Hi all,

Sunday, March 16
The storm that was causing all the wind yesterday has arrived and it is raining.  I went to the house and parked in the RV driveway.  Opening the car garage door I was able to get inside, open the RV door, and drive the truck into the RV garage, then close everything up again.  It is nice to be able to close it off now!

I looked around and found water coming in through the edges of the shop and RV rear doors.  The weatherstrip had been removed by the painters and not replaced.  I found them and re-installed them.

My task today was to start installing fluorescent lights in the RV garage.  I first installed the hanging hooks for 5 of the 8 lights.  This was a tedious process, working at the top of my 12 foot stepladder, carefully measuring and using my stud finder to make sure I hit solid structure, then screwing in the hook.  (Every one hit wood!).

I then "built" 2 more light fixtures and hung them.  I now have at least one light on every circuit!

Monday, March 17
I got up early this morning and was at the house by about 8 AM.  The door people were due by 8:30.  They never showed!

I went through my list of what I think still needs doing with Steve.  Friday move-in is very shaky!  It looks like most of the items can be done in a timely manner, but the railings will not be ready until Thursday.  As these are required for final inspection, that cannot be until Friday.  There goes the move-in!  I called the moving company and cancelled our order.

I "built" two more light fixtures and hung them in the RV garage.  That's 4 now - half the final total.

I headed back home, stopping by the office to get the number of the door company.  I called him and left him a voicemail message.  After a bunch of phone tag I finally received a call from Danny.  He will not make it today.  His assistant had called in sick and he is very busy.  Tomorrow he will be here "for sure!".  We'll see.

Betty and I went to the stone supplier and verified the stone we want on the mailbox.  Steve said Ernesto can do our mailbox tomorrow if our pattern is in stock.  Unfortunately, it isn't!  They usually have it, but have sold out of the flat material, they have only corners.  It will be about a week, so we will wait.  This is not a move-in holdback.  We went back to the house after doing some shopping and locked everything.  It was now snowing.

Tuesday, March 18
The storm has passed, but the cold wind is very piercing!  Steve's crew was forming the front walk and the landing behind the RV rear doors.  They will pour it today.  Ernesto started putting the caps on our rear wall.  8:30 (the time the door opener crew was due) came and went.  I got the light hanging hooks installed in RV garage for the remaining 3 lights, but did not hang them as this is the area around the door and opener.  I'll wait until the work is done.  Finally, around 10:30 Derek and Nigel arrived.  Danny was due in about 20 minutes.  He arrived about an hour later.  They got to work mounting the opener for the RV door. 

There were a lot of problems getting the opener installed and connected.  Being a commercial opener, the residential features such as radio control and photocell safety protection were separate items.  It took a bit of manual digging, and the making of a wiring chart to get everything figured out, but we did it and it worked!

The crew stayed until around 5.  They need to return tomorrow to finish a few details, such as connecting the opener to the door and getting all the limits and other adjustments set properly.  There is also a bit of mechanical alignment required to make sure the door seals properly.  Hopefully a couple of hours should be plenty of time to finish.

I was sure glad we were working inside today.  Every time we had to open one of the garage doors, the wind just whipped in.  It was so nice to close the doors again.  Steve's poor crew was working outside all day!

After finishing the concrete areas, the crew worked on the back yard area, contouring it and burying a drainage pipe which will handle the gutter downspout flow along the back of the house.

Wednesday, March 19
Nigel and Derrick showed up fairly early this morning.  Much of what they came to do, I had done last evening.  They connected the opener to the door and set the limit switches.  They adjusted track brackets so the door would both clear the cable drum at the top and press against the seals.  After about an hour they were finished and left.

Steve and his crew finished the grading of the back yard and started bringing in gravel.  We had decided to use plain gray rock along the back and the rear of the west side, and use the more expensive rock only in the front.  They finished spreading the gray rock and started putting rip-rap (large stones, in case you had not heard the term either) behind the rear wall and along the various slopes.  I finished hanging the fluorescents in the RV garage.  I now have only two left to go - in the garage.

Thursday, March 20
This was a busy day!  Right around 8, a truck pulling a flat trailer pulled up and backed into my car driveway.  It was the railings!  These were the main reason I cancelled the move, originally set for tomorrow.  Earlier this week, I found they had not even started on one of the required railings.  I looked at the railings.  There were black ones and white ones.  I didn't see any that matched our house color as the front deck railings were supposed to be.  I asked if this was the final coat of paint and they said "yes".  It looks like they need to go back to the shop and be repainted!

They installed the ones in the garage and RV garage.  While they were finishing this, Mark, the owner of the company (and Vince's brother) drove up.  The installers had picked up the wrong railings!  He had a set that matched the house just fine - they also fit!  They would have discovered their mistake when they tried to mount the white ones and nothing would have fit.

The phone installer arrived around 10 and installed my service.  He said the company likes to mount the network interface box outside, but since I was so well set up for it (and that I wanted it inside) that he would be glad to mount it just where I wanted, right under my patch panel.  He was impressed with my setup.  He had to run down the street to enable my line, so left me a box of ground wire.  I fished this down one of the conduits and went around to crawl under the house.  As I looked across the street, the inspector drove up.  He first went into the garage across the street, so I crawled under, pulled the wire and stuck it out again about 5 feet away where the ground rod is.

When I crawled out again, the inspector was over here.  He spent about 10 minutes looking around the garages and shop, visually checking things and testing a number of the outlets to make sure they were GFCI protected.  He didn't go in the house as it is already bought off by HUD when the house is shipped.  He squawked 3 things:  I needed to label the 3 breakers in the main panel, they need to put a self closer on the door from the house to the garage, and they need to nail a 1 x 2 under each step tread on the RV garage landing.  The "don't allow a small kid to get his head caught" clearance between steps is the same as it is between rails on the railing.  He then signed off the inspection.

We can move in anytime now!!!!!!!!

I immediately called the movers to re-schedule.

A short time later I was working in my shop and another city car drove up.  My worst nightmare!  It was the assessor!  They don't waste any time, do they?  She wandered around my complex (probably a Villa to her) measuring here and there, then left without another word.  Here's hoping!

The movers called back and informed me they would load tomorrow and deliver on Tuesday.  That's only a 2 business day slip due to my uncertainty.

After lunch, the first truckload of our landscaping rock arrived.  The crew had leveled the area in the front and was spreading landscaping cloth on the ground.  Steve started bringing a skip-loader full of rock at a time over, dumping it on the cloth.  They used to use black plastic under the rock, but found it was too good a seal, and the moisture could not enter or leave the ground.  This cloth is a dense mesh that pretty much holds water, but allows the ground to "breath".  They still use black plastic right around the house and on steep slopes.

The weather has been fantastic the last couple of days!  The temperatures are in the 70's, with only occasional clouds.

Friday, March 21
I went to the office and Jan gave me a stack of receipts for expenses on our lot.  I went through them and pulled the prices from all the items Steve had bought for me.  I entered these in my spreadsheet of expenses that will allow us to reconcile the electrical costs and my savings.  At least there had better be some savings for all the work I did on it!  My preliminary calculations indicate I should save about $1800!

I then headed back to Pine Lawn Ranch.  I dumped the tanks and disconnected all my utilities, put my bike in the truck, and went to the office to check out.  A little while later we were heading to OUR house.  I parked in the RV driveway about the time Gene pulled up to run me back to get the truck.  A short while later we were all moved from the RV park to our house (except for my outdoor thermometer, which I had attached to a tree branch).  I'll pick it up tomorrow.

The crew finished all the landscape rock and rip-rap.  The place is looking pretty good!  Felix and Pokemon started cleaning all the trash and supplies out from our garages and shop.  They then thoroughly swept out the garages.  They finished at almost 7 PM!

We slept at (but not in) our new house for the first time.

Saturday, March 22
I made a run to the storage unit and brought the first load to the house.  I can now explore the neighborhood on my electric scooter!  A trip to Home Depot and I had the supplies to finish hanging the garage fluorescents and to finish the phone, network, and TV wiring in the garages and shop.

These last 2 lights were the hardest to hang, as the alignment of the ceiling joists and the garage door tracks was such that if I hung the lights from the first clear joist, they would be too close to the wall.  I ended cutting 4 two foot lengths of the punched angle bracket material the garage door people use (I had talked them out of about 8 feet of this).  I used these to span the distance between joists, then hung the lights so they just cleared the door tracks.  That's the last of the lights!  My electrical job is finished!

Sunday, March 23
About all I had to do today was to finish installing the phone jacks around the garage, shop, and RV garage.  Also I had a TV and a network connection at the RV parking area in the RV garage.  I then punched down the other end of all the wires at my patch panel.  That completes all the utilities I have planned for the main run of conduit I put in and over the walls earlier.  I am holding off running the wires in my dedicated conduit to the corner of my shop until I get all my tools.  I have decided to put a phone jack on the rear garage wall feeding from the shop phone jack.  I have a set of drills about 2 feet long which will give me a passage exactly where I want it.

Tomorrow I am scheduled to sit down with Steve and Vinny to do our final reconcilliation.  I have all the electrical work numbers, and I am sure they have all the numbers for the extras I have gotten, such as the extra wall on the west side, the higher priced gravel in the front, etc..  I think we are ready for the movers on Tuesday!

I think I will send this now, as the next several days promise to be quite busy! 

Till next time,

Dick

I have posted photos on-line at:

http://members.isp01.net/rmason/statusreports.html