sure not all of them are. But now I completely understand why! If you know me I don't swear often. I'm typically pretty politically correct, under normal circumstances. But on this day all of that went out the window! I was no longer a nice suburban mom of two who works in an office and goes to church on Sundays. I had an out of body experience.

Our lumberyard rep had ordered SBC Cape Cod Gray and we asked for Maibec Cape Cod Gray. You would think no big deal, they are both big vendors out of Canada, it's white painted cedar, the colors should be very similar. But you would be wrong just like our sales rep. Every vendor has their own samples and paint colors for a reason. No paint is the same.

After a call to our lumberyard, our sales rep and his manager and his managers manager. We asked that everything be returned and the correct cedar ordered. This mistake will cost us a week delay on siding.

As I sit here typing this I have to keep taking deep breaths and reminding myself that the road to success is always under construction!

Go Fund Yourself!

If you recall in an earlier post I mentioned (very bitterly) that a construction loan is a reimbursement account. Which means that in the absence of a completed (sell-able and livable) structure the bank requires the GC and the buyer to take on the majority of the financial risk for a building project. If you happen to be both then you better hold onto your pants because (you may lose them and your shirt) as you are now liable to front ALL of the costs to fund your project before you see a dime of loan money from your bank. The bank will only disburse funds if you can prove that each line item of work is 100% completed. There have been times during this process where we have wondered why the hell we even bothered getting a construction loan because we have felt like we were building the house out of pocket.

Unfortunately if you are not part of the building community and or have a working relationship with lumber yards and sub-contractors it's tough to prove to vendors that you are "good for the money" even if you tell them you have a bank loan to back you. So we have found that many vendors and contractors have required substantial deposits from us upfront, when they are half way done and when they finish. These have been the most expensive relationships to foster and manage. I swear the deposits for our rough work alone could run a small NH town. As a GC it's your job to juggle your working capital to ensure you can cover these costs. And let me tell you juggle is an understatement.

My husband, father and I had to estimate the total cost to build our home way before a single person stepped foot on our job site. What we thought we wanted day one changed multiple times before actual purchase and install. Many of these changes were triggered through education (exploring new options and deciding to use better materials). Did you know that there is a difference in quality of nails? I didn't and I never in a million years thought I would ever be having conversations about this! If you install exterior cedar shingles it is recommended that you upgrade to stainless steel nails to ensure they never rust and stain your cedar. The going rate for one box of stainless nails is $130. The alternative and less expensive option is to use galvanized nails and they run about $40 a box.  Nail at your own risk people!

Just when we thought we had experienced all the crazy that is the construction loan process we were schooled again. You would think that spending wisely to upgrade your home's (infrastructure, materials or finishes) would have a positive outcome. Ironically from the bank perspective you have now altered your original agreement. Banks have to track your loan disbursement to zero. How can they verify that you are 100% complete with a line item if the real cost to complete that work is higher? They will still only give you the money you agreed on even if it's less but now they force you to pay the difference before they let you access the funds. The bank may even require you to deposit money into your disbursement account to make this happen!

Now you can appreciate why builders jack the cost of upgrades up two fold. They are just trying to recoup their profit and cover the cost differences for the bank.

The whole construction loan process is geared to protecting the bank. We are left scratching our heads wondering how anyone is able to build at all?

Orchestrating a building symphony

Being your own GC is like being a conductor. You have to direct the performance of a group of individuals to produce a desired end result. If you are like us and you have zero building experience it's a steep learning curve to understand the sequence of work, material lead times and people required to build a home.

Fast forward past the coordination of material delivery and labor to excavate, pour a foundation, foundation slabs, frame the house (including all interior walls and strapping on the ceiling), roof, install all of exterior windows and doors, siding, and porches (in that order). The real composition occurs when you have all of your subcontractors inside your home. It's almost like doing the hokey pokey. You get the plumber in, the plumber goes out, you get the electrician in, the electrician is out.

Keeping everyone inside and working requires planning and organization by the GC. If it's a busy building season then a good subcontractor has work lined up. If rough plumbing parts like (valves, bath fans) have a shipping delay and the plumber needs those parts to finish their work, they will leave, start another job and come back to finish yours when your materials are delivered. If that happens it can be tough to get a subcontractor to come back in. This happened with our plumber it took almost a month for him to get an inspection on rough plumbing.

Or your electrician can't complete wiring for the lighting and outlets in your kitchen until the kitchen designer chalk outlines where all of your cabinets, appliances and kitchen island will go. But the kitchen designer can't mark out your cabinets until you finalize the appliances you are purchasing. All of your HVAC duct work has to be in before you can start insulation.

Once all of your rough electrical, gas lines, plumbing and HVAC roughs have passed inspection, then you get the green light to insulate your home. After insulation has passed inspection you can have drywall installed. After drywall you can start installing interior trim, doors and hardwood flooring. Hardwood flooring has to be installed before your kitchen cabinets can be delivered and installed.

Below is a timeline I developed and have been tracking against for the completion of our build. As of today if everyone shows up, does their jobs, there are no material delays or errors we are looking at an 8/31 complete date.

As you know anything can happen from day to day with a building project. On top of orchestrating the materials and people to keep them in tune, the GC also has to weave the bank disbursements in between to ensure you have the capital to keep playing the music! Wish us luck T-90 days!!!

Won't you be my neighbor....

When you are the only new house being built in an already established neighborhood there is an unspoken rule that you keep building disturbances to a minimum. You want to make a good impression and be respectful That means you don't start sawing, drilling or hammering at the crack of dawn. So it's never a good sign when your neighbor is calling you in the middle of the work day to complain about something building related.

My dad and the crew had accumulated quite a stash of left over brush, trees and 2 x 4 wood in a pile behind our home. It needed to be cleared to dig and install our septic and well.  The fastest way to get rid of it all would be to burn it. Our home is situated on a 1.65 acre lot and our closest neighbor is 400 feet away. 

The crew waited for a rainy day to call the town inspector to get an approved bonfire permit. With pouring rain above and permit in hand my father in law started burning the pile. A couple hours into the bonfire our neighbor came out and asked my father in law to stop. He said that the wind was blowing soot from the bonfire onto his house and it was staining his white trim. 

Our neighbor then called my husband at work and relayed the issue. He said he was concerned that there was damage to his home. My husband was completely shocked and apologetic. We couldn't have predicted something like this happening. We immediately stopped the bonfire. Then a handful of back and forth phone calls ensued between myself, my husband, my dad and father in law as we scrambled to come up with a plan B to remove the pile. We finally settled on a giant wood chipper for the brush and trees and a waste management bagster from Home Depot for any residual construction materials like 2 x 4s.

While the brainstorming phone calls were taking place. My mother in law who was home watching our daughters received a call from our local police department. They called and asked for me by name so she assumed it had to do with the bonfire debacle. She then started calling my husband and father in law to tell them the police had called our home. Turns out she misunderstood the call. The police department was calling for a donation. Thank god!

While all this was happening my husband was waiting for a follow up call with our neighbor to confirm the damage to his home. We were preparing for the worst, that we would have to come up with thousands of dollars we didn't have to pay to repaint his house or that we would have to submit a claim to our home owners insurance and our deductible would go sky high. Luckily the pouring rain washed away any soot that had blown over to our neighbors house.

After a roller coaster ride all afternoon my husband and I were left feeling relieved, exhausted and worried about our relationship with our neighbor. 

Awww...the joys of home ownership! 

Everyday We're shuffling...

One of the reasons I started blogging was to share the good the bad and the ugly parts of building. The hope was to help others and to highlight that none of this came easily. To build our dream home has been a huge sacrifice for our family, our finances, and sanity. The irony is that before this journey we have always been pretty conservative, careful about what we spent and how much we save. We knew going into this that it would be a huge risk but a big pay off. We also knew that this was a once in a lifetime opportunity and long term investment that we couldn't pass up even if the "timing" wasn't exactly right. Is there ever really a perfect time to do anything?

So you ask how do you GC the building of a custom home, keep your day job and run a household? The answer is simple, you don't (not simultaneously anyways). It's a constant balancing act and shift of focus. Honestly it's enough to give a person whip lash. There have been days where I'm surprised we don't need to wear a neck brace. You just have to take it a day at a time and sometimes even hour at a time. Even if everyday feels like groundhog day and you feel like a record spinning around and around.

From day to day we all wear different hats, wife, mother, father, co-worker, daughter, son, sister, brother, friend etc. To achieve our goal we had to throw one more hat to our pile the general contractor hat. This extra hat has required our time and focus every day for the last 9 months and counting. On the way to work, lunch breaks, on the way home from work, late at night and on weekends. Suffice to say it's been a significant commitment. My husband even extended his work week to 6 days and has spent every Saturday since we broke ground in December working a full day at our job site.  Our daughters have learned that weekends aren't just for ballet class and play dates. Weekends involve trips to the lumberyard and job site.

Even though it has been challenging to weave general contracting into our daily lives we have learned and continue to learn a great deal. The hands on skills my husband has learned by working on site are preparing us for the maintenance that comes with home ownership. Managing the sub contractors and the financials for this project have built up my management skill set. Dragging our girls to lumberyards and bath and appliance stores has given them more opportunities to learn to behave in public and to be patient. Most of all we have learned to appreciate what we have and what we are building.