Building inspector…
The building inspector left us a message saying that the plans were approved (pending the zoning permit which should be completed on Monday). That was really much faster than I expected. When I was in his office on Wednesday, I saw lots of sticky notes in my plans. The only one I was able to read said something about making sure that my under slab ducts drained toward an accessible point (my mechanical room). That was my plan, it just wasn’t specified in the drawings. I expected lots of discussion with him about that or other issues before he approved the plans… But now I expect I will just get the plans back with lots of notes that I will need to comply with in order to pass inspections.
Of course, now we need to pay more than $2000 to get the actual permit. On the whole we have saved about 500$ in permit fees (as I mentioned last week). So we are ahead of our budget… for now. I expect we will start to get behind again later when we need a few extra inspections due to our unusual build. For instance, we will need at least one extra rough electrical and rough plumbing inspection so we can shotcrete the basement (another extra cost associated with the basement) before erecting the walls above it and doing some more rough plumbing and electrical.
The Stakeout
The last thing we need for the building permit is the zoning permit. The zoning inspector’s primary concern is that our property is setback 60 ft from the road. It is a little bit silly because the plans clearly show the house is more than 90 ft from the road and the stakes we put in tonight were temporary (not actually used to build) because we still need to level off the property… But anyway, it was part of the process, so we did it and it was pretty interesting.
The home is based on a circle and uses lots of angles, so I will definitely want to use a proper laser transit for laying out the footings. But at this point, it didn’t need to be very precise. Instead, I used a 2 ft paver and diamond cut the important angles in based on a paper print out (it cracked when I dropped it into position). We knew the distance from two stakes to the center of the house, so we used two ropes measured to the right distance and placed the paver, oriented to North, where the ropes overlapped. Once positioned, the large 90lb (41kg) paver will stay put. Then we measured out from the center and I sprayed my arcs with surveyors spray paint. We put stakes at key corners based on the length of the measuring tape and the angle on the center stone. My younger boy didn’t get excited about it until I sprayed the “S” for South next to one of the key points… Then he got the concept.
The final result was that we could “walk through” the rooms and get a sense of the size and flow in 1:1 scale. On that big hill with the big evening sky, the rooms felt small. We had laid out individual rooms before, but this was the first time we had really laid out the whole house and been able to walk through it. Later, standing on the far west corner of the garage and looking across the field to the far east corner of the bedroom, it looked bigger. My wife was starting to doubt that beds would fit in the rooms, but I guess we need to trust the numbers and doubt our perceptions over rough terrain (or maybe it was my rough survey skills).
I didn’t like the final position of the house. I really wanted the back window of the playroom in a certain location where the view is good and the topology of the site dips for the basement egress windows located below. In order to get that without moving a lot of earth, I think we will need to move the house north and east by ~15 ft. Next time we site the house, I may even start with the location of that window and work backward to the center of the house and then out from there.
My Email
When I setup this website, I also got an email address. Actually, it was the address that helped me pick the final website name. I liked the idea of telling contractors (or whoever) that my email address was “Simon” @ “home in the earth” dot com.
Unfortunately, things have been slow to get started and I did not end up using that email with any contractors. Since I didn’t expect any email, I haven’t checked that account since late 2012.
Well, I checked it last night and there were lots of nice comments and questions there. If you wrote to me over the last year, sorry I didn’t get back to you. I will try to get through those emails over the next few days and I will try to check it more regularly from then on.
Actually I have not told many friends about this site (Other than my wife, I don’t think anyone I know from real life has subscribed (top right column) yet. If you subscribe, you will get an email each time I post.
You can also leave comments on each page. If you just come in to the home page, you may not see the comment window. You need to click on the header for a particular post and then you will see the comment section at the bottom. If you leave an email in a comment, it will not shown on the site, but I can use it to reply.
Permits…
We got all the permit paperwork, including the tedious residential energy code compliance paperwork, done. In the end, the inspector said that due to the unusual nature of the home, he would like the plans to be “signed and sealed” by the architect. I assumed that this would cost me a pretty penny, but it didn’t. The architect just charged me for the cost of the prints ($2.25/page).
This may not be as momentous as it feels, but it sure felt great to drop off those plans and permit applications…
Tomorrow night, I need to stake out the property because the zoning guy is going to go out and check the setbacks this weekend. The lot is pretty large, so we are at least 25 ft past the setbacks. I already bought the stakes and paint, it will be interesting to lay it out and then walk through it… Certainly a lot more fun than paperwork.
Part of the residential energy code compliance paperwork was asking if a number of key features were explicitly shown in the construction documents, including things like the outdoor air supply for the wood stove and the insulation on the footings. I had plans and sketches already worked out for everything they asked for, but my architect had not included most of them in the actual construction documents. When I dropped off my plans, I saw a few other rolls from my architect (he has a distinctive logo) on the building inspectors desk. I asked and they said they work with him a lot. I guess that means my architect knows what it needed by my inspector, I just hope he put enough into my drawings and I don’t have to go back and pay him to add it later.
Loan?
I called my loan officer today. He was on vacation and is still trying to catch up. He said that he thought the poor job done by the appraiser was unacceptable. On Monday, he asked the appraisal company to fix the errors I pointed out. It may not make a difference to the final $ amount, but at least it will be “more right”. In the mean time, my wife sent the “bad” appraisal to the insurance company to put the insurance quote together. Having the site insured from the start is a condition of the loan and the proof will be needed at closing. My loan officer thinks we will book the closing date next week.
Appraisal
Before a bank loans you money to buy a house, they want to know what it is worth… The same is true for building a house. They want to have an idea of what the final house is worth. They especially want to make sure that they don’t loan you more than 80% of that “appraised” value. If you were buying a house, the appraiser could go look at it. If you are building a house, you need to fill out a lot of paperwork to help the appraiser “imagine” your house. We did that and submitted the paperwork near the end of March. It was very detailed and covered everything from the finish on the floors to the make and dimensions of the appliances.
The appraisal due back on Easter Monday, but took an extra week. There was no guarantee that the bank would loan us what we needed for our rather unusual house, so we had decided we didn’t want to spend thousands on permits before getting the appraisal back, but we were getting the permit paperwork ready to go.
When the bank finally did get back to use, they had estimated the value of the home at about 20% less than it would cost us to build it… This dropped the amount they would give us by a fair chunk of change. We thought about it (and prayed about it) and eventually decided that we thought it was still worth building and we would just make up that difference ourselves.
I had hoped to keep our extra cash reserves in case something went wrong. Now we are planning to use that money, so we are now planning on building with much less of a safety net and I will need to keep an even closer eye on costs.
On the positive side, with a lower evaluation and a smaller loan, we will pay a smaller closing cost, pay less for insurance, less taxes on the property later, etc.
Then the actual appraisal paperwork came in the mail so we could see exactly how the reduced value had been calculated… I was pretty disappointed. We had spent so much time on our half of that paperwork, but the appraiser was not so careful and seems to have just made up his own facts. For instance, he said the home was on a public dirt road, when really it is a paved private road. He was 1 bathroom short for the house and 1.5 cars short for the garage. He wrote down double hung windows instead of casement. He said it was 1 floor with a full basement instead of 2.5 floors with a partial basement. He magically added a walk out basement and a fireplace. He reduced the basement floor space by 20%. We found major mistakes in 11 sections of the report.
I sent a full summary of the mistakes to my loan officer (who is on holiday). I guess we will find out what he says on Monday.
Permits
Once we decided to go ahead (even with the 20% reduced valuation), it was time to start rolling out the permits. Maybe I will eventually put up a page to explain how that all works, but basically some permits need to be done before others. In fact the final building permit requires the permit numbers from the earlier permits. The permits need to be submitted to 4 different buildings (state, county, township and city). Different offices are open on different days.
Everyone I met with in the various offices was very friendly and helpful. There were few or no lines (which is probably why each office keeps such short hours). The big problem was just having to drive around.
The first permit needed is a soil erosion permit. I needed to create a “soil erosion control plan” and apparently they send out someone to check the site from time to time (at 95$/hr). If the plan fails or I don’t follow the plan, I will be fined. The permit said I had to submit it to the county, but when I got there they told me that for my particular township within the county, I needed to fill out a completely different form and take it to the township office (20 miles away) which was only open on another day. The new form required most of the same info, but was laid out differently. I could reuse the same “plan”. The cost of the permit also dropped by more than half, which made up for the extra hassle.
I also needed to have a soil study done. It cost about $360. However, we had found that the previous owner had already had one done 15 years before. I talked to the septic permit people and they said they would honor the earlier study.
The driveway permit (also in its own building) would have cost over $100, but it turns out we don’t need it because we are building on a private road.
The guy reviewing our septic permit was nice enough to come out and talk to me before I left the building. He pointed out that my topo survey (which cost me $1200 a couple years ago) was not sufficient because it didn’t have the boundary stakes marked with the little “s” or “f” (for “staked” or “found stake”). I would need to have it done again… Well, it turned out that the previous owners had already done that also. I was able to find their old survey and the county accepted it.
There was some issue because our address was not properly in anyone’s system, so we had to go to the city zoning office to get an official paper stating that was our address.
Anyway… Most of the permits are in. I am told it will take a week to 10 days to get things processed. When they come back, I can assemble the final permit applications.
In the mean time, I dropped the plans off with the township inspector. I already shared a digital copy with him last year, but this feels more formal.
Tractor
I would love to have a decent compact tractor on site with a front end loader to move dirt and perhaps forks to help unload trucks and maybe even an excavator arm. I visited a few dealerships and have been searching craigslist for weeks. I didn’t find much available.
I could go with a used tractor for about $10,000. When the job is done, there is a good chance I could sell it for almost as much as I bought it for. On the down side, I would need the $10,000 up front and I might get a lemon.
Or I could go for a new compact tractor, it would be a bit smaller and would cost about $20,000. However, I can financing with interest free payments for 60 months. During the actual construction period, I would only need to pay about 340$ a month. Also, the new tractor would be covered by warranty and I wouldn’t have to worry about hidden problems…
I am going to try for a cheap used tractor… But I want a great deal, not just a good deal.
This weekend, I plan to head out to a tractor auction and see what I can find.
Website
I have been having trouble with this website. For instance, it has not been sending out emails to subscribers… I spent about 2 hours tonight working it out. Some of my plugins and failed and I needed to learn how to delete them and replace them. Hopefully I didn’t ruin anything.
The building inspector left us a message saying that the plans were approved (pending the zoning permit which should be completed on Monday). That was really much faster than I expected. When I was in his office on Wednesday, I saw lots of sticky notes in my plans. The only one I was able to read said something about making sure that my under slab ducts drained toward an accessible point (my mechanical room). That was my plan, it just wasn’t specified in the drawings. I expected lots of discussion with him about that or other issues before he approved the plans… But now I expect I will just get the plans back with lots of notes that I will need to comply with in order to pass inspections.
The home is based on a circle and uses lots of angles, so I will definitely want to use a proper laser transit for laying out the footings. But at this point, it didn’t need to be very precise. Instead, I used a 2 ft paver and diamond cut the important angles in based on a paper print out (it cracked when I dropped it into position). We knew the distance from two stakes to the center of the house, so we used two ropes measured to the right distance and placed the paver, oriented to North, where the ropes overlapped. Once positioned, the large 90lb (41kg) paver will stay put. Then we measured out from the center and I sprayed my arcs with surveyors spray paint. We put stakes at key corners based on the length of the measuring tape and the angle on the center stone. My younger boy didn’t get excited about it until I sprayed the “S” for South next to one of the key points… Then he got the concept.
When I setup this website, I also got an email address. Actually, it was the address that helped me pick the final website name. I liked the idea of telling contractors (or whoever) that my email address was “Simon” @ “home in the earth” dot com.
