We almost finished the whole demo on the studio apartment today. For me it was brutally hot out in El Cajon, even though it was slightly overcast. Could not see a specific smoke stack from our big fire near Jamul. And today was the day the AC decided to go out in my truck. I made 2 trips to Home Depot and hauled stuff up the stairs and a trip all the way to North County to get tile samples. Lordy, I am out of shape, soaked through my clothes!
I have created a new photo group at our usual website for the El Cajon Adobe
/groups/14713064@N24/pool/
We are already to the fun part on this project. Over the last several weeks I have been sending ideas for bathrooms and the owner likes the patterned tiles. I think it’s an excellent choice for the very distinct style of the house. At first she kept talking about very contemporary stuff, but it just doesn’t go with the architecture. There’s no getting away from that California Spanish Adobe. So, I brought in a bunch of samples of tile and water resistant wood laminate flooring to look at. I think we will do patterned tile on the floor and keep the shower tile neutral. Also going to have some fun with the little kitchen backsplash
Oh, I do like that malibu tile!
I think I’d choose a white square tile on the diagonal for the surround wall. It will mimic/complement the square diagonal center pattern in the tile.
@coralbrook wow ack about the two neighboring dump houses. Are there nicer houses along the street or is this one going to be the nicest one in the area.
There are some nice houses on the street and surrounding neighborhood. We still have some time for that dollar. Stuff still stuck in driveway and the house
We’ve hit a big snag trying to dig out for the new foundation for the bedroom addition in the back of the house. We are going to have to dig down about 14” to create a crawlspace under the new bedroom. BUT we know there is a water main line going from front house to back house, a main sewer line from front to back and we cannot figure out where the underground electrical is running. So, that means we cannot efficiently get in a little bobcat to dig up and haul the dirt. I have two poor guys out there with little bitty shovels carefully moving dirt out, into wheel barrow and over to dumpster. Cross our fingers we don’t hit a line of something
We finally got through the City first review of plans this week. We are submitted as a Construction Change to the original approved permit from last year. However, the plans are completely changed. Originally there was a guest bedroom addition over the garage with a funky interior staircase for access, master suite addition in back of first floor and a rooftop deck on the back of house.
The City is closed down now and I think everyone is working from home. They are not set up to handle this. So, all phone nbrs are shut down. The only way to get info is to fill out a status request form on the website and they might get back to you in 24 hrs. But get this…whoever invented the form only left enough space to enter about 2 short sentences!! It is beyond stupid, you cannot get enough info in the box to explain anything.
When they originally shut down, they had some guy driving paper from house to house… Rumor has it they lost at least 50 sets of plans in this mess. And you can imagine how long it took for reviews and then physical stamp approvals. So, they suddenly cobbled together a new system for electronic submittal of scanned plans, with lots of software glitches. I like the idea. Saves paper and allows simultaneous reviews of the electronic forms and plans.
Unfortunately my draftsman ( who they were using also from last year) is old school and hand draws and cuts and pastes onto paper. So we scramble to get everything scanned and I submitted Aug 3. Wait for initial review and I get emails that we are missing docs. I had to keep sending in little notes explaining that the docs were on Page 2 of the drop down list. Finally, after a week wasted, the plans get pushed for review. The first 2 departments approved immediately. Then Structural completed their review but my structural engineer will not respond because comments received are not in proper format he is used to. Have no idea if the form changed with the new system (I downloaded them from system) or the City never sent them officially to me.
The Building review took forever. After 2 weeks late I sent an inquiry. Received a response to email reviewer directly. Every week I sent an email. Absolutely no response. Finally after 4 weeks over due I found the staff directory and emailed the Supervisor. Miraculously the review was completed that day.
So we are ready to submit final plans but City has never sent the official email on how to resubmit back into the system. It is very frustrating
Last week was a challenge at the Ocean Beach project. We had a dumpster in the driveway which was blocking the owner’s car that needed to get out. There was a sign on the side of the dumpster saying ‘do not fill above red line’ with dirt or concrete. They will not haul away a dumpster that is over 10 tons. Of course, no red line on dumpster so we had to make an educated guess on how much dirt to put in. We have a ton of dirt pulled up because we had to dig down 18" below the joists (to create a crawlspace) for the new bedroom addition in the back.
Of course, we are all working out at El Cajon and the dumpster driver starts calling me claiming we have too much dirt in the dumpster and he cannot haul it away. I explain that there was no red line and we could not determine the tonnage loaded. He sends a picture to me with a big giant red line on side of dumpster, which of course he painted on while we were talking!!!
So, I have to emergency send 2 guys over to Ocean Beach to get into the dumpster and pull out 1 ft of dirt. It was not easy. A big pile ended up on the driveway in an emergency. One guy had to go over the next day to pull dirt out off driveway to get the owner’s car out of the driveway. There are huge mounds of dirt in the front yard of the house which is not very professional!
These things happen. It is just part of trying to manage really large projects. I sent a communication to the owners on what happened and why dirt had to be moved out of the dumpster. So, I get a screaming phone call from the owner (who is still living in the house). “Why am I paying twice to have the dirt moved? Who is going to pay for the removal.? You need to call dumpster company and make them pay you back because the dumpster wasn’t marked properly”
Good luck with that! There is no way to get a refund from a dumpster company that already has your credit card on file. Not going to happen, but she doesn’t understand that at all. At this point I’m getting worried that this whole thing is going to be nightmare if they are over our shoulders about every little thing. So, I just did not charge them for the 6 hours of labor and I just hope that when they move out they will not micromanage every little thing. It is their right, and they have a good point about moving the dirt twice, but sometimes these things just happen.
P.S. On top of all that, dumpster company just sent me invoices. Freaking highway robbery!! They charged $1,700 to haul away concrete load to a recycler. They are required to send me the receipt for the recycling for the City. It cost them $114 dump fee to unload at concrete recycling place. That means they made $1,580 to do one single haul. Not ever using them again!!!