Big Picture: Where are we?
Inside, Found contractors for insulation and drywall. We can start those after we finish rough inspections around the end of August.
Outside, We built the scaffolding over the weekend, and we are ready for roof repairs starting Monday.
Goals from Week of June26
- Finalize sheetrock contract {selected, but he owes me paperwork}
- Roofing preparation {done. We are ready to start roofing on Monday morning}
Accomplishments
- Selected insulation contractors (plural). Different teams for spray foam (roof) and fiberglass (walls). One contract executed, and we’ll get the second one this week. Work to be completed by end of August.
- Scaffold delivered Thursday, and erected on Sunday. We are ready for the roofing team on Monday.
Corp Update
- We are excited for a visit from Team Grey Leader (mom) August 13th-26th.
- I got my tax compliance letter from the City of Pittsburgh. Now we can complete our renewal of the GC license.
- Within the next month, we need to finalize our workers comp insurance (they have questions about our employee count), and also renew our contractor license (by 25 August).
Mintwood St
- Demolition: Work is complete. See blog post
- Roofing. We’re ready for the start on August 1st. DLC came out and removed the power lines from the building on Friday. (a bit of a challenge, since we don’t have power, but it’s necessary because the power line was attached to the front of the house, where we built scaffolding. The team from Wm Prescott Roofing will arrive on August 2. I have confirmed with one of the neighbors already that it’s fine to build out the scaffold on their property.
- Carpenters (no change from June 6) Carpenters have finished the over-framing. After inspection of mechanicals, we’re ready for insulation and drywall.
- Windows: (no change since May 16) Windows were installed this week on May 13-14. This actually included the odd sized window in the kitchen, which was good news.I haven’t inspected the final results yet, but will review on Monday.
- Insulation We finalized the approach with insulation. The spray foam is pretty expensive, but it does get a lot of R-value in a small space. It also acts as a vapor barrier. For those reasons, we’ll be using spray foam under the roof and in the mansards. We will use fiberglass batts in all of the walls and crawl space. I spoke with Bob Casey Insulation to get a bid, but he really focuses on retrofit projects. He was kind enough to point me to two different outfits, one of whom does spray foam, and one who does fiberglass. I got independent bids from them, but they know one another and were willing to split the project. So that is a BIG win.
- HVAC {No change from 26 July} HVAC is all tidy. We haven’t placed the furnaces yet, but we’re waiting to do that until we get the roof fixed. (We are having the HVAC guys run some ducts for the bathroom fans, and that won’t be possible until the roof is complete.)
- Plumbers: (No change form 19 July) Mertz Plumbing returned on Monday and Tuesday as planned. The inspection was pretty quick and we passed rough plumbing on Tuesday, I noticed that the mixing valves for the office shower and the upstairs bathtub are not anchored- that will need to be addressed before drywall.
Mister Sewer came out on Tuesday as planned. There was a bit of drama around the configuration of the new line. Mr. Sewer spoke with a supervisor at the plumbing inspectors office and was told that it was permissible to put a straight line from the house to the main due to the fact that there wasn’t a trap there previously, particularly since the line coming from the house was “Pittsburgh 9″ (meaning 9″ pipe). When the inspector arrived, he said we could downsize the 9″ to 6″ and install a house trap. This wasn’t welcome news to Mr. Sewer, but we did work through it and they agreed to change out the 9″ for a 6” with a house trap. - Electrical: (no change this week) The electricians are 98% done. They’ll come back once the roof is complete to install the exhaust fans.
- Masonry (completed week of 12 July) Rob completed all of the masonry work. All of the fireplaces and exposed brick has been repointed. He also punched through the back wall for the powder room and the range hood exhaust. However, after careful consideration, we decided NOT to penetrate the side wall. The masonry is tricky, and there isn’t much in the way of working space. Instead, we’re going to route them out through the rear mansard. This will require the return of the HVAC team and the electricians, but it’ll work out reasonably well.
- Plaster: The week of July 19 I’d informed Jim Lamont they have the project. He hasn’t yet provided a contract, but that’s not terribly unusual. I’m chasing him this week to get the paperwork and Certificate of Insurance. They won’t be in the building until after Labor Day.
- Finish Carpentry I found a place in Pgh that will strip doors for $250-300/ door. Next week while the roofing work is going on, I’ll take all the hardware off the doors and strip any stray nails from the millwork. Then we’ll start the process of getting the doors done.
- Design: Kitchen cabinets were ordered the week of July 19, and we did some minor tweaks this week. Tentative delivery date is Oct 5, which is sooner than I’d expected. I’ll be working with Katy to nail down flooring (no pun intended) so that we can get that lined up right after drywall. Design board is available here, though we made some slight changes after this board was produced.
Next Steps
- Finalize sheetrock contract.
- Start roofing work!
- Contract and timing with a paint stripper.
- Muriatic Acid to scrub the fireplaces to even out the brick.
Pearl St.
- Back door trim is complete too! I’m pretty pleased with how it turned out, especially given how bad the masonry was out of square.
- Next up will be Zoe’s door.
Next Steps
- Buy the slab for Zoe’s door, paint it, and hang it.
Goals for Week of 2 Aug 2021
- Finalize sheetrock and insulation contracts
- Roofing work begins
- Arrange paint stripping
Entropy Properties LLC 