Day 99-107

In the previous post I mentioned the city inspector dropping by. My hope was he was going to pass our framing inspection and we could move on to drywall. Well, it was the plumber inspector—not the framing inspector. And once again we didn’t pass. Apparently there was low gas pressure. The culprit was a nail in the line. That’s since been taken care of and we passed both the plumbing and electrical rough-in inspections. Because we passed both inspections we were able to start insulating.

Now for the framing inspection. I ran into the inspector the day he came to check up on the situation. This was the jerk inspector who wanted to test our smoke alarms in the house (I don’t know if I wrote about that guy, but I know some of you know who I’m talking about). I was a little worried since it was him, but I was friendly and so was he. He asked if I knew where the survey was (which was supposed to be with all of the other paperwork we have to keep posted on site). Our contractor said he had put it with the paperwork, but I couldn’t find it. Fortunately the survey company sent us copies, so I ran into the house to get the survey. When the inspector looked at it he said, “This is the wrong survey. I need a tent survey.” I told him what I gave him was the survey my contractor ordered and asked him what a tent survey was. Apparently it was to resolve the whole issue about the roof being too close to the property line (or too high—I’m not sure which). The inspector obviously felt sorry for me and started asking the questions that should have been asked a month ago (by my contractor). He asked if the second story had been moved. I said we lifted it up and put it back down in its original place. He said that meant it was grandfathered in—if I could prove it. I took him to the stairs that have always remained attached and cemented in the ground. He said that was proof enough and that he’d waive the tent survey. This was great news (even if we did fork over $250 for the wrong survey and had the project put on hold for three weeks). We don’t have to do any alterations to the roofline.

I called David to let him know what happened. He got a little worked up on the phone and said, “I told them to do a tent survey! And why didn’t that inspector grandfather the second story when I asked him to?!” His reaction irritated me quite a bit. For one, he saw the survey as soon as it was done. If he had ordered a tent survey I would think he would have caught that the survey he received wasn’t a tent survey. Either he didn’t order a tent survey or he didn’t look at the survey when it was done. Take your pick. I went with that he didn’t order a tent survey—my second point. I never once heard David call it a tent survey. And as you can see in my previous entries I never called it a tent survey either—which to me means he never called it one. I got out the paperwork in the garage and the inspector definitely wrote “tent survey” on the failed inspection. At first I kicked myself for not noticing that, but then again, am I the contractor? No!

I think I need to lighten things up a bit. I ordered penny tile online for the bathroom floor and it’s already here. It was about 40% less than the quote we got from the tile guy. Granted it’s not the same tile, but it’s as high of quality as what I had picked out. It was my second choice at the tile store and I think it was only $1 a square foot cheaper than the original tile I picked out. For only 33 square feet that would have only saved me $33. Instead I saved $300! Yes, I love a bargain! Considering I can’t get any discounts on the work my contractor has done I figure I should make myself happy by finding high quality finishing pieces at low prices. Too bad those things are only priced in the hundreds instead of the thousands. I'd rather save on the thousands.

Drywall is supposed to start soon. The dates have already been slipping, so who knows if it will be done in the next week.