Final Meetings With the Architect and Contractor Before Permits are Submitted

Amy and I met with Nathan, Craig and a very special guest star (!) to follow up on a few things:

• any issues that need resolution (Craig pointed out one of Nathan's drawings needed some rethinking and/or revision)
• what we can hold off on (windows, deck, other things to keep the budget under control)
• energy conservation work.  This one was pretty interesting:   Energy Trust of Oregon came out to give us a free consultation on what we needed to do for the house.

And the findings in reverse order:

This is where the kitchen used to vent into.  Amy is apalled.

Energy Trust came out for free to tell us about what to focus on when remodeling as far as energy savings goes.  In the past, houses were just drafty -- I guess energy was cheap and the ozone layer was healthy and the sea levels weren't rising -- people had better things to worry about, like global war and polio.  So instead of insulating their houses, they.. didn't.  They burned old growth wood in their fireplaces and cranked the oil heater up to 11.  For ventilation they just pointed their ductwork towards the direction of the roof -- seriously, this house's kitchen used to vent straight into the attic...

These days, of course, we can't do those sorts of things.  We need triple-paned argon gas-filled windows from Marvin Windows and Doors (come on coupons!) and insulation blown into the exterior walls and foam insulation on the underside of the roof. But as nice as that sounds, we've found that every decision in this project sets off a whole new row of dominoes falling and you can't have just one thing -- you have to have them all or nothing.

We thought this would be a sort of a-la-carte menu of renovations we could do today, tomorrow, whenever.  Turns out no -- there's an order and an economy to these things.  If you have the walls open, you HAVE to insulate them, if you want to insulate, you HAVE to disconnect the old knob-and-tube wiring (we have a lot of that), and if you're doing all that you MIGHT AS WELL redo all of the plumbing in the house.  Hence my reactions in the budget post...

To the Energy Trust guy's credit -- he gave us some good ideas on where to focus the few remaining dollars we'll have left.  

And speaking of budget.  I talked to Craig today.  He agreed with me on the domino analogy.  We agreed on a stopping point -- that is, a dollar amount at which we agree that we is where we need to stop or explore alternatives.  I'm not sure what those alternatives are, but one might be selling plasma.  We'll see - in the mean time, he's going to get the list of possible DIY or deferred tasks off the initial project plan and stick to our agreed-on budget.

Finally, we had to fix the stairs.  This was a neat observation about architects and contractors.  Nathan drew the stairs going down to the basement such that they went a little lower than they are today -- not realizing that there was a concrete wall in the way. Craig, the solution finder, said no problem - we can jackhammer the concrete foundation and make it work.  In the end we worked it out and made it cheaper and better.  Very happy that C and N can work together and with us to fix things before they become problems.

Tomorrow, Nathan takes the drawings to the city and (hopefully) gets the permits.  After that, we execute a contract with Craig and get demo underway.

The fun begins!