Re: New Build in Red Stick
Warning... This is going to be a really long post. I hope you find it interesting.
So back up 18 months, I decided I wanted a pool, but also a carport and a large covered patio to go with it. So I worked up a design and pulled permits and got to work.
Some before pics:
The patio area:
The tree stump was a Hurricane Gustav gift, we lost a couple of trees which really looking back kicked off this whole thing. Without that tree the patio was miserable in the sun. It was small to begin with, a quarter circle slab with a 15' radius. We wanted something bigger, covered.
The very rear of the house:
I had built a tin roof shed attached to the house to put stuff out of the weather. I built it well and it survived Gustav without a hitch. I wanted a real store room though.
This pic is from after construction on the slab had started, but it gives you a better idea of the whole rear of the house. I relocated the tin roofed storage to the rear of the yard prior to this pic.
So I decided to add on a large patio 15'X35' and extend a gable from the roof to cover it. I also decided to extend the rear part of the house to create a new carport and storage room. Behind that would be a 10' additional slab to accommodate future pool equipment, and other stuff.
I got estimates from contractors for this stuff that ranged from 80-100K. Yikes! We paid $85 K for our house in 1997. I thought the estimates were outrageous, but after talking to a contractor client (whom I had not asked for a bid) he said they were in line with current construction costs. He also said most of it was labor. We recently paid off the house and were almost completely debt free, so we were not willing to go back into debt to build this.
So much to my wifes dismay at the time, I decided to forge ahead and build it myself!
I put together some scale drawings, and started reaching out to clients (I am a consultant) who are in the construction trades for access to materials at wholesale. All of my clients were willing to help where they could.
One loaned me a bobcat and I used that to grade the site (and learned an appreciation for guys who use em, they are skilled, it took me a couple of weeks to become proficient).
With a rented jackhammer I broke up the patio.
I framed in the forms, and laid out everything, got the sewer line moved out of the future place where the pool would go, and while I was at it I got the plumber to rough in a bathroom for the pool area (wifes idea and a good one. Dont tell her I told you that.) In BR a plumber has to do sewer rough in and tie into the city sewer or I would have done that myself and saved several future headaches.
I knew that finishing concrete was as much art as trade, so I hired some great guys who finished it for me and taught me a lot about how to do it, timing the finishing etc. Still not something I would attempt alone, it takes a lot of manpower all at once.
A couple of construction pics from concrete day.
The single biggest expense of the concrete day was the pump truck. I didnt think we could handle the 2200SF pour with truck and wheelbarows or even a jitney buggy, so I went all out and hired a boom truck that could reach over the house and put the concrete where we wanted it. Thats me in the blue shirt. The pump truck guy had a neat lil double joystick thingy to control the truck remotely. He could even add water to the mix to correct slump on the fly.
After the pour I wanted to give the concrete plenty of time to cure. This would also give me time to accumulate some cash and trade services for materials with some of my clients. (one of my clients is a home builder in BR)
The pour was a week or so before thanksgiving, and I wouldn't start construction again until Jan 1. Meantime, our first disaster struck.
Turns out the plumber had nicked the power line when digging for the sewer. One of our lines "powdered out" meaning it corroded in two on christmas eve. Half the power in the house went out. ALL 220V appliances were dead. Thankfully Entergy is a company I interned with in college, and we asked for and recieved a transformer that could pull the 2nd leg of power over the remaining leg (it offset the phase so they were opposing) and we had power for christmas, until they could come out and fix the issue.
Entergy came out and located the fault quickly, and dug down to the wire, only to hit the sewer line and flood the hole with raw sewage. Yum! Everything stopped, and entergy got on the phone with the plumber, who had evidently had bad holidays, because he refused to come out and actually cursed out the Entergy guy on the phone! Well, entergy laid some temporary lines to the house on top of the ground as a quick fix to the issue.
See part of my plans involved relocating my meter base and upgrading to 320A service. So they figured they would just do that and I would have the construction up and ready for the new service pretty quickly right? Well they hadn't talked to me about that or I would have let them know this was not a fast paced project, they just assumed when they saw the slab and the on hold order for upgraded service and panel move that it would be a week or so for framing and roof and then they could run new underground service and hang a new meter pan.
YIKES! I now have a clock ticking on my building plans. I also have unbreakered 220V 200A lines running through my yard and two neighbors yards on top of the ground. Light a fire under my slow butt why dontcha?
We and our neighbors cannot really let kids play in the backyard now... who knows what kids are going to do? I order materials and start construction on schedule Jan 1 2010.
I will leave you there while I write the next installment.
! I cant wait to see it all come together, and am especially waiting to see that levitating hammock.