November 24, 2004 The tiki bar is gone!

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The tiki bar is gone!

We arrived on Saturday to see Jim, the new tiki bar owner taking the roof supports off. He did a little work and left for the day.

When we came to the property this Sunday, we saw a backhoe parked in front of the tiki bar. It was quite cold on Sunday and we didn’t feel like doing much work, so we left to get a shed for our tools and we were quite happy to discover that it was gone when we came back.

Our property is starting to look like a construction site.

Jim and his friend with the backhoe broke up the slab for us so we could repurpose it for a low garden wall, or a small patio. I am very grateful to him. He is also planning to remove the oleanders and scrub oaks that need to be taken out so he can transplant them on his property.

Final Drawings

There were so many little things that we had to specify in the plan before the factory could submit the plan to the engineer. We had to notate where we needed them to place the rough-in plumbing, electrical outlets, light switches, rough-in light openings, phone jacks etc. I feel like I was taking the cart before the horse this last week because it meant that I had to choose all of the fixtures, furniture and appliances first. Since we’ve started this project, David and I have been very careful to take one step at a time, so non-pressing items don’t distract us. Considering these details felt a little premature, but they certainly had to be done to get to the next step. I managed to keep our costs for cabinets, wardrobes, shelves, lights, sinks and fixtures around $9,000 including tax.

We communicated the electrical, lighting and phone items by marking up the first shop drawings that were sent to us. We learned the necessary symbols from a symbol library and it was quite easy to figure it out. The only real problem was determining the lighting and plumbing placement for the master bath vanities since we have exposed vanities, and the requisite plumbing measurements deviate a little from their standard.

Above is a clip of our electrical notes

David's sketch for the vanities

We have been very lucky in this process; everyone we’ve worked with has been excellent. Working with our chosen factory has been great; every time I call, they know exactly who I am by the sound of my voice and everyone at the shop is aware of the details of our project. They’re a family business and the only people I’ve had contact with are family members. Their son is doing the actually construction of the home and he’s told me that our house is going to be a cinch to build.

Our final round of shop drawings arrived yesterday and there was only one problem. The draftsman left out the cantilevered beams that will support the overhang and it was a simple matter to fix it since Greg did a very thorough job of editing the first draft. Also, our water heater was drawn as a traditional water heater although we're planning on a tankless water heater. It was important to remind the factory that we were using a tankless heater because they use less space and we needed to find room for the trap door that will lead to the crawl space under the house.

Engineering

Our plans are in the engineer’s queue and he will start on them after the Thanksgiving weekend. The engineer, contractor and David had a conference call yesterday about the foundation. Based on our scour report (this was the report that recommended 6’ footings for our flood conditions) the type of foundation that works best and costs the least will be different than what we originally thought. We’ll also need a pretty substantial continuous foundation along the marriage lines of the modular units… although the footings for the interior foundation don’t need to be as deep.

Our contractor is a very intelligent penny-pincher and he is recommending that we save money by using a poured concrete foundation and compact the trenches instead of using concrete forms. We may end up using something different in the end, it all will be decided by the engineer. It’s part of his job to find the most cost-effective foundation solution based on the site conditions. We did reserve $15,000 for the foundation and our contractor believes that we'll be able to find a solution well under this amount. By the way, our fees for the engineering were under $2500, which I think is quite low.

It looks as though we’ll also be saving $3500 by not needing a soils report. We will be able to avoid this for two reasons: 1) The foundation will be very strong and it will exceed the necessary requirements for the worst soil conditions. This would make a soil bearing capacity analysis superfluous. Soil bearing capacity refers to how much weight the soil will support in terms of pounds per square foot- psf 2) David did all of the seismic/wind research that would accompany the geotechnical report.

It lieu of the geotechnical report, the engineer needed:

Allowable soil bearing pressure, as deemed by the local authorities.

This is the number that the county wants you to assume if a soil bearing capacity analysis is not done. In our case it was 1000 psf and our foundation will exceed the requirements for 1000 psf, which is why we don’t need this report.

Seismic zone

This will be 3 or 4 in California. In our case, it is zone 4. We assumed this because we are located close to several faults.

Seismic near-field source factors

The engineer wanted something called an Nv and a Na, and we had no idea at the time, what it meant. This refers to fault lines that are located within 10 km of the building site. David did the research for this and I frankly have no idea where he got this information. He tracked down 5 faults within 10 km of our building site, determined the slip rate per year, something called a moment magnitude and determined the seismic source type for each fault based on a chart from the USGS. Then he determined that the Na was 1.3 and the Nv was 1.6. I have no idea what this is all about and I am only parroting things that David explained to me. I do remember that he looked at this map for a couple of hours. The blue writing was added by David for the engineer's benefit.

Design wind speed and exposure category

We got this information from the county.

Design roof snow load

This wasn't applicable to us since we never get snow.

So, we saved $3500 since we gathered all this information ourselves, it took about 6 hours of research on the internet.

Update:

Here are some of the links that David used to determine the seismic factors

The portal to the seismic map that is referenced above from the USGS

Seismic Hazard Mapping Program homepage from California Geological Survey.

A very pertinent FAQ

The Chart that helped us digest the seismic information we gathered