· Can we get weekly updates on progress? Pick a regular day and time to expect it
o He will most likely be sending updated on Fridays or Saturdays
o He often sends other quick updates when a milestone is happening (e.g. your roof is going up today)
o If he misses one or we want to know something off-schedule, just shoot him a nice email and he’ll respond
o We are not supposed to go in the house without a Ryan Homes employee. We can grab Chad if it’s a weekend or setup times to meet Joe there.
· How often are you walking through our house?
o He actually has not been through it since it has been framed
o Typically, he walks through them every couple of days when framing begins and then twice daily when electrical, HVAC, plumbing, finishing is happening
o He has 30 homes in construction right now in 3 neighborhoods
· Target date for pre-dry wall meeting. We will get an inspection done, so need some time to schedule
o Trusses delivered yesterday should be up by tomorrow, roof and tar paper down over the weekend, wiring/plumbing/HVAC contractors in the next week (9/1-9/6), so pre-dry wall meeting should be sometime the week of 9/8.
o The best time to not be in the way is when they are having the county inspection done. He will let us know ehen he schedules that.
· Confirm specific options discussed with SR/Prior PM & Current PM
o Exterior lights controlled in garage and at front door
§ Made a note and will request the electrician to do so based on the plans provided
o Placement of garage sink
§ May not be in the corner by the exit door depending on the placement of the water heater and electrical panel, but will put it somewhere on the back wall
§ Confirmed placement should be on the back wall of the garage,
§ Also asked that the cable jack in the study be placed away from the water heater and electrical panel so we can pull it through to the garage if we want to.
o Outlet on the stairs landing
§ Confirmed that there should be no issue having that added w/o counting as one of our extras
o Outlet for microwave in neighboring cabinet
§ Made a note to add this to the plans for the electrician.
§ Commented that the plan is for it to be in the cabinet above, so electrician may not adhere to the note, but we can move it if that happens.
o Placement of cable, phone and extra outlets (island, laundry, closet (2), vanity, garage (3))
§ Confirm placement of island outlet
· Can be done, but under an overhanging counter, code is that it has to be within 6 inches vertically of the counter. To do that means it runs into drawer, so the outlet will not be flush mounted with the cabinet. Instead it will be a box which they will paint white to match the cabinets.
§ Confirm placement of vanity outlet. Replace or extra?
· They can put an outlet in the side of the vanity under the counter
· I said that will work fine and we can figure it out from there
o Laundry room door opens out
§ PM said that should not be a problem as the door would still be a left side door
§ He warned that it may slip through the cracks during construction because the guys are so used to doing it the other way, but if so they can easily switch it for us
o Confirm w/ SR that we can shift the kitchen lights over the island
§ I asked PM about moving 2 of the lights so they are over the island.
§ He said he can make a note for the electrician to do it, but can not guarantee the exact locations. It will depend on how they line up with the floor joists and if there are any other things (plumbing/electrical, etc.) running through that area.
§ The light that is in the square, may be easy for us to do ourselves after the fact. We should check with your brother on that.
§ We need to email PM once we discuss and confirm what our exact request is so he can add it to the plans for the electrician
o Comfort height toilets (side note - we really thought we had added this, but after reviewing things at the pre-construction meeting we realized it wasn't there. Also, at the last minute we decided to change the shutters and door to black)
§ I asked PM about this. He said his boss said no, mainly because she doesn’t understand that it kind of fell through the cracks of the final decisions. He said she is worried that we already changed the colors on the shutters, now we’re asking for this and where will it stop.
§ He said he was going to go back to her on it one more time, but he can’t make any promises.
o We went through the options list again like we did with the old PM and confirmed everything
o I also provided another copy of the electrical plan and where we wanted everything placed and he took a copy of it along with some notes
§ He noted the eyeball lights over the fireplace
· General discussions / feelings
o New PM is a younger guy and seems to have his stuff together although he kind of seems a little overloaded at the moment
o I asked about the location of the irrigation system. We discussed it and I outlined my 2 future concerns (patio and running power to a shed
o He said he would try to help me with a rough map of the lines, but he won’t have an actual diagram of them to give us
o He made a note to try and push them back away from the area behind the family room and beside the morning room where a patio would go
o He discussed the energy star testing again. A 100 score is code and they target a 70-75 score. We will have the results of our scoring 30 days after closing
o He commented that instead of running the condensation line from the attic furnace to outside the house, they run it through a drain next to where the washer drain is in the laundry room. This lessens the chance of the line freezing in the winter months which would shut down the system. However, we may occasionally here water draining in that spot
o He said that a lot of these little changes we are asking for are things that he will try to do, but the bosses would say no to, so basically we shouldn’t promote that they’re being done, on our final survey for instance
o He also said several times that he wanted to be clear that our house isn’t finished until it’s finished. So if we see a hole in the drywall or something like that throughout the process, it will be fixed. I guess he gets a lot of questions/complaints from people on those sort of things
o Also with all of these little requests, it’s a lot to keep track of, so if we notice that something we discussed is not done, just let him know and he’ll get it fixed for us.
I have notes on your notes, but I need to get to bed, so I'll check back in with you tomorrow (hopefully!). :)
ReplyDeleteI can't wait to see what you have to say... :)
DeleteGarage sink: Ours is on the wall against the study, between the electrical panel and the water heater. I wasn't sure I liked that at first, but that wall would have been hard to use for anything else anyways. I suppose we could have put our chest freezer there, in fact I might move it to underneath the panel anyways! So thanks for that idea. ;)
ReplyDeleteMicrowave outlet: Ours is in the cabinet above (we have the free-standing version) and it's a bit of a pain. It has a really long metal-wrapped cord and the box isn't small. Makes that cabinet less useful. If I'd known about that I would have asked for it to be in the super skinny cabinet next door, or above the fridge cabinet, rather than the one it's in.
Lights over island: we had them move one of our lights, it was in our paperwork from the very beginning, but it wasn't actually done until AFTER closing. Make sure they do it before the drywall goes up on the ceiling! Fixing drywall is a pain, and the repair will never look as good as the original work.
Irrigation: if it's the same people that did ours, if you're around when they're doing the installation they'll work with you. They were really nice, gave me some good advice. For us, the lines run within two-ish feet of the back of our morning room and deck, and the same on the side of the family room area. So if you already know what you want to do, at least in general, they can probably make it work.
What's your PM's name? I know it's not the same one we had, because he got moved to a new neighborhood last year, but it could be the guy that was the assistant PM.
By the way, if you ever want pictures of how something was done in my house, just ask! I have a TON of pictures. :)
DeleteThanks south for your notes Amanda! The are super helpful!!! Our PM is Joe, he is in 2 or 3 different neighborhoods right now... And seems super busy.
DeleteSo much, not south :)
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