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Yeah I think I'd pick my 25% grade over that.
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Jul 29, 2016 23:01
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Cakefool posted:Looks like you can start your daily commute with a spot of gentle drifting down the mountain. Yeah, on a snowy day you might not need your morning coffee until about 10:30 or so.
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Jul 29, 2016 23:51
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And it looks like +1 month. Our engineer isn't going to make the deadline for submitting updated plans for planning board. They are skipping the meeting at the end of the month. God drat it.
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Aug 4, 2016 15:22
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Do never build
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Aug 4, 2016 18:11
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Seriously, don't build. Quick recap on where we last left off: Town engineer came up with a list of poo poo we had to deal with before we can get our permit. We had to postpone planning board meeting all the way to Sept 13 to give our engineer time to do that. Today's story: Engineering firm Shenanigans We've used 2 different engineers during this process. The first one, I'll call FR and the second one I'll call BT. FR - Did original plans ~6 years ago, my brother in law happens to work there. BT - My builder's engineer, we had them do the driveway modifications. But then all those requests came in from the town engineer, and BT suggested we contact FR since they'd have all the data necessary to do the work and it would be cheaper/faster for us. So we did. FR looked at the list and said they'd do it. Great, I love faster/cheaper. Fast forward three weeks. Today, builder gets a call from BT. Apparently FR send them an email asking BT to do a bunch of the work. Luckily BT has been working with my builder for years so he gets right on the phone with him. Builder calls FR up, asks "WTF?". FR - "Oh we don't do blah and blah" WHY THE gently caress DID YOU SAY YOU COULD DO THOSE PIECES THREE WEEKS AGO. Now I don't know if we can get everything done in time for the next planning meeting.
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Aug 24, 2016 17:39
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Got a panic call from builder last night asking me to meet at the site with the engineer this morning. Biggest issue is the engineer tells me he's worried because the sewer isn't actually within the sewer easement so we can't legally tie into it. I whip out my plans from 1976 and the easement order, hand it over. The plans he was looking at only had "my" part of the easement, but it extends 20' past that and we're all set. Then he starts telling me we might have conservation problems since we're so close, so I whip out our negative determination letter, problem solved. Went over the rest of the issues, talked over how we'll solve them all, I should have finished plans on Tuesday. Going to end up spending a couple grand in runoff management between a drywell, a gravel pit thing, and a curb on the driveway. No big deal, I expected something there. Also, got a chance to see exactly what the other engineers actually did. Nothing. Literally nothing. They sat on it for 5 weeks (it was 5, not 3, I checked my calendar.)
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Sep 2, 2016 14:07
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Engineer finished up everything and is dropping off plans at town hall. With any luck we'll get a 'go' next week's planning meeting. Some things we had to add: Berm to the driveway to channel water An intercepter trench to catch that water (2' wide, 2'deep gravel) Drywell for gutters to drain into Guardrail along one part of driveway Rest was just clarifying items that existed on the plans.
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Sep 7, 2016 19:34
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Hopefully all the planning poo poo you're going through will fulfill the requirement for drama in any major project, and will translate into a relatively smooth and successful construction phase. Hopefully.
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Sep 9, 2016 13:37
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Achievement unlocked: Planning Board Approval - Happy end to a stressful day. Started around 2pm, get an email from planner's office forwarding email from fire department. They poo poo all over our plans calling them too steep and inaccessible to emergency vehicles. So I called the chief, had a reasoned discussion, explained everything, and he decided to go along with it. Really nice guy. Crisis #1 averted. Now, I'm sitting in the planning board room waiting to start. I look at my plans. And guess what's missing? The loving fill calculations. Somehow they got lost in one of the revisions, and the ENTIRE reason I'm there is for an earth fill permit. gently caress gently caress gently caress. Ok, so maybe they won't notice. My phone buzzes. Email from the town-engineer responding to each of our points, almost all good news that he agrees. But at the end, it also points out that the fill calculations are missing. gently caress gently caress gently caress. Nothing to do now except hope for kindness from the board. So our turn comes up. We sit down. Board goes through town engineer's email point by point. There is a lot of discussion on slope of driveway. Probably 10 minutes of back and forth. About half the board hates it. About half the board is 'engineer and FD said it's fine, what more can we ask them to do?' They ask us to add some hay-bales on another side, sure no problem. Get to the missing fill calculations. I explain I only just realized it was missing but no grading has changed from the last plans so those calculations should be accurate. One of the board members, younger guy, really becomes an advocate for us and pushes them through to a vote. Vote's unanimous, we get permit with a few extra minor conditions thrown in for good luck. Builder's ready to go once all paperwork gets in.
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Sep 14, 2016 01:18
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Congrats! Hopefully that's the last of the bureaucracy you have to deal with. Good luck with the build!
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Sep 14, 2016 01:32
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:Congrats! Hopefully that's the last of the bureaucracy you have to deal with. Good luck with the build! Opening permits is certainly not the last bureaucracy you need to deal with by basic definition. But this is great news and very good progress.
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Sep 14, 2016 01:47
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Gounads posted:Achievement unlocked: Planning Board Approval - Happy end to a stressful day. Congratulations. Sounds like you should make sure that guy is your friend all build long.
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Sep 14, 2016 02:01
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Motronic posted:Opening permits is certainly not the last bureaucracy you need to deal with by basic definition. But this is great news and very good progress. Are there more permits that will need to be acquired after this point? Or other things that he has to get approval for? Obviously he's still going to need to get inspections taken care of, but I don't really think of that as being bureaucracy. I'm not familiar with the process of building a house, mind you. I'm just drawing comparisons to what I went through to build my workshop.
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Sep 14, 2016 02:04
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Goongrats op that is excellent progress!
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Sep 14, 2016 10:01
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:Are there more permits that will need to be acquired after this point? Or other things that he has to get approval for? Obviously he's still going to need to get inspections taken care of, but I don't really think of that as being bureaucracy. Still need the building permit, but the builder has gone over everything with the inspector, so we expect that to be quick and easy, was just being held up by this planning permit. This should be the end of the public-hearing style bureaucracy before we can start building, it's those 2-4 weeks between each hearing date that really hurt. But after we start, i'll need to go back to conservation with a landscaping plan. From what I hear it should be easy. Worse-case is I stay out of their jurisdiction, have a small yard and try again next year.
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Sep 14, 2016 12:59
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 I'm looking forward already to future updates when more visible things will start happening!
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Sep 14, 2016 14:46
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:Are there more permits that will need to be acquired after this point? Or other things that he has to get approval for? Obviously he's still going to need to get inspections taken care of, but I don't really think of that as being bureaucracy. Building, mechanical, electrical, plumbing and potentially fire protection or grading permits could be required depending on jurisdiction. Some wrap all of those into one building permit. Some don't and you'll need to submit sealed plans for each and fight over minutiae.
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Sep 14, 2016 16:36
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lol. 21 day appeal window has to expire before we actually get the permit. Never ends.
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Sep 15, 2016 15:09
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Are these kinds of committees common in the US or is it just your town?
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Sep 15, 2016 22:09
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peanut posted:Are these kinds of committees common in the US or is it just your town? I'll tell you it's a thing near where I am. If you need your variance to be approved by a local elected (or appointed by elected people) board the rest of the non-elected-or-appointed public are supposed to have time to have a say about it. If he did not need a variance from the existing code this would not be an issue. I'm not saying his requests were at all unreasonable or shouldn't have been allowed to begin with in the adopted code, just talking procedure here.
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Sep 16, 2016 02:25
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Motronic posted:I'll tell you it's a thing near where I am. This is exactly what happened when my neighbor wanted a permit to do pavers up to the edge of his property line. A bunch of us went to the meeting to support him.
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Sep 16, 2016 11:44
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And... 21 day waiting period is up. Talked to builder, he's getting the last of the permits wrapped up and already contracting with the silt fence guy to start that. Hopefully within a week or so I'll have pictures of bulldozers and excavators to show.
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Oct 6, 2016 15:30
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Gounads posted:And... 21 day waiting period is up. Hurray!
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Oct 6, 2016 16:29
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Does it feel surreal to finally have it getting built? I'm looking forward to the part of the thread where you have to tear out internal walls and fix wiring, plumbing, and HVAC because the contractor was lazy as gently caress/didn't do it right.
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Oct 7, 2016 12:17
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A White Guy posted:Does it feel surreal to finally have it getting built? There was a big sigh of relief when we got the planning board approval, but it's still not entirely real to me since it's still all just paper being shuffled around. This thread was started March 6th, we bought the land in April, so it's been more than half a year to get to this point. Also, got another property tax bill in the mail for the land this week.
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Oct 7, 2016 13:03
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Gounads posted:Also, got another property tax bill in the mail for the land this week. At least the improvements line is still $0?  Though I guess the building permit could raise the value of the land.
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Oct 7, 2016 16:03
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One more hurdle, current home passed Title V. In MA, it's a pretty big deal since you can't sell your house without a passing septic system. Our cesspool (predates septic tank tech) is probably 90+ years old and it's miraculous that it passed. For reference, these guys said it was the first cesspool they passed this year. That's a good $25k expense we don't have to worry about.
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Oct 12, 2016 14:33
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Got a call from builder yesterday, there was just one last thing he needed to get together for the last permit and he should have that done last night. Something about wind-shear calculations for the walls. Besides that, we're cleared to start preparing the site - stakes & haybales - I know we have at least the surveyors lined up for next week. Should be quick & easy since a lot of it is marked already.
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Oct 21, 2016 12:53
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Building permit acquired.
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Oct 25, 2016 12:34
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Oct 25, 2016 12:55
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I'm excited to watch your house go up!
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Oct 25, 2016 16:17
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There needs to be a  equivalent with a claw hammer and hard hat.Good luck!
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Oct 25, 2016 16:25
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Now for the easy part! 
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Oct 25, 2016 17:13
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Well, gently caress me. Got new estimate from builder. Let's just add $33,000 why don't we? Most of it directly related to driveway bullshit.
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Oct 25, 2016 19:53
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Pray 4 Gounads
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Oct 25, 2016 23:52
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Surveyors finished today. Wrote a big loving check today. Lots of bank paperwork - couldn't even apply for loan until we had the building permit plus a bunch of other stuff, that's some scary timing poo poo. Hay bales & Silt fence go in tomorrow (weather permitting). Then wait for that to be inspected. Then we start digging. If everything goes perfectly, I'll have a foundation in 2-3 weeks.
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Oct 28, 2016 03:11
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Awesome! Hope they get the hole in before it turns winter on you!
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Nov 1, 2016 10:07
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Surveyor missed a set of stakes, haybales couldn't be finished on Friday. But the 10-day forecasts are all looking great temperature-wise, so we won't have frozen ground soon. The construction camera is up, so I should have fun time-lapses when real things start.
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Nov 1, 2016 14:24
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 Fences up. Inspection on Friday. Breaking ground on Monday.
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Nov 2, 2016 18:54
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Gounads posted:
What are we looking at there? You should set up a live stream. I would pay  to watch.
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Nov 2, 2016 19:03
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