We cleared the first hurdle for switching our builders with the bank. The 6th bank draw is in and all the old suppliers are being paid soon. Ken submitted his full and unconditional waiver of lien to the title company so all the paper work is in on his side. We'll be getting a little back from our out of pocket advances on the HVAC and windows, but a large bulk of it went to the suppliers for over budget costs. Mike is nearing completion for getting all the new numbers together to submit to the bank. Hopefully it will be close enough to true that we won't have to pay too much out of pocket for unexpected expenses. I don't doubt that we still might have to advance the draw sometimes since that's the way it seems to work in this industry, but I think the proposed finishing budget will be closer to actual cost so there will be much less stress on us to make up the difference. Mike has found a few surprises along the way. A couple years back, we paid permits to the township for the water and sewer tap, but nothing was ever done with that. Mike worked to make sure those permits are still applicable since they're pretty costly. However, he discovered that the sewer is still only at the street, which might incur more cost to us since we would have to dig up a portion of the concrete curb to tap into the sewer. We might be able to tap into our neighbors line, which might save some cost. These are things that should have been worked out at the beginning of the build, but somehow fell through the cracks. Once Mike discovers all the surprises and assembles a building budget and plan, he can submit it to the bank and we can get rolling on the second part of the bank switch over; obtaining a new mortgage. Yeah, we have to go through that process all over again. Fun.
We're still concentrating on getting the exterior sealed up so we can work inside for the winter. There has been a little progress on that front and some window prep for the greatroom windows. Hopefully Pro Brothers and Soft-Lite will get those two replacement windows to us so we can get them installed when the lift is on site.
The days are getting short and the temperature is starting to stay in the low to mid 70's but they're still beautiful. We're expecting a mild winter this year, so that might help with building, but we still have some wonderful fall days ahead of us with perfect temperatures for putting up an exterior.
Here's the current state of the build. No more windows have been installed since the last time, but there are subtle changes going on right now. Almost all the windows have been fully nailed in, with a nail in every nail hole in the flange. The windows were just staked in with a few nails before so they could get the placement set and in the opening. The turret windows still need to be installed, but I think the copper roof should be installed first, which in turn the turret roof fascia needs to be repaired.
Besides the turret, laundry room, great room, and one basement window, all the windows have been installed. The sliding doors still need installation as well and we still need to track down what door we want in the master bedroom. A short list of tasks I need to complete is starting to creep up on me so it's something I'll need to tackle soon. Mostly design decisions that will affect the budget of the build, but important nonetheless.
A little work was done on sealing the windows. The front windows on the first floor had some Tyvek adhesive tape used as flashing. It's odd that they used 2" tape and just overlapped them so when I asked Mike about it, he said, it's not final and it's just what they had available at the time. I should tell them that they can use a rasp to rough up the ICF before the tape to get better adhesion. I would expect at least a 4" tape, but would prefer 6"-10" since we're installing window trim.
Here's how a single layer of the tape installed on the wood between the windows looks like. You can see how little overlap there is onto the wood. I think ideally, this whole piece of wood would be covered with tape for a good installation. I'm not sure why they bothered to install the tape in the first place. Maybe just a mock up for the trim guys.
It looks like some of the 5/4 boards were used to buck out the window bucks in the great room in preparation for the window install. One piece was nailed into the buck on each opening, which shifts all the windows a bit to the right, but I don't think it will be perceivable once finished. I think another piece of wood will need to be installed on the interior of the buck since a finished piece of wood will be installed on top of that. Things will really look different when the windows are in place.
So that's it for this week. We should be getting the water and sewer lines bored next weekend. I'm not sure if the sewer tap issue will prevent the actual boring, or if they'll do it and just not connect it up. Either way, geothermal wells will be installed in a few weeks and more work on the house should pick up.
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