Flip This House #5

Parent Cafe
2341

The outdoor shower is incognito. Not really on the plans or in the count for water usage. We are planning to stub out hot and cold lines and figure it out later. Neighborhood is big on surfing and fishing so outdoor shower is a ‘nice’ feature but not a ‘must have’.

I might have to leave it stubbed out the wall and tell buyers the plumbing is there if they want to build it. We are also running plumbing and electrical if they want to install AC but its not usually in homes in the neighborhood. Drainage is not an issue where we are going to stub out the shower. Its over the French drain area.

2342

I learned something fascinating while going through the plan review with Land Development. California has really strict Storm Water runoff rules. Whenever you pull a permit you have to submit a Storm Water Plan. You need to put up straw swales (long tubes of straw) at the permiter of every dirt area to prevent any water running off the land into the street and eventually ending up in a storm water drain. This is because our storm water drains run straight into the ocean.

In addition, you have to dig a concrete washout in the yard somewhere that is lined to prevent any stuff from going into the ground and you have to stage, raise and tarp any building materials. You have to meticulously keep paints or solvents inside some type of building so that they won’t leak into the ground or run into the street.

If you are caught without your swales in place or whatever, you will fail whatever inspection is underway (even though it has nothing to do with the electrical or plumbing inspection for example). The building inspectors are under the fear of God about this because the Storm Water authority is separate from the City Building Departments and it is the City who will get a huge fine from the State Authority if anything is caught running off the property. The City of San Diego just recently received a million dollar fine on a large apartment complex build.

But the interesting part to me was that they kept insisting we had to identify every location where there was going to be roof discharge during rain. Since we have a large french drain system, I drew a gutter system with drains feeding the french drain system. Our french drain system discharges out two pipes into the alley. Where else is it supposed to go??? Down the dangerously eroding slope???

The City reviewer told me I was not allowed to drain gutters out to the driveway or alley. What the hey??? Everyone has gutters that discharge out to their driveway or street or something. For Storm Water reasons, you have to ‘treat’ the discharge before it can run into the street. How do I ‘treat’ it?? I had to redraw the gutter pipes to drain out into the landscape and carefully label the word ‘landscape’ at the end of each drain pipe. Luckily she was very nice about it and I was allowed to draw all this stuff with pen onto the plans while sitting with her.

Just another thing that my dang ‘designers’/draftsman didn’t take care of. It’s their job to know all this stuff.

2343

Your running list of items the ‘designers’/draftsman didn’t know or do, has to be getting quite lengthy by now…sheesz.

2344

Perhaps you’ve found a designer who does not know what he is doing. As I understand, a set of drawings in major renovation should include not only the interior structure design but also comes with electrical, plumbing, sewer, storm drain and landscape.

2345

At our City, you do not have to show the exact location of plumbing lines, electrical lines or sewer lines. You have to show the location of fixtures, but not the plumbing detail. I’m guessing this is because where you run plumbing and electrical cannot really be figured out until you have all the studs and framing in place so that you can navigate through all that stuff.

I discovered a huge disconnect at the engineer’s office. The structural engineer is very well known and respected and a lot of my contractor friends use him for the engineering. Then he has a person on staff (who works remotely) who does the ‘framing’ design. That was done very well also, minimal comments.

Where the giant issue was is the ‘design/draftsman’. Evidently this guy takes my original drawings and sticks them into some design software. He is supposed to do the ‘design’ and then it goes off to the framing gal who transfers it into CAD for framing design. All of that goes on paper to the engineer who does all his calculations, loads, shear transfer, etc. I think he does it in pen onto the drawings and then the framing gal incorporates the stuff into her drawings.

The designer/draftsman guy was responsible for all the site planning, topography, elevations, zoning and planning stuff. This NEVER got done properly. His answer to me always was 'I didn’t have to do that on the other projects". Well, maybe, but those houses weren’t in the Coastal Zone which has a ton of extra requirements and issues. For example, when I walked in last week at 4pm, he HAD NOT EVEN STARTED fixing everything from the City comments that were delivered to the office 10 calendar days earlier. There was absolute chaos between the 3 separate people on who had worked on what, how to consolidate a bunch of revisions and why certain things were not done yet.

I was very generous and gave them 1 1/2 weeks to correct everything. It was inexcusable that one guy had messed everything up and nothing was ready.

2346

Then you need to speak to the Boss at the Engineering office.
He may not be aware of how incompetent that drafter is.
A word from you, armed with lots of documentation, might open his eyes.

2347

I can’t wait until the project is over and you can tear that firm apart.

2348

Believe me, he knows. He was right there trying to manage the chaos and definitely was aware of draftsman holding us up and missing a lot of details.

2349

Document anyway, so it is memorialized. It’s much easier and better to document at the time or soon thereafter. Documenting will help the owner, so he knows exactly the ways in which you were NOT properly served and will NO longer want to use his firm.

2350

BUDGET AND PROGRESS UPDATE

We are about to begin to spend some serious money going forward. I expect the concrete demolition, grading, foundation, garage slab and driveway to run close to $25,000. Half of the work is already completed! Our retaining wall, driveway and stair stoop are all chopped up and hauled away. The bulldozer guy has finished digging out 20" below current grade for garage and driveway and has hauled away 78 cubic yards of dirt.

We very carefully missed the existing gas line by 4". It is running along the left hand side of the driveway and it is clearly marked with a lot of yellow tape. Luckily it sits about 4" outside of where we have to build a new retaining wall with all kinds of back drainage and water proofing requirements :slight_smile: We are going to have to get a really skinny and careful guy down in the back of that wall.

We have also carefully marked every new footing and post that is being added to the basement and garage. As far as I can tell, several of these large posts are being installed to hold up my intricate kitchen ceiling vaulting :slight_smile: Who’s expensive idea was that anyways???

It took 1 1/2 days of working together with the new framing team to exactly determine where each post needs to get set down in the basement and garage. The key issue was that it is impossible to do accurate measurements with the strange bumpy existing stem walls and retaining walls down there. Finally we took the plans upstairs and meticulously determined exactly what the structural engineering is trying to hold up on the 1st and 2nd floors. Then we measured from key reference points upstairs and set a mark. We drilled down through the floor and dropped a plumb weight. This gave us a better confidence we were building the structure properly. The engineer had warned me that measurements down below were wonky and the best approach would be to set some base plates and determine where the stairs and walls are going to be upstairs and work downward for the supporting structure.

SPENT TO DATE TOTAL on labor and materials $110,000

Demolition $8,000 (includes some demo for new addition)
Plumbing and Electrical $13,000
Bathroom $7,000
Landscaping $22,000 !!! unbelievable… don’t even have new deck or any plants yet.

Painting $2,500 (includes a lot of power washing)
Windows and french doors for existing area $10,000
Window Installation $1,500
Stucco Finish $4,500
Kitchen Appliances $500
Basement Bathroom Vanity and Toilet $400
Permits and Fees for electrical and existing house windows/doors $2,500
Miscellaneous stuff like door hardware, fireplace surround and general labor $11,600

Total spent on existing house (without kitchen/paint/ finishes yet) was about $83,500

Spent to Date for Upcoming Addition $26,500!! and we don’t even have one stick of wood up yet
Building Materials $3,000
Deck Addition Materials $2,000
Windows $5,500
Downpayment Folding Door $3,000
Interior Doors $1,000
Plans and Engineering $9,500
Permit Fees to date $2,000
Roof $500

The part that is kind of mind blowing is, at the end of the day, I will probably spend over $20,000 for permits. I have to pay about $3,600 for School District fees alone.

2351

The cost of the permits alone is mind-blowing.

cb, do you have a projection of what all your costs will ultimately total?

Do you have an investor helping front all the costs? I don’t recall. This is a heck of a lot of $$$ to be fronting but I know that at the end of the day it will be well worth it. (Especially once you get all your design/engineering plans and permits behind you!)

2352

Good question about investors. I took 2 loans that are recorded as a 1st and 2nd to help purchase the property. I have taken 2 smaller personal loans to tide over costs to date, including carrying costs.

I am currently trying to obtain a final construction loan (probably as a 3rd on property). My agent is working hard amongst her roster of investors and clients. I have only enough money left to pay for foundation work.

Nothing like a little stress:) this job is not glamorous

2353

I am carefully analyzing all construction costs. I have spent days going through every inch of plans and have detailed pages of all materials needed. I have the materials separated into several phases of delivery and purchase.

There are a couple of areas of unknowns that I’m having a hard time estimating. The two key areas are drywall subcontractor costs and what the cost and design are going to be to finish up the back of driveway area. Ideally, I would like to design a retaining wall and gravel area for boat/RV parking. But it may have to fall off the plan when I run out of money in 4 months:)

Right now I expect total remaining construction costs at $200,000. That’s not bad to gain 1200sq ft living area, 500 sq ft garage and about 600 sq ft of deck area.

2354

On Thursday, after removing 116 sq ft from old garage to remove fire sprinkled requirement, the City did the final calculations of sq footage. This is used to calculate a bunch of fees. Here’s what is the final numbers will be for public records.

2,821 liveable space
837 unfinished basement
729 garage
444 lower deck
186 upper deck

My calculations, and the calculations on plans come up with 2,870 sq ft liveable space. I really am not going to start a fight, I can live with a 50sq ft difference

2355

“How do you wash muddy shoes, or anything else you have stepped in off your shoes?” - Not sure… can’t recall having that need. I have used door mats and sometimes scraped mud of shoes. But even when living in wetter NY (where I did have a laundry sink) we never washed shoes. I take that back - maybe I rinsed off toddler sneakers in the kitchen sink.

2356

In Southern California I have had to clean off flip flops or tennis shoes sometimes. We either hose off outside or, I admit, clean them in kitchen sink

2357

The flip on Newell came back on the market after only 3 days in escrow. This usually means one of two things; ‘fake’ Pending in MLS or buyer never even put deposit in escrow. It would be too early in escrow for it to be a home inspection or loan approval issue. Buyers can sometimes panic about the purchase and just ‘back out’ of the contract by never delivering the deposit. I had this happen to me once. Seller has no recourse at that point and just needs to cancel contract and get back on the market ss fast as possible.

My agent is convinced it was a fake update in the MLS. It is unethical and agents aren’t supposed to do it. But the reasoning is that it generates interest in the house. When buyers see something ‘Back on Market’ they jump all over it because they think a) they can get a bargain/negotiate, b) they need to grab it fast before it goes into contract again. I don’t think it’s a smart ploy because buyers will always have a lingering question “what’s wrong with the house. Why did prior buyers back out?” Even if there never really was any prior buyers.

My agent called it the day it went into Pending in the MLS. She said it probably was a fake

2358

That poor guy sitting on this huge asset that he can’t get rid of.

2359

One can lose a lot of money in expensive real estate if they don’t know what they’re doing and have bad advisors, especially if they end up holding the property and having to pay interest for many many months. That’s why we are all so proud of @coralbrook! She does things well and is able to make a profit. It’s a tough field.

2360

I try to watch as many flip sales as I can. I learn a lot. In this case he made 3 critical mistakes. Paid too much to begin with, cliff in back and stairs in front are flaws that cannot get fixed. And kitchen design is horrendous, bath tile ugly. The designs are mistakes that he was totally in control of.

He is obviously a newbie. You fix the design issues ASAP as soon as you get a ton of feedback about key issues. He does have a ‘slope report available’ in his listing which means he has addressed that issue as best he could…providing some assurance to buyers on the cliff in back. But he is hanging on out of ego I think. First rule of business…sell quickly. Every day costs money. He has to keep dropping the price until it meets the market. Someone will buy the house at the right price. He cannot blame a market downturn. Everything (except his house) is flying off the shelf.