Flip This House CC Remodel

Parent Cafe
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After spending a week trying to light a fire under the STructural Engineer to get all of our corrections done, he finally did the corrections yesterday morning and then I ran around all day getting originals, double checking the changes and calculations, gettings errors corrected, going to get copies and finally back to engineer’s house to get the magic structural engineer stamp on all of the new copies.

We are ready to go into the City again today and try to get final approval. Wish us luck!!!

Meanwhile, the entire new foundation for the back addition and an area in the house where we had to open up the floor (there are many openings in concrete slab floor right now… looking for drains and water lines) are all ready for inspection. So, if we get this permit today I will call for an inspection right away for tomorrow. And we may be poured with new concrete by the end of the week.

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Good luck, CB!

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CB - Hope is goes smoothly with the City today. Fingers crossed!

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Hopefully no water pipes will burst or sinkholes develop along your route!

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Best of luck with the City!!!

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We have an approved permit!

But it was a long crazy day. Our first hurdle was getting through the structural review. The correction and recheck were focused on the attic conversion, dating from a prior owner about 1990. There are 8 4x4 posts added below the office and bath which are anchored into the concrete slab in the garage with beams. These posts were anchored without footings underneath.

We have been working hard to do everything we can to avoid tearing apart the garage, dismantling shelves, etc. the structural engineer has inspected everything in garage and drew extra diagrams and provided full load calculations to show that we don’t have to replace the posts or reinforce them.

So, happy day when the City Engneer looks through everything, asks some questions, and inquires about footings. She does some calculations and approves the design. We get stamped and approved. Dfin and I do a happy dance and now we have to make the rounds to get “stamp transfers” and pay fees and get permit issued.

We are in the waiting area across the building and “Oh No, here comes the engineer looking for us” This is not good. She explains that she checked with her Supervisor and he is insisting we have to dig footings for garage posts. So, I get her on the phone with my engineer and he was not able to convince her. We are now being held captive, she has taken our stamped plans out of our hands! Luckily she allows me to get out the ruler and draw the footings in so we don’t have to return again in another week.

Back to our chairs and I call my lead and he is practically apoplectic insisting “No way, no way can we do that. We have to brace up the whole garage and pull everything out of the garage”. Meanwhile, Dfin is on her phone calling H…”Guess what Honey, you are going to have to clear out half the garage and all the shelves have to get torn down”. Well, bless his heart, by the time we finally made it out of the Bldg Dept back to the project, he had already been to Home Depot to get new shelving units and was starting to clean up and purge the garage. Nothing like a forced urgent clean out of the garage!

Of course, when we were in the middle of our final step at the City we got a Trainee who had to stop and take his lunch. We had to wait an hour to resume the final Issuance step. Another 5 hrs at the City to gain one approval and final Issuance

The garage work is going to cause a medium size delay and a budget overrun. Oh well, what else is new!!

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The Structural Engineer chasing us down AFTER she stamped the plans and had no problem with the garage posts was much like a referee in a football game reviewing a touchdown, only to reverse the call after seeing the instant replay…what just happened?!?

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We passed our first inspection already! Ready to pour the foundation for the family room addition and then we can start building next week.

So now we can begin the fun stuff. We are installing a 10 ft and 12 ft big Anderson bi parting 4 panel sliding door. Wood doors with clad exterior. But here’s the really fun thing …we are putting in a folding style window from the kitchen counter to outdoor patio. Check out the photos on the website and the drool worthy kitchens

https://windoronline.com/windows/folding-windows#topofpage

Next up is final kitchen design. Stay tuned because we’ll invite your suggestions

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Congrats on passing!!! :slight_smile:

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OMG that folding window is so cool!

How energy-efficient are they? Does it have a fenestration rating?

They have dealers in MA, they must be pretty efficient.

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Well crud, my emojis are evidently out of date…congrats!

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Those are cool windows, indeed. We have a skywall in the kitchen, and while it is pretty, I lose sleep over thoughts that someday it will have to be replaced. It is $$$$$$$$$$$… megabucks.

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Are there no bugs in CA? If I didn’t have screens on my windows I’d have flies, bees, and gnats in my house.

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We really don’t have many bugs! This will be the only window in the house without a screen though, and it will be open mainly when people are outside or in the pool. I can open the sliding doors for ventilation in the kitchen/FR. The sliding doors HAVE to have screens to keep out the various critters…lizards, mice, frogs, and those snakes we saw the other day (shudder). Can’t go with those cool nanawall doors.

@BunsenBurner I had to look up “skywall.” Very cool!

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No bugs! That really is not fair. :wink:

We have critters too. I’ve had chipmunks get in my house. We’d be infested without screens.

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Yes, dfin had to turn down the idea of the cool folding doors/nana wall because there would be too many opportunities for uninvited guests. I rationalized that it saves money and we can splurge on the cool folding window. I was just about to put one in the Hoarder House flip but it was just too expensive.

A small folding window runs between $2,000 and $3,500 depending on manufacturer. Only a few manufacturers make them, although the main folding door manufacturer in our region, La Cantina, has started making folding windows. They have the same tracks and mechanisms as the big doors so that is probably where the cost is. Since the doors are weather tight there is no reason the windows should not be. The windows are built out of aluminum for stiffness and clad with vinyl for low maintenance.

If you were worried about bugs, you could install an invisible rolling screen, but that would defeat the purpose of the feeling of indoor outdoor openness:)

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We almost bought a house that had sliding doors that slid into the wall and did make a bid on it which was rejected. As we watched the house while continuing to think about making a second offer, the street it was on got busier and busier and someone built a monster house behind it which meant that the house we had liked would ALWAYS be in shadow/shade. We decided not to make a second offer, though the agent of the seller begged us to. We do love the house we did buy and have lived in for over 30 years instead.

We prefer screens because we DO have bugs in HI and other “uninvited guests.”

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PROGRESS UPDATE

It has been a little over 4 weeks since we started the CC Member remodel. All we have to show for it a a huge torn up mess:)

We have had 3 or 4 surprises (that is to be expected) but I think the largest issue is that the City is requiring full 18" deep footings under each post that was set into the garage by prior owner for the upstairs attic conversion area. That was a 3 day and $2,000 hit so far. That does not include the cost for pouring the concrete into the holes. The holes haven’t been inspected yet, so we have to hold off on pouring the footings and connecting everything back into place. Right now there is a lot of heavy expensive lumber bracing the area. I expect another 1 1/2 days pouring concrete and setting the posts back in with proper post bases set into the concrete and post caps to the existing beams in garage. Then we have to drywall in all the beams and posts and put new drywall into the entire ceiling area. That’s going to be a huge chore.

All windows have been replaced with Milgard Tuscany vinyl windows.

We have poured the new foundation and poured some new slab in the dining room area where we cut out a raised platform area by the entry.

We have completely redone all the plumbing in the upstairs bathroom in the attic conversion because it was not to code.

We have torn off the roof shingles in the addition area and cut off all the overhang and everything in the way.

Of course, there was stuff in the exterior wall of the master bathroom which is now going to be an interior wall in the family room addition. Yesterday, my lead spent all day rerouting plumbing, venting and electrical in that wall.

Took the stucco off the master bathroom exterior wall and discovered that the expected shear panels were not underneath the stucco. So, we need to get all this rerouting done so that we can install shear panels.

We’ve cut out the trenches in the kitchen to take the kitchen sink plumbing out of the exterior wall. Only to discover the oddest thing. Owners had stated that it took FOREVER for hot water to get to their master bathroom. We discovered one of the key reasons why. The hot and cold water lines were running under the slab to the kitchen. Then it was reduced from 3/4" pipes to 1/2" pipes up to the kitchen sink. Then the water turned around from under the sink and started traveling to the master bathroom under the slab. What the hey? Why didn’t they just tee off in the slab and go straight to the master bathroom? It is just strange. I don’t think it really saved any money for the developer, it’s just the oddest thing. We cannot really correct this without breaking open the entire family room floor, but we did back it up to about the middle of the kitchen floor and tee off to master bathroom. This is one of the annoying things for owners when we are working on the house. We have to shut off water for several hours in order to re route this plumbing.

Then we get into the master bathroom ceiling and find out that the shower isn’t even vented. Not sure why, but that is going to be corrected.

But, here’s a reason that we were lucky that the owners are in the house while doing the remodel. Of course the concrete company could only come to do the pour at 7am on a Saturday. This means all hands on deck by 6am to get ready. Probably very annoying to the neighbors. I had expected to arrive about 8am to pay all of the entities involved. Instead, I get a call about 7:40am that the concrete truck and pumper are standing around waiting to get paid. My poor lead jumps into his car and tries to go find an ATM. I was able to call the owners and ask them if they could go out and pay these guys. They saved the day by going out front and paying workers who were waiting.

By the end of the day today we will have both exterior walls built and erected into place. It is very exciting! The back wall is very tricky because it is sloping down from a 20 ft ceiling, which means we have to build a 20ft high wall on the ground and try to lift it into place.

There are some pictures loaded.

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Sounds great!! Making that kind of mess is the biggest part of the work. :slight_smile:

Off to look at the photos!

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Hubby and I are thankful for CB and her crew!! :slight_smile: