We are in month seven and have managed to maintain the schedule, give or take a week. At this stage, I am spending a lot of time walking the site, crawling around the attic, down in the crawlspace, and everywhere else, looking at work and asking questions. In addition, I am watching the schedule like a hawk, constantly checking in with subcontractors to ensure they will be here as scheduled. There is a lot I don’t know, but I am finding the pros are willing to take enough time to make sure I understand what they are doing and why. Most of what I have caught has been easy to redo, such as taping seams between flashing and building wrap to keep water out of the house, making sure the workers are meeting our specifications and not cutting corners, and knowing enough about the code from my past life that I caught several mistakes that would have been expensive fixes. On top of that, I am the unofficial Safety Inspector. “Get off that top rung,” “wear your safety glasses when cutting metal,” and “where is your fall protection?” are a few of the comments I’ve made to the crews.
The outside is done and doesn’t look much different from last month. That’s because the majority of the work is now inside. Electrical, mechanical, and HVAC rough-ins are done. I did all of the low voltage and technology wiring, and that had to be done before insulation and drywall. Insulation was interesting. We went with a 2-1/2” closed cell spray foam in the walls and R49 blown in for the attic. The crawl space walls and band board were encapsulated with 3” of closed cell spray foam. The crawl space will be considered a conditioned space. While the insulators did a great job, we had an issue with foam overspray getting on the window and door frames. They will remove it once the drywall folks are gone and most of the dust settles.
The latest catch wasn’t as easy to resolve, or so I thought. The builder jammed the plywood together at the peak, leaving no 2” air space to vent the attic to the ridge cap. I didn’t notice it until I was installing a 6,000 CFM whole-house attic fan in the attic. I joked with the builder saying he needed to get that cut back before the fan came on and blew the roof off. He had a crew here in 3 days, and they cut all the ridge seams back. He apologized and said it shouldn’t have been that way. It’s fixed. It’s all good, but we will see when the fan comes on.
Some of the things I’ve learned during this build is that it is foolish to count on your memory and think you won’t want to know what is inside the walls someday. The electrician suggested I take pictures of every wall and ceiling and ensure I get the critical areas, like the panel box. That way, when I need to add or fix something, I will know where it is and where not to cut, nail, or poke. You would think, after as many commercial buildings as I have built, I would know that. Done and in the cloud!
When I started thinking about this month’s article, the first thing that came to mind was a potential disaster we averted. The drywall company’s project manager didn’t order the drywall before vacation. When he returned, he couldn’t get anything delivered until the last day on the schedule, September 1st. Adding three weeks to the schedule wasn’t an option, and I asked the company owner for help. He came out, measured the job himself, and then ordered drywall to go in a week earlier than we had planned. Then, they started hanging drywall the next day. That’s customer service! I had to give him a week’s extension in return, but it saved me having to push out several trades three weeks. We should make it up with the other trades, if possible, as Beth wants to be in the house by Thanksgiving.
As you can see in the image of the future office of The Advertiser, drywall is in, and it will be primed right after Labor Day. [For all photos, See PDF or View in Full Issue.] With drywall scheduled to be primed and done by September 8th, we are on to other interior work like floors, doors, and trim. That will take most of September and a little of October. Cabinets will be built, and we will start ordering finish items and appliances.
The potential for real scheduling issues is just around the corner. Delays affecting flooring, interior trim, cabinets, countertops, custom shower, and paint can require subs to move out to their next available slot, which can be months away. So, the hardest part of the management process now is to make sure everyone does what they say they will do and support them as much as I can to be sure they can complete their work in the time allocated. It’s give and take and working together. I am lucky that most of these contractors know each other and will work together to help keep everything on track.
Still pretty much on schedule!
Next month:
Are we there yet?