Starting New House Finally!

[rox]

Your countertops sound nice. One thing we did which i would never do again is put in tile countertops, especially in the kitchen. Junk gets in the grout and it is hard to clean. That $2000 investment in granit in the kitchen is really going to give a very upscale appearence to the whole house, espceially since there is so much of it.

When my sister had her granit countertops installed they improperly cut the cut out gor the sink wrong. What they did was, the countertop guy had to order a custom built stainless steel sink. It cost a bundle but it was less costly than getting in new granit.

 

[Alan L.]

I went by and looked at the granite slab and really liked it. Turns out its only 2cm thick, but I was convinced it is the way to go. They will install it over plywood and it will have a thicker bullnoze than the 3cm has because the laminate another layer on the bottom. I liked the look of the thickness better around the under counter sink too.

We also got all the plumbing fixtures picked out today.

 

[Alan L.]

The painters have been working inside for 4 days. All of the stained woodwork is done, except for some surfaces we are having them do another coat on. The Andersen french door is really soaking up the finish and needs more, but looks very good so far.

We wavered between natural and mediums stain, and settled on cherry stain on alder cabinets and pine woodwork. The stair work is red oak, as will be the floors, and they are chestnut. The floors will be the last thing finished, after the air conditioning runs for 10 days.

Counter tops are being made now and everthing is coming together. The trench for electric service is dug and once the Co-op puts their line in, it won't belong before we can fire up the HVAC and start those floors to drying out. The bricklayers are supposed to lay the cultured stone on the fireplace next week.

Mrs. Alan L. made her selections for plumbing fixtures and blew the budget by $1500. Overall we are going to about $20K over budget.

We expect to move in wthin one month.

 

[Alan L.]

I want to relate the problem I have having Acme brick.

I did a very careful computation of the number of square feet of brick I needed, and per the brick manufacturer website for my particular brick, I multiplied by 5.3 bricks per square foot, and added 5% for waste. I arrived at about 11,500 brick.

A rep from acme came out to the job after the framing was done and measured and came up with 14,000 brick. I was not happy since that put me over budget for brick, but it takes as many as it takes. He said they would pick up whatever "bundles" we don't use, and went on further to say that since there are 500 in a bundle thats the most I would have to eat if there were too many.

Bricklayers finished and left about 2500 brick unused, meaning my computation was right on the money. I went with the acme number figuring they should know what they're doing.

Well, acme shows up last Friday and when they left they had taken with them a whopping 500 brick, apprently leaving me to eat the other 2000 brick, which is about $920 worth.

Turns out that the bricklayers used some selected stacks of 100 from some of the other bundles, so while there are about 20 of the 100-brick stacks bound together, mostly about 3 to a group (a full bundle has 5 of these together). So bottom line, acme is saying that none of these are full bundles and they are not picking them up.

There aren't 2000 brick laying everywhere, they are bound in 100-brick stacks, all they need to do is line them up and put some plastic wrap on them (this is the way they came), which might take a guy 30 minutes to get the whole lot ready to transport.

I am furious that I am having to eat brick that I did not want to order. Acme orders too many brick and them makes me eat the mistake. This really sucks.

I can tell you that they have a fight on their hands.

 

[EddieWalker]

Alan, did you pay over .50 cents per brick? Either prices have realy jumped, or you got some pretty nice bricks.

I've never dealt with Acme, though they have an office here in Tyler, so it could be the way they are. I use Tyler brick when I need brick or rock and have never been questioned about picking up the bricks. In fact, I've never heard of them refusing partial loads either. I just pile up everything I don't want and they count it and take it away then refund the balance.

They do charge for pallets, so those go back with the extra bricks too. Have you gone to there office and spoke with the person in charge? What did your builder say to do? I have a contact that I deal with at Tyler Brick who knows my first name, where I live and what I'm working on. My clients rarely deal with my suppliers, and never have to deal with returning material. That's my job and I'd imagine that your contractor should know who to contact and straighten this out.

The wood and stain look amazing!!!!

Eddie

 

[wroughtn_harv]

Allen I don't believe your fight is with Acme. Your fight is with your masons. They were the ones aware of the rules of engagement and they're the ones that broke the rules.

I'd bet the mortar against the aggregrate that your mason wanted to bid the job labor and materials. You insisted he bid labor with you buying materials. He no longer had incentive to work efficiently.

He was working against his labor bid. That meant moving pallets to keep from breaking one unnecessarily was his nickle while not moving a pallet to keep from breaking one unnecessarily was yours.

I get physically ill at the waste in new home construction, especially custom home construction. But the cold hard facts is generals won't pay for good help and they end up paying for waste.

Your nine hundred dollar hickey is probably twenty five percent of what a masonary contractor would have added to your bill if he handled labor and materials. Count your blessings, mourn the way things are, enjoy your beautiful home.

A good mason I know hasn't built a home in years. The generals find it cheaper to bring him in to correct mistakes than it is to bring him in the first place. He's got a thankless job that pays very well.

 

[mjarrels]

I had the same problem except it was with custom hardwood oak flooring. No waste at all! Now have a large stack of custom hardwood flooring stacked in the barn. Oh well, if I ever add a room, I won't have to buy any more flooring.

mark

 

[Alan L.]

The brick was $425 per thousand, which is about $460 with sales tax. For all intents and purposes I am the contractor, although my buddy who is the contractor in name is helping me, or maybe I should say I am helping him. I'm writing the checks and keeping up with costs but these are his subs and he is coordinating them, along with some that we picked out (his have been better than ours so far). The bricklayer never does materials & labor, only does labor although he does furnish the sand and mortar. He was very reasonable but I realize he should have not busted the bundles and should have known better.

But I told Acme how many I needed, they measured and said I was wrong, and said the most I would have to eat if they overshot it was 500 bricks, actually less. So I let them order the number they wanted, which turned out to be 2500 too many. So I can't let them off the hook, or at least I will do all in my power to get some resolution from them.

If I don't get them to pick them up I will probably load them up on my trailer and leave the pile at their front door.

My friend/builder is trying to work it out and says they should pick them up.

Eddie, about $400-$425 a thousand is about what brick go for around here. We looked at about everyone's brick and the ones we like turned out to be acme. They are a little more expensive for the job because they are a little smaller, I think they call the size builders special or something like that, smaller than the king size.

What really gripes me is the fact that I don't have a pile of bricks, they are neatly in the 100-pack stacks and could easily be manipulated into their bundles, but they choose to take the most harsh interpretation of the policy.

Right now we are looking for reasonable tile labor. Wall tile labor quotes range from $5 - $6.50 per square foot, and floor tile $2.50 - $3.50. Higher than I had budgeted. This does not include putting down concrete board and such.

Harvey, there is a welding shop quoting me $26 per linear foot for a 42" iron rail on my upstiars balcony, installed. It is pretty plain, with 1/2" vertical ballisters, and would be in 5 sections between cedar posts, totaling about 32 linear feet, for a total of $820 tax title and license. Does this sound reasonable? No powder coat, just black paint.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

Harvey, there is a welding shop quoting me $26 per linear foot for a 42" iron rail on my upstiars balcony, installed. It is pretty plain, with 1/2" vertical ballisters, and would be in 5 sections between cedar posts, totaling about 32 linear feet, for a total of $820 tax title and license. Does this sound reasonable? No powder coat, just black paint.

Alan, (I apologize for misspelling your name earlier) that kind of installation is difficult to judge on a by foot price even though that's the way it's quoted. The reason is on the installation a crew is going to tie up as much time installing twenty feet as they are sixty if everything is normal. So twenty feet might be fifty dollars per foot while sixty might be thirty.

I would consider powder coating if you can. Unless of course your contractor has an oven and is baking on the paint.

If you can look at his work. Look for fit and finish of course but also look for picket spacing. A critical eye will get ill if the spacing is different at the ends than it is elsewhere in the panel.

The current trend in cheap iron is to buy it in powdercoated sheets by the container load from China. It is better stuff than poorly made local iron. But it can look like crap because production minded installers will cut it with a one inch space at one end and a four inch at the other.

Good work will have the spaces even across the panel end to end. Sometimes to do this you have to shave a quarter of an inch off of each spacing to make it work out.

If you have doubts about the price and or contractor get a second bid. Your deal maker should be custom made (spacing) and powder coating. If you can get both of those and a competive price you've done good.

 

[sr160009]

Alan, your house is looking GREAT... I must have missed this post earlier... I am also in the beginning stage of building a house, just closed on our construction loan last week. I am not that far from you, I building in Cooke county real close to the cooke and grayson county line. I am also going with the foam insulation in my house, who was the contractor that sprayed the demalic foam and would you recommend him? I have spoke to demalic rep on the phone and they gave me a guy in the Sherman area that is certified to do this kind of work. Here is my homesite right now.