Pre-Drywall Meeting Results

We had our pre-drywall meeting yesterday morning.  I got all of my questions answered and got some good news and some bad news.  First the good news... PM thinks we will be able to settle the week of Sept 17th!  This is earlier than we thought and it will allow us to lock in our rate soon! 

The contractors were busy working while we were there.  The well and septic were being installed at the same time (well in back yard, septic in front) and a third crew was starting to put the siding on.  Here's a few pictures of the guys (and one girl!) in action:

Drill rig for the well.

Guys drilling the well.

Laying out the drain-field units for the septic system.

Siding is going on!

Scaffolding for the siding... that does not look too sturdy!

Now on to the answers to my questions:

1. HVAC - Will we get intake pipe from outside? (see previous post for further explanation).

Intake pipe from outside is only required with a finished basement (since they'd be walling off the furnace area).  Since we plan on finishing the basement in the near future, we'd really like to have it.  Our PM basically explained the same thing my "expert" told us, that the house is designed to intake air through cracks in the walls, etc (seems to be the opposite of "energy efficient" to me).  PM said he would ask if we can have the pipe installed, but warned us that RH doesn't typically like to do extra things that are not required by code (even though we said we'd pay for it... it can't be more than $100 or so).  He tried to give us some BS about the contractor having to come back out, when two minutes earlier he pointed out that the vent pipe was not yet hooked up, so they'd be coming back out to do that anyway.  I hope he can get this for us because it will make our lives much easier when we go to finish the basement in the future.

2. Attic Access – Should be in master bedroom closet, not spare bedroom ceiling.

Before I even asked the question, PM said we would have two ceiling access panels: one in the location it's framed out now in the spare bedroom and one in the master closet.  He said there's a code requirement that when you have an open area like our 2-story foyer, you need attic access points on both sides.  Apparently there's another crazy person out there writing codes who also worries about people falling through the ceiling :).

3. Height to bottom of cabinets above fridge. 68"

4. Ask to put off seeding until a week or two after closing so we can install sprinkler system? How deep will septic system and other pipes be? 

I actually did some research on this the night before our meeting and apparently it's much trickier to do an irrigation system with a well vs a public system and you can actually ruin you pump if you do it wrong (= lots o' $$$).  So I think we're going to stick with the traditional sprinklers for the first year and take our time to do our irrigation system right.  We did speak to the the PM about it though, and he actually suggested drilling another well that would be exclusively for the irrigation system.  That way we can design it from scratch and not have to use up our "house" water pressure or risk messing with our pump.  The other option is to tap into the line somewhere between the well and the pump.  I'm kind of leaning toward a second well though as long as it's not a ridiculous amount of money.  I would just feel better if we didn't have to mess with our drinking water at all.  I'll have to do some more research on that.

5. Water pressure estimate for irrigation system design.  N/A.  See above.

6. Check if second floor windows have the latches you can open to clean outside of windows.  

Yes!  (Like I'm ever actually going to clean the outside of the windows :))

After the meeting I took pictures of all of the walls that had pipes or anything else we want to avoid drilling into in the future (my dad has been known to mistake studs for water pipes in the past :)).  Here's what I came up with (if you enlarge you can read the tiny labels on each):

The length of this post got away from me, so I'm going to save the "bad news" from our meeting for tomorrow.  Stay tuned!

Pre-Drywall Meeting Tomorrow

Our pre-drywall meeting has been scheduled for tomorrow morning...  I can't believe it's here already!  Surprisingly, my list of questions is pretty brief.  Here goes:

1. HVAC - Will we get intake pipe from outside? (see below for further explanation).

2. Attic Access – Should be in master bedroom closet, not spare bedroom ceiling. (see below for further explanation).

3. Height to bottom of cabinets above fridge. (check model).

4. Ask to put off seeding until a week or two after closing so we can install sprinkler system?  How deep will septic system and other pipes be?

5. Water pressure estimate for irrigation system design.

6. Check if second floor windows have the latches you can open to clean outside of windows.

#1 Explanation: Our family friend who owns an HVAC/appliance company came with us to our last house visit.  He checked out all of our systems and said everything looked pretty good except for one thing.  Our heating system currently only has an exhaust pipe running to outside of the house and we will just have a stub pipe for the intake which will suck air from inside the house, condition it, then recirculate it.  Apparently this is a perfectly acceptable way to do it, but it's much less efficient and clean than the other way, which would be to have a second pipe running to outside of the house to intake air from outdoors.  

According to my expert, the outside air is about 8 times cleaner than the air in your house (think dust, cleaning supplies, paint fumes etc).  In addition, if you are sucking air from inside the house, that air will need to be replaced somehow otherwise your house will turn into a vacuum.  So outside air will try to seep in anywhere it can... around windows and doors and any small cracks in the outside walls, which makes the overall house less efficient.  Also, when we finish the basement, there are requirements as to how and where you can wall off the around around the HVAC system if you only have the stub.  With the pipe to the outside, you could do whatever you want.  

Obviously, it's preferable to have the intake pipe, so we're going to push for that.  I did some quick calculations and it's no more than 50 lf of additional PVC pipe and it can't take more than an hour or so to install, so it shouldn't cost more than about $100 to do.  I have horrible indoor allergies so I'm really going to push for this.

The internal workings of our heating system.  The exhaust pipe will be connected on the right
and the intake stub or pipe will be in the center.

#2 Explanation:  According to the plans (I found them at the house and took some pictures... shhhh), the ceiling attic access panel is supposed to be in the master bedroom closet, but right now it is framed out in the ceiling of one of the front bedrooms.  It would look much nicer to have the access panel in a closet instead of the middle of the ceiling, but the main reason I'm concerned with this is that in order to get to above the master bedroom (where we plan on eventually putting a ceiling fan or recessed lighting) from the present access location, you'd need to walk across the open two-story foyer area. 


I worry.  A lot.  About pretty much anything you can imagine.  

So the thought of my dear husband and/or father trekking across 2" wide studs above an 18 foot drop does not make my nerves very happy.  Now I realize that there are ways to get around this and that the chances of them actually falling are somewhat slim, but I don't see any reason to subject myself to this stress when the plans clearly state that the access panel should be in a different, more convenient location.   

The location on the left is where the access is currently framed out.  Am I crazy, or do the plans clearly state with with the Master Bedroom Upgrade (MBU), the access should be in the master bedroom closet next to the sitting room instead of bedroom #3? 

I will have an update later this week with the answers to all of my questions!