Foundation options

We got the steel quote back for the reinforcing portions of the bball court wall. The steel alone was going to be $8,000-$11,000. As a result, we've decided to go with the poured wall option. J&L will be handling pouring the 20' tall wall on the eastern edge of the house.

The engineer had given us three options for how to handle that wall. The diagrams are listed below:

Excavation Day 2

Major progress made on the excavation today. The hole is the correct depth across one entire side. The boys pulled a lot of material out and things are proceeding well. The stone turned out to be a non issue - once they got it broken up, the excavator could pull it right out.

We're stopping work for the Christmas holidays and will be back at it on the 26th.

Excavation Day 1

The equipment was delivered and the boys (Kenley, Kody, Kory and Darren) started work. The stone wasn't the problem we thought it was going to be - the hammer broke it into pieces quickly and the excavator took it from there. We'll be working more on it tomorrow - probably can't finish on Saturday, so we'll pick things back up next week.

Temporary Drive Installed

J&L Poured Walls installed the temporary drive today. It looks pretty good. We'll have to put in some additional rock as what's in place gets driven into the ground. They had to work around a cable utility box out near the entrance, but I don't mind the curved look at the edge - we might just leave it that way.

Hopefully we can start excavating by the 20th.

Permits (Finally!)

Well, it only took about 4.5 months, but we finally have permits for zoning and construction. We're hoping to get started in the next couple days by installing the temporary drive.

Latest plans

We're still working to get things fixed up to meet New Albany's latest requirements, but here are the latest plans and site plan.

2nd Floor

First Floor

Basement

Exterior

Site Plan

Tree clearing

Next step is to get rid of some pine trees at the back of the lot that we decided not to keep.



Kory will be cutting these up and chipping what he can into mulch over the next 2-3 days.

House Demolished

Kenley came into town and finished demolishing /clearing the house. He brought up a Bobcat configured as a skid-loader and one of his dump trucks. We rented an excavator from a local company. Some of the debris was hauled away, some was buried on site.


Here is the picture of the house when the FD finished.



Here is the picture taken Saturday, with the house demolished. This is from the road.


This is from the back of the lot. (The standing water is where we've relocated some trees temporarily)

House Burn

The burn is complete. It was an exciting couple of days with lots of activity. Below is a series of pictures that show the house from prep, to practice burn to raging inferno to a pile of ashes.


The fire dept setup a series of "fire boxes" made of pallets



And straw.


They patched all of the holes in the drywall and reinforced the drywall behind each of the fire boxes.


After day 1, there wasn't a lot of external damage. They mainly trained in the upstairs area.



After day two, the house was looking pretty ragged. They'd finished their training.




They set the final fire right at 10am on Wednesday morning.


Within minutes the entire house was engulfed.


There were a total of 29 cadets that trained on the house. They graduate from fire academy in a couple more weeks.








The proud owner (and his minion)





The garage had quite a bit of trash, scrap lumber, etc in it.


This was about 30-35 minutes into the burn.








This was about an hour into it.


The FD let it smolder and burn down as much as possible.


Then they hosed it down.





And here is all that's left.

This weekend, we get to clear the pile of rubble. Kenley is coming to town and we're renting a large excavator. We're planning to sell the scrap metal (I beams, wiring, etc), haul the misc debris to the dump and bury the concrete / brick on site.

Ready for the burn

We've finished prepping the lot. The power is disconnected, the trees we wanted to save are relocated, everything of value is out of the house and the FD is ready to arrive in the morning.

The FD doesn't notify the neighbors, so we've decided to print out a flyer and drop it off at the 100 or so houses most likely to be affected. Basically we'll warn them to close their windows, etc. We've offered to power wash the houses of the two families right next to us. Hopefully the smoke and soot won't make things too nasty for them.

Building Permit Attempt #1

We'd been told that New Albany would accept the permit application in two pieces. The site plan and exterior details as one phase, then the detailed internal plans as another phase. When Danielle went to submit the first phase today she was told that they no longer accept things that way. They want the application to be complete.

This is a bit annoying because we need detailed electrical and plumbing plans to submit the full packet. We're still collecting bids for those phases and probably won't have awarded till late next week.

Since the electrical and plumbing subs do those diagrams, that means we're probably two weeks away from being able to submit for the permit.

Closed on the loan

We closed on the construction loan today. The loan is through Emerald Bank, a small bank in Dublin, OH that tends to specialize in construction loans. The closing felt much different than the last two times we bought houses - there wasn't another set of people we were buying the house from in the room. Just our lender, the title agent and the two of us.

The closing was fairly uneventful. The only part we didn't appreciate was the way the title agency split up the title insurance. In the last two closes the lenders and the owners policies were bundled into one. In this closing, our estimate only had the lender's policy in it, then the title agent did the whole "used car salesman" bit as he explained why we needed to buy the owners policy also.

After doing some research, we believe it should have all been put into the first estimate like our last two closings. That way it was just a closing and didn't have to include a sales pitch.

Revisions to plans

We had the architects make a series of changes to the plans. These were primarily little tweaks like:

• Added 2nd window from the great room to the bball court
• Moved the kitchen wall over 1'
• Updated the upstairs bathroom layout
• Lowered the brick 'skirt' around the house a couple of courses and made the skirt go all around the house
• Added a window in the laundry room

We also had them make the basement 10' deep rather than 9' deep. After visiting the parade of homes, we saw a lot things we'd like to do that needed a deeper basement. Coffering the ceilings, putting the third riser in the home theater, etc become easier with that extra height.

Heating / cooling the court

I had about a half hour conversation with a guy from Buckeye Geothermal. He was going over all the various options for how to heat and cool the court. There isn't a perfect option for the room considering the floor is on a slab and three of the four sides are the foundation of the house.

What we're leaning towards is forced air cooling and radiant floor heating. The thermal profile of the room is the big unknown. It's going to be 9' underground, so that will help it stay a constant temperature. However, the windows and other space above ground will allow it to heat up and cool down.

The plan this guy put together would allow us to try some things and if we found we needed more heating or cooling, we'd be able to adjust.

All of the HVAC contractors have recommended a single unit just for the court and then 1-2 units for the rest of the house. This guy thought he could do the rest of the house with one large geothermal unit.

Date to be out of house

We've confirmed the July 6th burn date with the Columbus FD. I agreed we would be out of the house by June 10th. That will give them almost a month to prep things.

Pickett Place

The subdivision to the east of our lot is called Pickett Place. It's a collection of about 30-40 houses along the edge of E. Dublin Granville Rd.



http://www.stonehenge-company.com/

The VP of operations for the development company lives in the house directly to our east in an area adjacent to the subdivision. Kory talked with him yesterday and passed along my contact info.

This morning, he sent over this site plan which shows the remaining two lots they have for sale. Both of these are adjacent to my property.

Site Plan

I'm going to sit down with him something in the next few weeks and discuss landscaping, etc.

Laundry Room Layout

Danielle has wanted a large, dedicated laundry room since she laid eyes on my mother's similar arrangement. The pictures are from the cabinet design company. This layout is pretty close to finalized.

Kitchen layout

Danie thinks she's decided on a kitchen layout. This has been one of the most revised portions of the house design. The first two pictures are from the cabinet company. The next two pictures are from the kitchen of a friend - we're planning a similar set of colors and layout.

The kitchen will have an island, two ovens, two dishwashers and one range top.

Tentative burn date and loan applied for

The Columbus FD contacted us today to try and set a tentative burn date for their class of new recruits around July 6th. This is a bit later than we'd wanted but should work out.

The loan application went in today - now we have to get the reamining info about the house to the bank . They need all of the fit and finish details to have their appraiser estimate the value of the house.

Final survey

We got the final survey diagram in today. It shows the location of the house, driveway, sidewalks, etc.

Survey Diagram

Well and septic system

Spoke with the Franklin County Dept of Health folks about how to shut down the septic system and the well. The septic system just needs to be pumped out completely and then it can be collapsed. Since it's made out of concrete we can just crush it and fill it.

The well is a bit more involved. It has to be filled with this playdough like substance and then cut off a few feet below grade. We have to get quotes on this from a well driller. It sounds like it should cost <$400 to close down the well.

3D Rendering

The architects put together a quick 3D rendering of the front of the house. There are some issues with it, but it gives a decent approximation of what the house looks like.

Demolition updates

When collecting the tap fees and permits for sewer from NA, I was informed that they need a demolition permit (plus a $50 fee of course) to be filed, alongside the one from the Columbus FD.

And, since no step in dealing with the local govt is complete without discovering another permit, I found out I have to complete the Franklin County "Water Well Abandonment Plan" and the "Septic Fill Plan". So, I've called the county to see how much those will cost.

The Columbus FD also informed me that they need a $700 "donation" for burning the house down. They charge $.35 per sq/ft to cover expenses. I don't begrudge that since I'm writing off the full $105K the house was appraised at. Still, it's just another ticky tack expense that goes on the pile.

C0lumbus needs to see that we've remediated the asbestos that was found and then they'll apply with the EPA for permission to schedule the burn. That takes about 10 days, so we're probably about 14 days out from having a burn date scheduled.

Columbus FD seems to have a lot more refined and formal process for these training burns than the Delaware Fire Academy did.

Sewer fees

I got the quote for the sewer tap fees from New Albany / Columbus today. As usual, they're outrageous:

The tap fee is $130
The Columbus Capacity Fee is $3,044
The New Albany Capacity Fee is $1,522.00
The Inspection Fee is $85
For a grand total of $4781

Mind you that doesn't pay for ANY work to be done, it's just the fees to the various government agencies for the privelege of using a sewer.

We checked the list of companies from NA that were approved to do the work and cross checked with Angie's list. We're waiting on bids from three of them.

The surveyor is having to go back out and get elevations for the manhole to see what depth we need to be at so this doesn't need a pump. Gravity fed sounds cheaper to me.

Basketball court details

The signature feature of the house is a basketball court. This room will be approximately 30'x50' and have a 22'+ tall ceiling.



What we're trying to decide is what to do for the walls, floor and lighting in the room.

For the floor, we're leaning towards hardwood floors - but are reading about issues with attaching hardwood directly to concrete floors.

For the walls, we want something more durable than drywall, but more forgiving and sound absorbent than concrete or block. We're leaning towards carpet on the walls.

Existing house

We're finalizing preparations to burn down the existing house that's on the lot. Here are the pics we took of it about two years ago when we bought it:

http://gallery.kappesfamily.com/main.php?g2_itemId=5799

Here are some summary pics of the house and lot:

Survey / Site Plans

We got the draft survey plans in the other day.
Draft Survey Plans

We're having them move some things around and should have updated plans, including elevations soon.

Plans

Here are the links to the latest versions of the plans:

• Cover Page
• Exterior
• Exterior Sides
• Upstairs
• First Floor
• Basement
• Roof

Purpose

We'll be using this blog as a collection of info about the house we're building. We'll post pictures, status updates, plans and other information here.