Piss and Moan
An interesting couple of weeks... our two crew guys were fighting. They'd scream at each other before they left, scream at each other when they got here, then work in silence. Seems they've patched things up though. Our neighbor (who is at least 100 yards away) came by to see when we were going to be done... his wife works swing shift and can't sleep while they are pounding. Interesting, since two of us inside the house can sleep while they are working, as can my neighbor across the street, who is recuperating from surgery. Whatever.

As usual, things are half done all over. They started siding this week. We got a notice of lien from the lumber people, because the contractor hasn't paid them. Turns out he has another client that isn't paying him, so they are going to court, and I guess he is using the money we paid them to cover that shit, and not our house. Nice. Can't wait until this is done!


- posted by Lesley @ 1:44 PM

 
Oops
So PGE came yesterday to connect us to our new meter. As stated in a previous post, we had two meters. The electrician connected everything from the second meter (4 plugs on one wall of our house, plus a plug that was on a tree in the yard) onto the new meter. I told PGE that the second one was now defunct, so they unhooked everything. After they turned the power back on, we went to use the water. Nothing. We are on a well, so we need electricity to pump water from the well to the house. We called the electrician, who had just left but fortunately lives down the street, and he came back. We discovered that the well was piggybacked onto the plug on the tree. It is as if whoever set it up just said 'hey, there is some electricity over there, I'll just attach it to this plug here.' The plug itself was a fire hazard, and having the well attached to it was simply crazy. Anyway, now we have a big cord running across our yard so we can have water. They are going to run it underground when they dig the trench for the new pipe that needs to be laid from pump to house.

There has been a kid (kid meaning younger than me, he is probably 18 or 20) hired to do manual labor. He finished digging the trench around the house for the foundation, moved the dirt to where we wanted it (two days worth of wheelbarrowing!) and filled in the trenches left after the foundation was poured. Turns out nobody told the crew that some pipe needed to be put down in the trenches next to the foundation, so he had to re-dig the trenches. At least he has job security... He is also digging where I didn't think they were going to dig, so I'm pretty sure my hellebore is toast. I knew I should have dug it up.
- posted by Lesley @ 10:17 AM

 
Stuff Gettin' Done
Things are moving ahead slowly... the concrete was to be poured last friday but the hose pump dude canceled on them. They poured the foundation yesterday, and are gussying it up today. We were afraid it might look weird since it isn't flush with the house, but it actually looks pretty cool.




They also began putting in the windows! It looks really cool now.




Plumbers are here, a week or so late. We had a weird electrical thing: we have two meters for the house, and one wall of the house is on one meter, while the rest of the house is on the other. The electrician put us all on one now, but the new electricity isn't hooked up, so that one wall is "dead". We had to move our computer, and currently have it plugged into the same outlet/power strip (via two extension cords) to our tv, tivo, satellite receiver, dvd player... hopefully the house doesn't burn down! The law said they had to hardwire smoke detectors in the bottom floor, one in each bedroom and the hallway. The bedrooms are all close together and are right off the hallway, so we have 4 smoke detectors within about a 10 foot radius. If our plugs to spontaneously combust, at least we are covered!!

The siding has arrived, they should be putting it on soon.
- posted by Derek @ 2:32 PM