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Talking w/contractorstoday


Scrapr

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The lovely Sara with an H has an offer on a lot in the San Juan islands. She has 21 days from a while ago to see if the development costs line up to her budget to place a shipping container home on it. It's about a half acre & has a bunch of rock in it. This is important as rock can be expensive to hammer out. We are up there today talking to excavation guys about $$$ to place the shipping container home on the lot. 4 different companies/contractors last night & today. I love talking to construction guys about ...well construction. It was a cross section. 2 back of the envelope guys had similar numbers. One guy flipped the talk around to have her do a stick built home. 3 of them said you can put the septic tank anywhere you want on the lot and were suggesting above the house. One said it should be below the home. One knew quite a bit about the utilities & how to get them up to the house. By the end we had the house sited in 3 different places on the lot. LOL. It has a nice filtered view of the water through trees. Some of which will come down. Talked to a neighbor & he was amenable to us paying to take down a couple of his trees for a better view

I think S with an H was a a bit overwhelmed...or over informationed. We were having a beer after & she says  why not just rent a place for a month every year? I think she was a bit discouraged. Overall the numbers were approx what we had guessed. But they are a big number. I'll let her cogitate on it for a couple days

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41 minutes ago, Scrapr said:

The lovely Sara with an H has an offer on a lot in the San Juan islands. She has 21 days from a while ago to see if the development costs line up to her budget to place a shipping container home on it. It's about a half acre & has a bunch of rock in it. This is important as rock can be expensive to hammer out. We are up there today talking to excavation guys about $$$ to place the shipping container home on the lot. 4 different companies/contractors last night & today. I love talking to construction guys about ...well construction. It was a cross section. 2 back of the envelope guys had similar numbers. One guy flipped the talk around to have her do a stick built home. 3 of them said you can put the septic tank anywhere you want on the lot and were suggesting above the house. One said it should be below the home. One knew quite a bit about the utilities & how to get them up to the house. By the end we had the house sited in 3 different places on the lot. LOL. It has a nice filtered view of the water through trees. Some of which will come down. Talked to a neighbor & he was amenable to us paying to take down a couple of his trees for a better view

I think S with an H was a a bit overwhelmed...or over informationed. We were having a beer after & she says  why not just rent a place for a month every year? I think she was a bit discouraged. Overall the numbers were approx what we had guessed. But they are a big number. I'll let her cogitate on it for a couple days

So this would be a vacation home? If yes, how often and long each time to spend time there?

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1 hour ago, Scrapr said:

rock can be expensive to hammer out

It might be cheaper to bring steel in to create a platform for the container, if the rock is sound enough to pin piers to it and support the container on the piers.

 

31 minutes ago, shootingstar said:

put the septic tank anywhere you want on the lot and were suggesting above the house. One said it should be below the home.

Generally, it's better when 'it' flows downhill, but you can get pumps for a tank above the house.  If you put the container up on a steel platform, you can put the septic tank underneath it.  You won't have to excavate rock to make a hole for the tank, and the platform and container will hide the septic tank so you won't see it.  If you put it below the container, maybe you can bring in fill, rip rap, or other landscaping to disguise it to save rock removal costs.

Same thing goes for the utilities.  Common thought is to cut away the rock to bury the utilities.  The electric, anyway, you can lay in conduit directly on the rock and then pour a protective concrete cap over it, then landscape over that.  Cheaper than chiseling out the rock.  You may be stuck with carving a slot for the water piping, otherwise it will freeze like it does in Texas.  Hopefully you have municipal water and sewer, because to get well water and build a septic system on rock is going to cost.

Although I have seen septic systems in Maine for houses on the rocky coast where a grinder pump was installed at the house and then the pipe from the pump was laid out into the ocean about 75 feet offshore, and weighted down.  I doubt anybody would get away with that today, though.

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10 minutes ago, Thaddeus Kosciuszko said:

It might be cheaper to bring steel in to create a platform for the container, if the rock is sound enough to pin piers to it and support the container on the piers.

 

Generally, it's better when 'it' flows downhill, but you can get pumps for a tank above the house.  If you put the container up on a steel platform, you can put the septic tank underneath it.  You won't have to excavate rock to make a hole for the tank, and the platform and container will hide the septic tank so you won't see it.  If you put it below the container, maybe you can bring in fill, rip rap, or other landscaping to disguise it to save rock removal costs.

Same thing goes for the utilities.  Common thought is to cut away the rock to bury the utilities.  The electric, anyway, you can lay in conduit directly on the rock and then pour a protective concrete cap over it, then landscape over that.  Cheaper than chiseling out the rock.  You may be stuck with carving a slot for the water piping, otherwise it will freeze like it does in Texas.  Hopefully you have municipal water and sewer, because to get well water and build a septic system on rock is going to cost.

Although I have seen septic systems in Maine for houses on the rocky coast where a grinder pump was installed at the house and then the pipe from the pump was laid out into the ocean about 75 feet offshore, and weighted down.  I doubt anybody would get away with that today, though.

I never said anything about the construction Thaed. I was only asking as seen in upper previous thread if it was a vacation home for lots of time spent there.  I could never give an opinion  on construction..dearie would be now  laughing in the clouds like the angels.

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7 minutes ago, Bikeguy said:

If I recall, for shallow conduit runs, red colored concrete was required here.  

Good thought. The National Electrical Code doesn't, but you're right in that some local codes might require work above and beyond those requirements.  Some utilities do, along with some private businesses and some government agencies.  It would be a good thing to check with the local Permit Lady.

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as to @shootingstar question about how much time I think Sara with an H would be there all summer plus some weeks in Spring & Fall. It's 7 hours from Portland including the 1 hour ferry ride. Plus you need to be in line for the ferry minimum 30 minutes prior ro the leave time or they give your spot away. We shoot for an hour prior to sailing. Talking with the contractors it sounds like at least a year to year & a half project. That is going to tie us to the island for a bunch of time....ie; no traveling. This morning she is talking about going back & re negotiating for a lower price

It was a nice day yesterday. Mostly sunny & in the upper 40's. Today is raining and a bit of wind

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6 minutes ago, Scrapr said:

as to @shootingstar question about how much time I think Sara with an H would be there all summer plus some weeks in Spring & Fall. It's 7 hours from Portland including the 1 hour ferry ride. Plus you need to be in line for the ferry minimum 30 minutes prior ro the leave time or they give your spot away. We shoot for an hour prior to sailing. Talking with the contractors it sounds like at least a year to year & a half project. That is going to tie us to the island for a bunch of time....ie; no traveling. This morning she is talking about going back & re negotiating for a lower price

It was a nice day yesterday. Mostly sunny & in the upper 40's. Today is raining and a bit of wind

May it  all work out, that she makes a decision that's no regrets.

I heard of someone locally, a  Canadian couple who owns a Hawai'i condo for awhile.  They haven't been there for past 2 yrs...because of covid. Maybe they'll venture back this year.

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32 minutes ago, Wilbur said:

As a former contractor, I find this funny.  :) 

sorry I was not clear. The re negotiation is on the lot purchase. We have an accepted offer but have 21 days to research infrastructure costs. Foundation prep, septic install (design is approved), etc. So she wants to go back to the lot seller  & offer less. The numbers we are getting from contractors are "ballpark" & round numbers. Septic install ...$40k (got to rock hammer a hole for the tanks) foundation excavation & tree removal $100k. 

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42 minutes ago, Scrapr said:

sorry I was not clear. The re negotiation is on the lot purchase. We have an accepted offer but have 21 days to research infrastructure costs. Foundation prep, septic install (design is approved), etc. So she wants to go back to the lot seller  & offer less. The numbers we are getting from contractors are "ballpark" & round numbers. Septic install ...$40k (got to rock hammer a hole for the tanks) foundation excavation & tree removal $100k. 

I'm sure Scrapr you will advise her as much as possible..as well as how handle the contractor to keep to project timelines as much as possible...if she buys and develops the site.

Dearie did as much  possible  building of his own farmhouse, etc.  He renovated top floor of his townhouse, then his mother's basement, etc. This had nothing to do with making money. They were all personal projects. Of course, given dearie's background, he would have all sorts of opinions and expectations about contractors. (He was also a contracts negotiator as one of his latter paid jobs.)

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I guess when when I worked for a major construction engineering project as a document manager, I learned of the games on change orders and how that can  easily jack up costs beyond project's original estimate.

It was a $800 million  project...a different ball game.  

and how serious construction claims and litigation, the game became. The documentation flowing through  our central system, to support the claims. My staff was involved to hunt down the documentation. For certain this experience of project information management....probably helps partially for present job:  a municipality manages some huge frickin' construction projects that are high profile, $$$$$$$, with in-your-face  benefits/expectations to residents. If the wrong people sign off or sign off too early, there can be hell to pay later.

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Required disclosure: I am a lazy fuck and have no experience in the construction/contractor trades. Based on the limited information that I have read here, I would rent a desired location for a specified period in order to keep my options open and not be locked in to one locale. The San Juan islands are spectacular. My cousin owns a house in Anacortes and property on Guemes Island. I would prefer that someone else have the headaches and I just pay for the experiences. One year I could choose to live in AK or Lake Tahoe if I chose. I like options. 

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15 minutes ago, Old No. 7 said:

Required disclosure: I am a lazy fuck and have no experience in the construction/contractor trades. Based on the limited information that I have read here, I would rent a desired location for a specified period in order to keep my options open and not be locked in to one locale. The San Juan islands are spectacular. My cousin owns a house in Anacortes and property on Guemes Island. I would prefer that someone else have the headaches and I just pay for the experiences. One year I could choose to live in AK or Lake Tahoe if I chose. I like options. 

We stayed  at one of the San Juan  islands and have  passed through  Anacortes several times. To me, it was a different experience than the Canadian  Gulf Islands which aren't far away.. (I've been to Saltspring Island, West Pender, Gabriola, Galiano and Cortez islands.). While it is still island living in both the U.S. and Canadian northwest pacific coast  "similar" than mainland lifestyle/vibe, it was to  me, different national identities...that I did feel.  We were in San Juan islands just before July 4th. The celebrations were  ramping up.

I recommend for Americans to hop over to try a Gulf Canadian island or 2, if near by.

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Just now, shootingstar said:

We stayed  at one of the San Juan  islands and have  passed through  Anacortes several times. To me, it was a different experience than the Canadian  Gulf Islands which aren't far away.. (I've been to Saltspring Island, West Pender, Gabriola, Galiano and Cortez islands.). While it is still island living in both the U.S. and Canadian northwest pacific coast, it was to  me, different national identities...that I did feel.  We were in San Juan islands just before July 4th. The celebrations were  ramping up.

I don't know if you visited San Juan Island (home of Friday Harbor) but that was the site of an incident that almost sparked a war between the US and Britain over the border. A British pig was shot by an American soldier (I'm sure he thought it was a squirrel or something) sorry @Wilbur.  There is a National Park on the island dedicated to the events. The conflict happened a few short years before the US Civil War. The boundary line between the US and Canada was eventually settled by the German Kaiser.

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23 minutes ago, Old No. 7 said:

I don't know if you visited San Juan Island (home of Friday Harbor) but that was the site of an incident that almost sparked a war between the US and Britain over the border. A British pig was shot by an American soldier (I'm sure he thought it was a squirrel or something) sorry @Wilbur.  There is a National Park on the island dedicated to the events. The conflict happened a few short years before the US Civil War. The boundary line between the US and Canada was eventually settled by the German Kaiser.

Sure we were in Friday Harbour. No, I didn't read up much about the history there.

the engineering  project that I  mentioned, we had some  Americans commuting from WA to work. Yup. One guy was from Point Robert, WA, which is a tiny village kinda isolated and very close to Surrey, BC. I hear Point  Robert's small businesses were struggling during covid..because they lacked their  border crossing customers.

I'm just trying to explain, the synergy between Americans and CAnadians living close the border..what their daily/working relationships can be like.

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2 hours ago, Old No. 7 said:

Required disclosure: I am a lazy fuck and have no experience in the construction/contractor trades. Based on the limited information that I have read here, I would rent a desired location for a specified period in order to keep my options open and not be locked in to one locale. The San Juan islands are spectacular. My cousin owns a house in Anacortes and property on Guemes Island. I would prefer that someone else have the headaches and I just pay for the experiences. One year I could choose to live in AK or Lake Tahoe if I chose. I like options. 

I'm kinda in this camp as well. When we had our Bend house guess where every vacation/long weekend & holiday were spent. 

But....Sara with an H is selling her condo (moving in w/me) & doesn't want to be out of the housing market. A bit of security for her. I have brought up the moving around thing a couple times. Plus the build will likely prevent us travelling overseas for long periods as we would like to be onsite. This would be a minimum of a year and maybe as long as 2 years.....we ain't getting any younger either

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