March 22, 2005 Permitting Delay and Update, More Bids

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Drainage & Grading

It looks as though we'll be able to keep the 6' deep footings. Last week we were uncertain about the corrections we received from Drainage & Grading since David (who is smart as a whip) tried out the new calculations that the plan checker recommended and it looked as though we would need to increase our footing depth to 8'.

David spoke with our soils engineer right away and confirmed that it would put us at 8', but he told David that there was another way of doing it that kept us at 6'. Our engineer apparantly made a big mistake in calculating our report as well as our neighbor's calculations (he is in plan check in an adjacent lot). He told us both that he would try to keep the footings at 6' instead of the 8' that was recommended in our list of corrections.

He was very embarrassed and immediately corrected our report. He worked in consort with the grading/drainage plan checker to make sure that his calculations were acceptable.

Also on our set of corrections was a request for a topography map. So, being the DIYers that we are, we did it ourselves. Actually, David did it while Walter and I listened to music and ate pizza in the trailer my parents parked on the property.

David purchased a floor-model laser level with a tripod and all the fixings for the bargain price of $10 at Home Depot. He marked out a 20' x 20' grid on the property with flags and last night, he measured different points in pitch dark with the level and a flash light. When we can home, he did a lot of calculations on Excel and right before we went to bed, we had the map. We will submit the corrections tomorrow after David has time to make a clean copy on the computer.

Foundation Bids

I've been soliciting more bids on our foundation. We're getting bids for two different scenarios. The first includes hiring a GC to contract the entire foundation job for us and the second is where we would hire the sub contractors ourselves. I hope to have more news by the end of next week.

We're still waiting for approval from:

• Health Department This agency permits our septic system. The county health engineer is mailing our certificate today. He was really easy to deal with because he did not send any corrections, he just gave us a phone call when he had a question or if something was missing from our application.
• Building & Safety/State Approvals I listed these together because our engineers are not planning to address the county's list of corrections until the list of corrections arrive from the state. That way, they incorporate changes from both departments at once. We're supposed to get word tomorrow about the progress of the state inspector and the engineers' revisions
• Fire Department I called today and the person reviewing our application said she'll have our corrections in two days. So, the fire department oversight resulted in no delays.
• Forestry Division Sigh... Our Fuel Modification Plan was supposed to have been returned over a week ago, so I gave them a call today. The person I spoke with said they were so backed up with work and that I should call again on Monday. I thought he meant that I should call on Monday to pick up corrections, but it turns out that if I called on Monday he would only be able to give me a better idea of when they would be able to review it. His best guess was that it would take at least three weeks for the corrections. We were planning for Irontown to start building in two weeks. David's going to try to convince Building and Safety to issue a conditional permit since the structure has nothing to do with the vegetation on the property. Frankly, I don't think they'll go for it but Dave seems to think they'll do it. We'll see what happens...