Demo Starts... ah, no

I'm really hoping this isn't a sign of things to come. It's last Thursday, demo day and the excitement is there. I stop by the house on the way home and what's happened? Maybe some abatement?! Destruction of walls?! Something exciting, right! Ah, no... the Biffy arrived. Huh?

Apparently MOC hasn't gotten the permits from the city of St. Paul yet. So, we wait. And as of today, we still wait. But hey, we're doing a radon test! That's exciting right? Ah, no. The HVAC and electrician are coming to check on and do some minor stuff on Thursday. That's exciting, right? Ah, no.

It's not easy, but we're trying to stay positive. Being a week behind right from the get-go doesn't inspire confidence.

Now, all that said, I did meet with MOC and someone who will be helping with LEED certification. There's still some questions, but it looks like with very little effort we'll be able to achieve a base level of LEED certification. At issue is whether we meet some of the basic prerequisites. For example, is the furnace have the minimum specs needed? It's not that old and in my book is a few years from needing replacement, but if it doesn't meet LEED specs, what then? Is certification worth the extra dollars? Some dollars, probably. But new furnace dollars? It may be money spent eventually and "green" homes do seem to sell on average for high prices, but how much of a concern is that right now? So, there's some questions to wrestle with and take the mind off the permit issue. Grrrrr.

Last Minute Clean Up, Demo Starts Tomorrow

The last week and half hasn't been too conducive to the house. Between everyone getting sick and my own little jaunt to Ann Arbor to relive my rock n' roll "glory" years, I just haven't dedicated much time.

But, guess what... Demo starts tomorrow! yeeaa... picture me doing a little dance... very little. Well, but yikes, I haven't finished all my stuff! Well, that's not completely true. For the most part I'm done tearing stuff down. Now I just need to get all my piles of wood out of the house and into the garage, not to mention deciding which piles I want to keep. So, with Ann back from Detroit tonight, I made a last minute run to move my stuff out of the immediate demo areas.

So, what's happening tomorrow? Best I can tell, I think it's just asbestos abatement. Probably them setting up shop and other massively exciting things like that. Guess I'll have to swing by on my way home and check it out.

Finally, a schedule

We had our first official post-contract-signing meeting last Thursday. We got together with Ryan, our architect and a bunch of people from MOC. Primary on the list was going over all the little things involved in the construction process like, "how do I contact you?", "when should our weekly meeting be", "where should the Biffy go?", and on and on... exciting stuff, I know.

On the flip side, we got our first chance to see the schedule, which MOC has been piecing together for the past week and a half. Of course the first thing we did was flip to the last page to see when things end. Unfortunately, and to be honest, disappointingly, they're projecting Jan 10th of 2010. Yuck, yuck, yuck. I'm glad to finally have a schedule, but next Jan?!?!?!

Well, we expressed our disappointment and challenged to see what can be done to bring that back in. But, the reality is that we're starting much later than we would have liked to. Official demo (not done by me, that is) starts on June 18th, so next Thursday. I think part of the frustration is that we have a feeling that should have started a month ago.

So, while we wait for the 18th, I've been charged with taking down the rest of the wood paneling, which is now done, and the exterior siding, which isn't done. Oh, and I have to move all my stacks of wood into the garage. Here's the redwood and flooring. The Doug Fir is just as much.

That was supposed to be my chore this past weekend, but our house has turned into the sick ward. I got a bit done, but half my time on Sat was spent building a table with Cailin, and I only got a little more than 2 hours on Sun. Guess I might need to be a bit more aggressive.

A Green Oportunity

Not a lot of posts in May, so I better get a good start here in June.

So, what's been goin' on for the past week and a half? Well, to be honest, not a lot. I made the decision to take down the rest of the wood paneling inside the house. It seems to me that having too much wood is not a bad thing. And hey, it gives me something to do.

That was last weekend. I wish I had some pics, but I left my camera at home and to be honest, it doesn't really look like I did anything anyway. Cailin came and hung out with me though. She helped move some wood around and played with Ann's old doll house which is sitting in the garage.

Oh, I suppose you might be asking what's going on with real construction. Well, we have our pre-construction meeting tomorrow (TH) with MOC. I guess we'll go over exciting stuff like where the dumpster should go and the change order process, but we'll also get a first glance of our schedule. Any bets on when this thing will be projected to be done? Ugh, I hope it's before Dec.

Oh, one exciting thing that's popped up. Well, for me anyway, is that MOC has a free resource who's going to be working with us on LEED for Homes and Minnesota Greenstar certification. Apparently, Mike Otto doesn't think any adjustments will have to be made to reach at least a basic level of certification and this free resource is looking to do exactly that thing.

I had kind of given up hope on the certification after all the cost cutting we did and frankly just got too tied up in that process anyway to spend me time on how "green" we could be. I'm happy though as it was something I looked a lot at after buying the house.