Jill and I went back down to Springfield this past weekend to take some boxes and see if we could lend a hand with the construction process. Additionally, we were supposed to meet with Jeff from Summit Roofing to confirm the color selection and put down the deposit for materials.
Jeff called last week to check on our schedule and to let me know that the silver color we chose for the standing seam metal roof had a four week lead time. I let him know that there wasn’t any problem with that due to the cure time for the concrete before it could be polished (and subsequently the walls and roof deck framed). He persisted, saying that it would be hard to tell which color we really liked, and that the galvalume would be very nice. I was a bit nonplussed, but figured it couldn’t hurt to see it in person before signing up.
We arrived on Saturday and went to the house to check out the floor, and before going to meet Jeff we were scheduled to meet with a siding contractor. He seemed competent if not a little odd (asking ‘So, what can I do for you today?’ after we described all the work we wanted done), and didn’t have any concerns about our plan for using the hardipanel siding. I asked about using some kind of J-Channel flashing between the sheets, and he asked if it was just for aesthetic reasons. I said that it was primarily to prevent from water coming in between the panels and he immediately insisted that was not necessary because the foam was waterproof. I’m no expert but I’m fairly certain that getting water underneath the siding is not a recipe for long term success. We’ll see if we can get that little mystery resolved.
We left to go meet Jeff, and as we were driving out I got a voicemail from him saying he couldn’t meet as planned due to his girlfriend taking him to Oklahoma unexpectedly.
Tired of contractor oddities we got some beer and sat on our new floor drinking them. That can never be a bad idea.
Sunday morning we got up early and met Doug to get our hands dirty. The area under our master bedroom / closet / bath was filled nearly level with gravel, and had all the plumbing for the vanity, tub, shower, and toilet installed. The ductwork for the HVAC that we got is plastic, and looked like large diameter sewer pipe. Using metal ducts under gravel isn’t a good idea as it tends to rust over time, collapsing and filling with gravel and probably leading to a whole host of nasty issues. To get the tubes in, I went to work with a shovel digging big trenches in which we laid the pipes and glued them together. It took quite a while as the pipe (which we had to special order) was just a few inches too short to be placed ideally and reach through into the basement. We made some…ahem…field modifications to extend the pipe and got everything put together before pushing the gravel back over the top of it.
The whole process was pretty tiring, and we topped it off by adding some additional gravel to get the floor up to level. By the end of the day we were ready to move on to finishing the preparation of the floor but out of daylight so we called it a day.
Jill finally got in touch with Jeff slightly annoyed by his ruse about the color change and told him just to order the silver that we originally wanted. It all became clear when I went in on Monday to drop off the deposit and sign the paperwork. I asked if he had a sample of the silver color on metal so we could use it to match with the siding, fascia, etc. and I heard him tell one of the office girls that they didn’t have it around ‘because that is a specialty color, and costs $.30 / square foot more than galvalume, that is why I tried to talk them out of it.’ I guess when you consider the fixed bid and the fact that that $.30 is coming out of their margin (and likely his commission) who could blame him. So it goes.
