Be sure to load up on some special deals:
- Everyday Privileges Gold allows you to sign up for the purchase of gift cards at 20% off. Good at Home Depot or Lowes along with many other stores. You can only buy $100/month and a maximum of $500/year for each retailer. Every bit helps.
- Dealpass allows you to buy $500 of gift cards from each retailer in one shot at 20% off.
- Check out eBay for Home Depot and Lowes coupons 10-20% off your purchase. They usually have total savings limits but I have seen a 10% off at Lowes that allows up to $1,000 of savings and that is usually price matched at Home Depot. People sell these all the time on eBay for very cheap (not selling the coupon, which is forbidden, but selling their time to post and ship it).
Thursday, April 27, 2006
General Contractor - The Contract
I spoke to a good friend who is building another custom home. He spent considerable time and expense negotiating a very detailed contract with his general contractor. I talked to him about the key things he thought we might want to make sure were included in ours and he highlighted these:
- He used the American Institute of Architects AIA Document A101-1997 as a starting point (Standard form of Agreement Between Owner and Contractor) and AIA Document A201-1997 (General Conditions of the Contract for Construction). This might be overkill but has some solid clauses protecting you as the owner and makes for a good place to get language from. You have to buy it from the site.
- Is it a fixed price bid or time plus materials? Fixed is better - it forces a cap on your costs. However, any change orders will cause the line quoted for the fixed bid to change. Typically this is where the contractor makes a lot of money. We added a schedule at the end of our contract to list all the charges per hour for the general contractor, electricians, plumbers, carpenter etc along with material costs and equipment costs.
- make it clear that the GC passes on any rebates they get or their subcontractors get back to you. We put in a clause requiring the contractor to show us all their quotes and invoices and specifically to pass any savings back to us.
- decide what you want to tackle as part of the project. We decided to buy all appliances, granite, carpet, plumbing fixtures, hardwood floor, alarm system, light fixtures, pbx, cabinets, tile, patio stone ourselves and specified this up front so that those items would all be costed out separately in the bid and we would carve them out as we bought them.
- dispute resolution...we opted for binding arbitration following JAMS rules. Much less expensive than a lawsuit. We also put in a clause allowing for the project to continue even if there is a dispute in one area, which can be revisited at the end of the project. This should avoid holding up the project.
- Any changeorders or increases in cost over the contract price must be in writing.
- the contractor is responsible for completing the project in strict compliance with all laws, ordinances, rules and regulations of the applicable authorities, the uniform Building, Plumbing and Mechanical Codes, National Electric Code or other codes that may apply.
- request your contractor to get at least two quotes for each major line item. Insist on shopping around as their own supplier network may not have the best prices. At the very least, they can use better pricing as leverage with their preferred supplier network.
- explore the possibility of payments up front for certain big ticket items like lumber that may have seasonal fluctuations in price. If the supplier can lock in the price up front and get payment for it, you might be able to save 10% from them having to build in a cushion to cover variability
- At each stage of your payment or a sub contractor payment, the payment should be accompanied by a Release Form - basically a release of any lien against your property for whatever was just completed. A lien that is unresolved could force your home to be sold in order to settle any payment due a contractor.
- Onsite storage is the contractor's responsibility.
- Contractor indemnifies you for any hazardous waste brought about by materials he or subcontractors brought on site that were not properly handled. I could just see what a disaster it would be for someone to wash out their paint can in the creek in our backyard!
- weather delays are not to be considered changeorders
- contractor is responsible for fixing any issues found not to be up to code.
- you should be informed whenever a change is made to the specification. Contractors may cut corners by swapping in cheaper materials that you might not be able to see.
- you should be allowed to terminate without cause at will. You may have to pay a partial profit if that is the case (10% is pretty standard on remaining work).
- all work to be done to best industry standards.
We made substantial revisions to incorporate the above in our contract. It was about 5 pages in length. Our contractor was quite pleased with the final product and was going to use this as his new template.
- He used the American Institute of Architects AIA Document A101-1997 as a starting point (Standard form of Agreement Between Owner and Contractor) and AIA Document A201-1997 (General Conditions of the Contract for Construction). This might be overkill but has some solid clauses protecting you as the owner and makes for a good place to get language from. You have to buy it from the site.
- Is it a fixed price bid or time plus materials? Fixed is better - it forces a cap on your costs. However, any change orders will cause the line quoted for the fixed bid to change. Typically this is where the contractor makes a lot of money. We added a schedule at the end of our contract to list all the charges per hour for the general contractor, electricians, plumbers, carpenter etc along with material costs and equipment costs.
- make it clear that the GC passes on any rebates they get or their subcontractors get back to you. We put in a clause requiring the contractor to show us all their quotes and invoices and specifically to pass any savings back to us.
- decide what you want to tackle as part of the project. We decided to buy all appliances, granite, carpet, plumbing fixtures, hardwood floor, alarm system, light fixtures, pbx, cabinets, tile, patio stone ourselves and specified this up front so that those items would all be costed out separately in the bid and we would carve them out as we bought them.
- dispute resolution...we opted for binding arbitration following JAMS rules. Much less expensive than a lawsuit. We also put in a clause allowing for the project to continue even if there is a dispute in one area, which can be revisited at the end of the project. This should avoid holding up the project.
- Any changeorders or increases in cost over the contract price must be in writing.
- the contractor is responsible for completing the project in strict compliance with all laws, ordinances, rules and regulations of the applicable authorities, the uniform Building, Plumbing and Mechanical Codes, National Electric Code or other codes that may apply.
- request your contractor to get at least two quotes for each major line item. Insist on shopping around as their own supplier network may not have the best prices. At the very least, they can use better pricing as leverage with their preferred supplier network.
- explore the possibility of payments up front for certain big ticket items like lumber that may have seasonal fluctuations in price. If the supplier can lock in the price up front and get payment for it, you might be able to save 10% from them having to build in a cushion to cover variability
- At each stage of your payment or a sub contractor payment, the payment should be accompanied by a Release Form - basically a release of any lien against your property for whatever was just completed. A lien that is unresolved could force your home to be sold in order to settle any payment due a contractor.
- Onsite storage is the contractor's responsibility.
- Contractor indemnifies you for any hazardous waste brought about by materials he or subcontractors brought on site that were not properly handled. I could just see what a disaster it would be for someone to wash out their paint can in the creek in our backyard!
- weather delays are not to be considered changeorders
- contractor is responsible for fixing any issues found not to be up to code.
- you should be informed whenever a change is made to the specification. Contractors may cut corners by swapping in cheaper materials that you might not be able to see.
- you should be allowed to terminate without cause at will. You may have to pay a partial profit if that is the case (10% is pretty standard on remaining work).
- all work to be done to best industry standards.
We made substantial revisions to incorporate the above in our contract. It was about 5 pages in length. Our contractor was quite pleased with the final product and was going to use this as his new template.
Appliances
I was determined to find bargains for our appliances, even though we were targeting high end items. It has taken me about 2 months now but I have almost completed all my needed purchases and all of this on eBay.
First step was to visit a few showrooms and figure out exactly what models we wanted. I wanted to get a couple of different options for each appliance so that I would have some flexibility on eBay. We ended up going with the following:
- Sub zero 601R/S stainless steel door refrigerator, we really liked this unit at our last house - great storage space, shallow depth, standup retrieval of items, crisper drawers.
- Sub zero 601F/O overlay freezer - Replaces the freezer in our garage and brings it into the kitchen. The overlay panel will hide it somewhat.
- Kitchenaid KUCC151LSS stainless steel trash compactor - we never thought we would need one of these until we had it at our last house. We pay by the can for trash removal here and this really mashes it down.
- Sub zero 424/S wine cooler - we already have a 250 bottle wine cooler but wanted a small one in our island to hold a few select bottles during parties. This cooler has two cooling zones for red and white.
- Thermador SJ302ZS double oven - stainless steel, it was a very high end appliance that was discontinued because it cost too much, we got a great deal on it. Convection/microwave top oven which eliminated us having to put a microwave somewhere else and a lower convection oven. 30" size.
- Miele Incognito G863SCVI Plus dishwasher - super quiet, love the adjustable cutlery rack on top. Our previous house had an Asko which ran great but Miele is even better from a quiet and functionality of the various racks. We could have settled for the model below this one (no water softener which we did not need) but a deal came up on this one.
- Wolf RT364G gas rangetop - our last house had a Wolf 36" gas range and oven. We found the oven very hard to get the right temperature, always +/- 10 degrees. The new version of the range is dual fuel which has gas top and electric bottom with very precise electronic control for the oven - much better. However, we liked the idea of having a cabinet under the cooktop to hold all of our kitchen cooking tools and having two separate ovens.
Our deals happened all over the place. Here is a summary:
-Sub zero 601R/S purchased from a person in Florida who abandoned their renovation project. Paid $2400 plus $800 to ship to CA. It is about 3 years old but brand new in box, not a single scratch and Sub Zero starts the warranty from when we will install and activate it so that is still good. We had to figure out how to ship it cheaply. I eventually found the quickest way to figure this out is to call a couple of local appliance stores near where you buy from and ask them who they use. They usually have done the research to figure out who is cheapest. Here were some folks that I liked:
eFreightline.com (priced $228 to ship my wine cooler from WI to CA versus best other bid was $394)
Anyfreight.com - broker who can get multiple shipper quotes. I used them to ship my Subzero freezer from Atlanta for $400. 508-425-7134
Freight Dynamics 800-883-8777, used to pick up Subzero in Florida, they palletized it for $170 and shipped for $700. Anyfreight had a better ship rate but could not palletize it. I worked with Cori 763-235-2266. This was FAST, about 1 week to get it, arrived on Fedex freight truck.
Complete Freight Systems - Catherine Anglea canglea@completefreight.biz 812-265-1245. Used them to ship double oven from TX to CA, were $279, super cheap and efficient. They were recommended by HighEnd Appliance 512-663-9103
- Sub Zero 601F/O: also eBay, this one was $2900 and $400 to ship from Atlanta. It had been hit in front by a forklift which bent a couple of the frame parts and the sub zero trim panel. I ordered the fixup parts for $200, including the stainless steel trim around the door which was scratched but the seller refunded to me. The hardest thing to fix was the back sheet metal which sub zero does not sell as a replacement part. I drilled out the pop rivets and took the piece to a local sheet metal shop (HVAC type sheet metal, plenty in the Yellow Pages) who made me an exact replica for $80! I bought a pop rivet gun at Home Depot and resecured it all. Looks like new now.
- Kitchenaid Trash Compactor - This was a showroom demo model that I bought on eBay from San Diego. They shipped it for me with their shipper who scratched the handle. The seller was a flake and did not offer to help resolve the scratched handle. I bought a new handle from Kitchenaid for $50.
- Thermador oven bought on eBay from Texas, was in a warehouse never used for 2 years. Paid $2750 and it had an MSRP of about $8k. They packed it up really well in a crate and it had just a slight ding in back when it arrived, I was able to knock the ding out and it is hidden anyway behind the cabinet. I was hoping to find a Miele double oven but I had a deal on eBay and it fell apart after someone else offered $1K more than me after the transaction. Too bad.
- Miele dishwasher I bought a brand new unit from someone on eBay that did not use it for their project. I unfortunately had a bad experience with shipping via Fedex but the seller did not pack it up very well. He simply left it in the original cardboard box. It was banged up in all corners and the stainless door and trim. If I were to replace all the banged up parts the tally would have been $1300 or so, almost what I paid for it. Fortunately Fedex refunded me for the damage. I bought two side panels to fix the worst of it and will live with a few not so visible dings. I would not recommend shipping any appiances by Fedex or UPS. I have had nothing but bad experiences with having heavy bulky objects dinged up.
- I'm still trying to get my Wolf rangetop on eBay and since I have some time will keep looking. I might instead buy a Viking rangetop with the sealed burners. It has the very nice vari-sim feature allowing super low simmer heat while providing the full 15,000 BTU high end.
- I also bought two Insinkerator Pro SS disposals for each sink. I found both on eBay for about half price. I like the pro model as it runs quieter and is heavier duty.
- As for hood, I'm also still looking for this and thinking of the Wolf Pro Wall Hood 36". I like the ability in these to put a 1200 CFM internal blower versus the more elegant Cooktop Wall Hood that has a narrower chimney. This one only has a 600 cfm blower. We tend to do a lot of cooking in a wok and the higher CFM is better. Anything more would probably be overkill and need to be installed externally which I think may be more exposed to the elements and might break down sooner. I might also get the Viking Pro Series 18" High and 27" depth to match a Viking range. I also note that at our last house we had a 42" hood over a 36" stove so it overlapped a little on each side. I'm not sure this was really necessary.
Kitchen Sinks & Toilets
I just ordered our kitchen sinks online. I went with the Franke line Pro series in stainless steel. We like the idea of having a large rectangular sink that is deep instead of a couple of bowls. We had a two bowl sink at our last house and never used the second bowl.
The large rectangular and deep size will allow us to easily clean those monster pots and pans, along with other regular items like my son's hamster cage and frog tank. We went with the PSX-110-30-12 for the main sink and PSX 110-16-10 for our island.
I found best pricing on the Internet by going to www.shopping.com. NY Living had the lowest but my contractor had bad experiences with them on returns so I opted to go with faucets.com which had a 110% price match and free shipping.
For my toilets, I reviewed a Consumer Reports article on toilets. If you have not already done so, you should subscribe as there a lot of relevant articles on products you will be buying. It is $4.95/month. My choice was the American Standard Champion 2004.012 in white. It was rated best of the low gallon but non-pressure assisted toilets. The pressure assisted toilets (the kind you usually get in the airports) are great for flushing big jobs but are just not very small kid friendly - scaring the heck out of them. We had a different American Standard model at our previous house which did not work too well, about 1/5 flushes backed up. Hopefully this one will work better.
Best pricing on this one was at www.fixturesdirect.com. I also checked www.shopping.com. Faucets.com had a 110% price match and free shipping.
The large rectangular and deep size will allow us to easily clean those monster pots and pans, along with other regular items like my son's hamster cage and frog tank. We went with the PSX-110-30-12 for the main sink and PSX 110-16-10 for our island.
I found best pricing on the Internet by going to www.shopping.com. NY Living had the lowest but my contractor had bad experiences with them on returns so I opted to go with faucets.com which had a 110% price match and free shipping.
For my toilets, I reviewed a Consumer Reports article on toilets. If you have not already done so, you should subscribe as there a lot of relevant articles on products you will be buying. It is $4.95/month. My choice was the American Standard Champion 2004.012 in white. It was rated best of the low gallon but non-pressure assisted toilets. The pressure assisted toilets (the kind you usually get in the airports) are great for flushing big jobs but are just not very small kid friendly - scaring the heck out of them. We had a different American Standard model at our previous house which did not work too well, about 1/5 flushes backed up. Hopefully this one will work better.
Best pricing on this one was at www.fixturesdirect.com. I also checked www.shopping.com. Faucets.com had a 110% price match and free shipping.
Windows
My dad recently changed his windows and advised we consider various low-E coatings to shield from the sun on the west facing part of the house. At our previous house, we had brand new Andersen windows which probably had no low-E coating. At the end of the afternoon, the sun would beat into the west part of the house and heat it up to 80-90 degrees. We had no AC living in the San Francisco bay area so the only low cost solution was to install mylar coated blinds that would refelect some of the heat. We also had significant fading on our dining room chair fabric and oak hard wood floors wherever the sun would hit.
Windows that have a low-E coating are what you want to look for. The low-E coating was developed for the space shuttle and if you put it thick enough on a window, the window becomes like a mirror. So think of it as a mirror coating that, depending on the thickness, blocks the sun's rays. The higher the solar heat gain, the higher the insulation value too.
My dad's choice (for his house in northern Canada) was to go with windows classified as Low-E RLE2 which have a "solar heat gain coefficient" of 0.26. This means that only 26% of the sun's UV rays will get through. He put RLE2 windows on the west and north faces. He chose low-E LOF3 (which has a solar heat gain coefficient of 0.48) for the east and south faces.
The LOF3 with higher sun penetration was important for getting greater sun penetration in winter. The lower penetration RLE2 on the west side allowed less air conditioning use later in the day when the sun is strongest and the RLE2 on the north face was better for insulation in winter.
We are considering Pella brand Pro-line windows that have a solar heat gain coefficient of 0.37. They have product lines across the board for solar heat gain so be informed when you are buying!
For more info on this, see www.efficientwindows.org/energystar.cfm for your zone and solar gain recommendations.
Windows that have a low-E coating are what you want to look for. The low-E coating was developed for the space shuttle and if you put it thick enough on a window, the window becomes like a mirror. So think of it as a mirror coating that, depending on the thickness, blocks the sun's rays. The higher the solar heat gain, the higher the insulation value too.
My dad's choice (for his house in northern Canada) was to go with windows classified as Low-E RLE2 which have a "solar heat gain coefficient" of 0.26. This means that only 26% of the sun's UV rays will get through. He put RLE2 windows on the west and north faces. He chose low-E LOF3 (which has a solar heat gain coefficient of 0.48) for the east and south faces.
The LOF3 with higher sun penetration was important for getting greater sun penetration in winter. The lower penetration RLE2 on the west side allowed less air conditioning use later in the day when the sun is strongest and the RLE2 on the north face was better for insulation in winter.
We are considering Pella brand Pro-line windows that have a solar heat gain coefficient of 0.37. They have product lines across the board for solar heat gain so be informed when you are buying!
For more info on this, see www.efficientwindows.org/energystar.cfm for your zone and solar gain recommendations.
Solar Power
April 2006 – We are determined to get solar panels for the house. I found it very hard to get good information on the web about solar panel options. Here is how the process has worked so far:
- Our base estimate is 1200 kw/month and I've been advised to aim for a system that would provide for 100% of our top three Tier electrical rates, a 5kW system in our case. I'll get into this dimensioning later.
- I contacted a local solar provider. They answered a lot of my questions and gave me a quote. They sent a person out to do a visual inspection of our roof to determine where the array will best be placed and have the least blockage from other structures nearby or trees. In my case, we have a nearly perfect unobstructed South/West facing section of our roof.
- Since mine is a new house, I provided them with the CAD drawings from our architect and from that they are determining where to exactly place them and they will provide drawings on how the installation will work.
- My contractor wants to become certified in their product so they agreed to give him a tutorial. He doesn't need a special permit since he already has the appropriate general contractor license.
As far as planning goes, my contractor will need to run electrical cabling from the roof array back to the main junction box where I will have two inverters mounted next to my main junction box. The inverters will then feed into two circuit breakers in the panel.
In California, we can use PG&E's electrical grid as a giant battery. PG&E installs a special meter (either a Net Metering type or a Time of Use (TOU) type). You can pick whichever is more advantageous. The way to understand it is to try to estimate what your usage is during peak hours - take a meter read at noon and then one at 6pm, a couple of days to get an average use and probably best during summer if you use AC. Then compare this to your average daily use - divide your total typical monthly electrical usage by 30.
If you use anything more than 25% during those noon to 6pm peak hours, then it probably does not make economic sense to go with a TOU meter and instead choose a Net Metering type. It only costs $300 to switch out the meter with PG&E so you can always try one way and switch if you think you can save more. Basically, the difference is that TOU meter rates are much higher so if you can generate more power than you use during those peak hours and "sell" these back to PG&E at the highest rate, then buy back power at night or in the morning at the lower rates, you will be better off. Under Net Metering, you simply get a credit for each Kw you generate and send back to the grid and are allowed to take the credit back any time later on your normal average Kw rate.
As far as the economics go:
There is currently a California rebate of $2.80 per rated AC Watt. What does that mean? Well a 5KW system produces 5,000 watts DC and you multiply that by a factor of approximately 0.83 for equivalent AC so 5,000W x 0.83 x $2.80 = $11,666 should be my rebate. This is only an approximation as the real rebate is calculated based on the specific pieces of equipment that comprise my system and their efficiencies.
Unfortunately, the 7.5% CA state tax refund expired end of 2005.
There is a Federal tax credit and here is what my tax accountant sent me on it:
- The residential alternative energy credit is 30 percent of the cost of eligible solar water heaters, solar electricity equipment (photovoltaics) and fuel cell plants. The maximum credit is $2,000 per tax year for each category of solar equipment, and $500 for each half kilowatt of capacity of fuel cell plants installed per tax year. Eligible equipment must be placed in service after December 31, 2005 and before January 1, 2008. In general, a qualified fuel cell power plant converts a fuel into electricity using electrochemical means, has an electricity–only generation efficiency of more than 30 percent and generates at least 0.5 kilowatts of electricity.
- The residential alternative energy credit is a nonrefundable personal credit. It can be used to offset the excess of the individual's regular tax liability over any AMT liability, but cannot be used to get a refund if the tax liability drops to zero. Unused credits may be carried forward and added to a residential alternative energy credit for the succeeding tax year.
My tax accountant clarified to me that the credit only offsets any EXCESS tax you have for your regular tax bill over any AMT. If you are like a growing number of people hit with AMT, the tax credit does nothing for you except that you can carry it forward to use it in the future if ever your tax bill is higher than AMT.
The first step in dimensioning our system was to break down our typical 1200 Kwh monthly electrical bill by Tier:
- Tier 1: Baseline 390 Kwh x $0.1143 = $44.58
- Tier 2: 101-130% of Baseline 117 Kwh x $0.12989 = $15.20
- Tier 3: 131-200% of Baseline 270 Kwh x $0.21314 = $58.19
- Tier 4: 201-300% of Baseline 390 Kwh x $0.29007 = $113.13
- Tier 5: Over 300% of Baseline 30 Kwh x $0.33039 = $9.91
You basically want to dimension the system to provide enough power to eliminate the three last Tiers, anything above 130% of baseline, since this will provide the best payback on the investment.
Here was how my dimensioning works:
- Average hours of sun exposure/day = 5.5
- Average days per month = 30.4
- Number of Kwh system (DC) = 5.0 (this is the capacity they are recommending for me)
- Average Kwh/month (DC) = 5.0 kW x 5.5 hours x 30.4 days = 836
- Average Kwh/month (AC) = 836.5 x 0.83 = 694
So my 5Kw system should on average produce 694 Kwh which should cover everything in my Tier 3, 4 and 5 bands = 693 Kwh out of my total 1200 Kwh monthly usage.
By sizing my system this way, I should save all the cost in my Tier 3-5 bands = $58+$113+10 = $181/month or $2,172/year.
To calculate your payback or IRR, I looked at it this way:
- Base cost of system $33,000 less CA rebate for 5kW system of $11,666 (see above for rough calculation) less federal tax credit of $2,000 = about $21,000 net
- Annual savings of $2,172/year
- Historical energy cost inflation of 5% per year
- 30 year life of equipment
My IRR is about 15% (usually it's not as good as this but I got a deal on my system) and my simple payback should be about 8 years assuming the 5% growth in electrical costs.
You might also consider staging your installations. Everything I see in the venture capital world is that the costs of these solar panel arrays should come down 50-70% in the next 5 years with a whole bunch of new semiconductor technologies under development in various start-ups. So maybe buy 3Kw now and add 2 more later. It might also make sense to stage it over two years to simply get more of a Federal tax credit - you can do $2K/year as long as the equipment costs at least $7K (30% x $7K = $2K).
Click here for a really good article on payback that I liked a lot by Andy Black.
As for reliability, I talked to a friend who has had a solar system for several years and he said his experience has been very positive in terms of reliability and savings. He has batteries installed to avoid outages but I don’t think we will go that route as our grid is pretty reliable. He also mentioned we might consider the latest technique to heat water on the roof and run the heated water through pipes throughout the house which heats things up nice and cheap.
The Teardown Sale
April 2006:
Our contractor informed us that it would cost about $375 per 21 foot bin to dispose of the house and that there would be an estimated 40-50 bins full. We were determined to send as little as possible to the landfill and embarked on a comprehensive listing of all items we thought might be useful to others. Basically, I went around with my Canon digital camera while my wife Charlene logged a description on the computer of the item including any pertinent details size dimensions or color etc. It was an exercise that took around 3 hours to do.
We posted a main advertisement on Craigslist.org “Teardown House / Remodel – Everything Must Go” with a line by line posting of each item. We placed the digital photos (resized nicely with an application called “PixResizer”) on a shared photo viewing Yahoo site and posted the link to the photos in the ad. We organized the photos into categories – kitchen, doors, windows, fixtures, appliances, etc. We also posted some prices we thought were reasonable based on looking at some comparables on eBay and Craigslist.
Amazingly, the response from the public was absolutely incredible. We had over 500 people e-mail us for items they were interested in. Responding to all the messages was somewhat time intensive but most of the time we would just give them my cell phone number and tell them to come to the house at designated times – e.g., all day Saturday or Sunday. The truly interested would call, which was a shorter list. We had over 50 people come by over three weekends and a couple of evenings and buy stuff or take some things away for free. The conditions were that they undo things themselves (under my supervision, I would help sometimes) and haul it away asap. We even drafted a Release of Liability / Waiver form based on a couple of templates I found free on the web (Google search “release liability waiver form”). We made sure power and gas were switched off and tried to stagger people’s work to avoid too many people to supervise.
Whatever we could not sell, we subsequently listed free and the freebies went very fast. Here is a sample of things we sold and others we gave for free:
Sold:
Windows
Outside and inside doors, screen doors
Light fixtures
White picket fence
Driveway automatic gate
Garage door and mounting hardware
Kitchen cabinets, appliances, sink, fixtures
Bathroom fixtures, cabinets, mirrors, tub, toilet, shower enclosures
Built in cabinets
Furnace, central air conditioning, condenser, ducting (relatively new)
Hardwood floor
Family Room Wooden Bar
Back yard fence
Fireplace mantle, grill, trim
Hot water tank
Washer & dryer
Free
Gazebo
Shed
Some doors
Lumber on kids playstructure
Blinds
Copper pipes
Copper pipes, aluminum window frames, electrical wire (for recycled metal)
Larger built in cabinets
Koi pond rocks
It’s interesting that some items would just not sell – take the bar fridge for example, which was this circa 1950s model with imitation wood metal siding and a long chrome retro handle. I tried selling it for $10 but no one wanted it. I finally listed it free and within 12 hours had 30 people wanting it! Many people monitor the free listings more than they do paid listing and some have set up RSS feeds to notify them of new postings. It reminded me of our last move when we listed our moving boxes for free and it took all of 3 minutes for someone to claim them and 15 minutes later they were already picked up and gone!
There is also a site called Freecycle which works well too but we were happy with Craigslist.
Click on this link for some photos of the post teardown sale view inside the old house.
Our contractor informed us that it would cost about $375 per 21 foot bin to dispose of the house and that there would be an estimated 40-50 bins full. We were determined to send as little as possible to the landfill and embarked on a comprehensive listing of all items we thought might be useful to others. Basically, I went around with my Canon digital camera while my wife Charlene logged a description on the computer of the item including any pertinent details size dimensions or color etc. It was an exercise that took around 3 hours to do.
We posted a main advertisement on Craigslist.org “Teardown House / Remodel – Everything Must Go” with a line by line posting of each item. We placed the digital photos (resized nicely with an application called “PixResizer”) on a shared photo viewing Yahoo site and posted the link to the photos in the ad. We organized the photos into categories – kitchen, doors, windows, fixtures, appliances, etc. We also posted some prices we thought were reasonable based on looking at some comparables on eBay and Craigslist.
Amazingly, the response from the public was absolutely incredible. We had over 500 people e-mail us for items they were interested in. Responding to all the messages was somewhat time intensive but most of the time we would just give them my cell phone number and tell them to come to the house at designated times – e.g., all day Saturday or Sunday. The truly interested would call, which was a shorter list. We had over 50 people come by over three weekends and a couple of evenings and buy stuff or take some things away for free. The conditions were that they undo things themselves (under my supervision, I would help sometimes) and haul it away asap. We even drafted a Release of Liability / Waiver form based on a couple of templates I found free on the web (Google search “release liability waiver form”). We made sure power and gas were switched off and tried to stagger people’s work to avoid too many people to supervise.
Whatever we could not sell, we subsequently listed free and the freebies went very fast. Here is a sample of things we sold and others we gave for free:
Sold:
Windows
Outside and inside doors, screen doors
Light fixtures
White picket fence
Driveway automatic gate
Garage door and mounting hardware
Kitchen cabinets, appliances, sink, fixtures
Bathroom fixtures, cabinets, mirrors, tub, toilet, shower enclosures
Built in cabinets
Furnace, central air conditioning, condenser, ducting (relatively new)
Hardwood floor
Family Room Wooden Bar
Back yard fence
Fireplace mantle, grill, trim
Hot water tank
Washer & dryer
Free
Gazebo
Shed
Some doors
Lumber on kids playstructure
Blinds
Copper pipes
Copper pipes, aluminum window frames, electrical wire (for recycled metal)
Larger built in cabinets
Koi pond rocks
It’s interesting that some items would just not sell – take the bar fridge for example, which was this circa 1950s model with imitation wood metal siding and a long chrome retro handle. I tried selling it for $10 but no one wanted it. I finally listed it free and within 12 hours had 30 people wanting it! Many people monitor the free listings more than they do paid listing and some have set up RSS feeds to notify them of new postings. It reminded me of our last move when we listed our moving boxes for free and it took all of 3 minutes for someone to claim them and 15 minutes later they were already picked up and gone!
There is also a site called Freecycle which works well too but we were happy with Craigslist.
Click on this link for some photos of the post teardown sale view inside the old house.
The Purchase & Planning
This is the start of my blog on our new house. I'm a little behind on dates so I will bring you up to speed in the next few postings.
2/2/06 - We just purchased our new …sorry, very rundown….house. The lot is beautiful – it's a big L shape 300’ deep by 150’ wide at the widest part of the L and a babbling creek running through it surrounded by large California oaks. Very quiet and peaceful in close proximity to the city and all our routines. In short, a fabulous location that is a real hidden gem.
But… the state of the house is a nightmare. There is a main house, 2 illegal apartments in back, a large shed/playhouse, gazebo and old deck.
The illegal apartments look like they have been abandoned for at least 10 years. Rumor has it that the owner had a Days Inn nearby and sent his overflow clients here! The City shut it down back in 1993 from what I can make of the code violation posting on both units.
The main house looks like it has big problems too with dry rot, water leakage damage, termites, rats, trees damaging the foundation and other issues. The inside looks ok but the layout is poorly done with a wing of bedrooms on the right leading to a family room that requires you to walk right through a pink 1950s bathroom. The driveway snakes along the left side of the house to a 2 car garage, one of which cannot be used due to the angle behind the house.
Looking beyond the current state of affairs, we see a great way to transform this house and property – tear down the illegal apartments to clear the lot, build an addition on the back of the house and with the slope allow for a lower level basement that will be mainly above ground. Effectively a two story at the very back but all the main living on a single floor, very similar to our previous home floor plan which we liked a lot.
As part of the purchase process, our agent, Samia Morgan of Keller Williams, recommended we talk to a contractor she highly recommended about the estimated costs of the fixing of the fixer upper. We scheduled an onsite visit by Brian Smart of Structural FX. He was really helpful in giving us rough cost estimates of various renovations – kitchen, bathroom, adding extensions, demolition, city fees etc. He also seemed like a very efficient contractor that paid a lot of attention to detail, was on time and on budget - what a find!
Brian recommended avoiding a two story addition as this would take 9 months to get City approval. He advised that a one story total rebuild would take around 1 month for approval. He also advised that if we started moving walls around and he had to open walls and ceilings up, all the 1950s construction would have to be brought up to code and that it would cost slightly more, be much faster and end up with a much better house if we just demolished everything. By tearing it all down, we would also have complete freedom to build the floor plan we really wanted.
Brian recommended that we work with an architect and engineering firm, ASI Engineering, that he really liked to work with. He said they had a nack for transforming his building ideas into plans quickly, elegantly and efficiently. We also visited a few of the homes he built and a few that ASI had architected, which were beautiful. Everyone we spoke to opened their doors to show us the work and had nothing but high praise for Structural FX’s team craftsmanship, efficiency, cost and after build follow up. We met with ASI and liked their portfolio of work. We met the architect, Vanni, and the engineer, Amir, who would be working closely with us.
We did not really shop around the architect work as we felt comfortable with the personal references we got for ASI and cross checked pricing with a few of our friends who had built their own houses. Their rates were very reasonable.
2/4/06 We asked Vanni to come by and see our current house to get an idea of what we liked and disliked. He toured the house and took pictures. He said he would come back to us with a design in 2-3 weeks. We said that was not how we wanted to work. First, we wanted him to produce a few block diagram rough sketches that we could review to get the internal layout right.
2/8/06 Vanni produced three options in just a few days. We combined two and started iterations of this process – 6 times in all – until we got the floor plan we wanted. However, he then came back with the square footage and we were about 20% over budget. It was disappointing that he had not taken that into account when presenting us the options. So we had to do a couple more iterations to cut it back – squeezing some room sizes, changing the layout a little. Finally we had it right and to budget.
This process took about 3 weeks in all, very fast and efficient. We had to make a lot of the tough decisions right up front –how big the kitchen and family rooms (our two most important) would be, the orientation of our home offices where we would be working a lot and wanting to see the backyard, the location of stairs leading downstairs to be non-intrusive and little kid friendly, the number of fireplaces, location of windows and size of windows, skylights, closets (a big problem in our last house was insufficient storage for a family with kids), entrance area to facilitate dropping all that kid stuff, mail, groceries, computers etc when we would come home and a lot of other nit picky details. It forced a lot of long discussions up front and should ultimately save us on changeorders later.
We also found it REALLY helpful to have our contractor involved during the initial drawing phase. He was able to give instant feedback on what would cost a lot or save money in the design
He also helped streamline the design for faster build. We had our real estate agent Samia also comment on resale value for things we were planning to add or remove. That was also very helpful.
Vanni then worked his magic to produce the 3 dimensional layout – front, back, sides, decks etc. We were very happy with his first pass and made just a few modifications. All the work he was doing would be needed by the City for permit approval so we were processing that in parallel.
2/24/06 Then the dreaded call came from our contractor – “are you sitting down...? the City changed its permitting process on January 1 and it is more complicated now to get approval for a single story renovation that involves substantial demolition of the existing structure." We would have to send our plans to everyone in the neighborhood within a 300 foot radius (105 houses in all), hold a public meeting with them to review our plans, then file formally with the City, wait for their review, then re-mail everyone again to let them know of pending final approval by the City, wait for any comments again, then mail again that the final approval will be granted and finally get our demolition permit – a process taking 3 months. Fortunately we sold our other house before this and had just moved into a rental close by with a month to month term on the back end and a nice landlord!
3/1/06 After a few days delay when the City's label printer broke and the part time person who printed the labels did not get them out too fast, we finally stuffed the envelopes and mailed them out.
3/12/06 The town meeting ended up being quite nice – we met all our immediate neighbors, served up cookies, cheese and crackers and drinks to make it a social event too. Out of 105 mailings, only 5 people showed up - mostly immediate neighbors - and there was consensus that our build would be good for everyone. One neighbor had stories of unruly guests running around screaming at midnight and wiffs of pot floating over the patio during BBQs, all because of the illegal apartments. They were very anxious to see it all go and a nice new house raise the values of their properties! We were actually happy we went through this process - none of the neighbors would be surprised during our build and we got to meet them all right up front and ask their input.
3/20/06 We submitted our City application and I made a point of visiting the inspector to ask if our plans would be complete before submitting them. He said that 99% of submissions are not complete and get a rejection letter asking for the missing information delaying the process. I relayed this to my contractor who did not like hearing that and he took extra measures to ensure everything would be in order. We became the 1% that did not get rejected for incomplete docs and probably saved a few weeks in the process by investing this time.
4/10/06 We did the final mailing and had to wait until 4/22 for any further comments. No one had any. The City approved our plans on 4/25 and did the final mailing to everyone again that they approved and would be issuing our demolition permit on 5/10. We have scheduled demolition for 5/15 and a fence is soon going up around the property to secure it.
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