Big Picture: Where are we?
Duncan St. is rented for Feb 1st, so I am pretty much 100% focused on that.
Still heads down on Duncan St.. Feeling pretty good- This week was some clean-up electrical and all of the plumbing. Lots of trips to HD, but that’s the nature of the beast. Scheduled a trip to CA to deal with the sewer issue too.
Goals from week of 9 Jan
- Scheduled Orange Ave sewer repair. (done)
- Complete installation of lights/ remaining electrical. Be ready for inspection. (done)
- Schedule electrical inspection (done)
- Complete installation of all plumbing fixtures. Be ready for inspection. (done)
- Schedule plumbing inspection (done)
Corp Update
- Getting ready to craft an offer for the neighbor’s property. It is zoned for 2 units. There is a non-trivial amount of repair work to be done, but that’s the business I’m in. 🙂 I’ll put the offer in on Monday.
- REception to the Open House has been strong so far. Lots of “love to come”, and one hand-written note from one of the crew guys, which was really nice. Looking forward to seeing folks, and having them see what they built.
Accomplishments
Mintwood St
- I’m in the middle of cleaning up the basement to organize all of my tools and building materials. I moved into a storage locker in Bloomfield, but will need to spend some time organizing it and putting up shelves. This is the long term solution until I acquire a shop.
- Landscaping: No big change- other than the fact that I hauled the trash from the back yard to the dump. Worth noting that dump fees have gone up 30% in the past 6 months. I haven’t done anything with the landscape plans bc we learned that the neighbor in the back (with the failing retaining wall) is selling her place. We’ll wait for the new owner to take possession and then we’ll approach them about sharing costs on the wall.
Pearl St.
- No particular news.
Orange Ave
- The plumbing I thought I was going to use jacked up his price when i actually shrank the scope, so he’s out. I have chosen someone else, and have scheduled the work for the end of Jan/ early Feb. I’m going to fly out there to be on site during the project. It’s too big a job to ignore.
Meanwhile, they were able to snake the line again from the street-side clean out. The tech on site said not to flush paper, but I’ve told the tenants that they can do so. My thought process is that this pipe was this bad for > 1 year, and it only recently backed up. We have now removed all of the roots (via the second snake) so it is better than it was in November 2022 (when it appeared to be working fine), so there’s no reason to continue to inconvenience the tenants.
(12/25) Tenant had a sewage problem in early December, which we had snaked. Unfortunately, they did a lousy job and it all backed up in an ugly way on Christmas day. Had a sewer cleaner out, and they got flow re-established, but there are some root intrusions under the deck that we need to address. This may be a significant cost item.
Duncan St.
Last week was the clean-up electrical items, and all of the plumbing. Electrical went smoothly. Plumbing is work I don’t mind doing, but it ends up with a lot of Depot trips. There is always one more part I don’t have, or a different size, etc. There’s a reason plumbers’ trucks are huge and full of materials. Nonetheless, the core work is done and we are ready for both the electrical and plumbing inspections, which are scheduled for Friday (1/20) and Tuesday (1/17) respectively.
There’s a lot of other small clean-up items to get done, and I’m working on those. Trello remains my source of truth, and a valuable work planning tool.
The completed tasks drop off the calendar as I close them out and archive the card. Hence, the past 2 weeks are blank, bc I’ve completed all of those tasks. I’m scheduled for clean-up work this week, and the last week of the month is contingency.
Goals for week of 16 January (All items are Duncan unless noted)
- Book tickets to Orange Ave sewer repair.
- Pass the electrical inspection
- Pass plumbing inspection
- Work the remaining clean-up items
Entropy Properties LLC 