New Home Warranty

I was talking to Ryan yesterday about some minor changes to the ceiling of the 3rd floor due to joists being thicker than we had expected. During this call, he mentioned that someone at the city let him know that they are now requiring proof of new home warranty before accepting building permit applications. But, we're building ourselves, we don't need to get the new home warranty? Apparently we need a letter from the provincial government confirming that we are exempt. Ugh. The new home warranty is useless to us. We have to pay money ($14k, it turns out) to a 3rd party to ensure our house is built correctly. Having heard from people who had to make claims on houses built by someone else, it's really hard to actually make use of these warranties. I can just imagine calling them up and saying, "yeah, the contractor I hired screwed up and my house is falling apart?" I'm pretty sure they would simply laugh at me. So why would I give them Fourteen Thousand Dollars for that? Because the government says I have to.

I can apply for an exemption. The application fee is $750, payable to the provincial government. Hey, better than $14k. But, then I am not allowed to sell the house for 10 years. Um, what if I win the lottery and decide to move to Belize? Well, then I have to pay the $14k, plus whatever extra fees they demand for having not paid them in the first place. Or maybe it's less, since the "warranty" period is reduced. It should be less. But at that point, I will be legally required to give these people as much money as they demand. I'm sure they'll cut us a break, right?

So, I called all five of the companies granted the authority to take my fourteen thousand dollars. The first one simply said no. They only take money from builders. Fair enough, although it made me slightly nervous that anyone would take my money. Second company told me to fill in a form on their website and they'll send me info. He's the one who told me the price. $10k of that is a security deposit, potentially refunded at some point. But we'd have to pay it up front, before the house is even built. And I'm sure they keep the interest they earn on it over however many years they hold it for. The other 3 companies don't even answer their phones. I got voicemail, and 26 hours later, not a single one has called back. I am calling to ask them how I can give them Fourteen Thousand Dollars (or more?). And they can't be bothered to call me back. But surely they'll be all over it when they are required to pay for repairs to my house. Don't you think?

So now I wait. I have sent in a request to have access to the government website where I register my warranty, or apply for exemption. That will take up to a week. I have also filled in the form for the one company who has even acknowledged my request for information. I have no idea how long that will take.

So, will the engineers be finished their assessment of our plans before the government workers create a web account?

Stairs, Part I

I am calling this "Part I", because it feels like it's going to end up being a long saga. This is the general idea of what we want our stairs to look like:

Modern Staircase by Spokane Architects & Building Designers Uptic Studios

But, those are going to be significantly more expensive than something like this:

Contemporary Staircase by Amsterdam Media & Bloggers Holly Marder

So, the plan is to do the cool metal stairs between the main floor and the second floor, and do something similar with wood stringers for the 2nd floor to the 3rd floor and down to the basement. I submitted for quotes to 3 different metal fabricators for the metal section and planned to submit to a stair company for the wood sections. I got 1 quote back. $33k for 3 half runs, and 2 landings. So then we'd have to get someone else to build another 3 runs in wood. But then MrDinks found Artistic Stairs, who apparently built the stairs to the deck on our current house, and who does both wood and metal stairs. So we can get them to do all 3 sections of stairs.

I visited Artistic Stairs' showroom on May 1. I met the sales guy, and explained what we were looking for. I have been thinking about walnut floors, so then we'd want walnut on the stairs. So I asked him to quote walnut. I also indicated that we wanted horizontal aircraft cables for the railings. I came home and emailed him the drawings and our inspiration photos. After 4 weeks of emailing him reminders, I finally got a quote back. $30k, but since he didn't remember what kind of railings I wanted, he didn't quote on them at all. He also quoted maple treads. And he quoted on doing all 3 sections in metal. Well, all 3 sections in metal for $30k isn't too bad. So I asked him to add in the railings, and use walnut treads.

Next quote came in at $115k. Yeah, I dropped my phone when I read that price. An increase of $85k? This has gone from a reasonable price, to "we don't want this job" pricing. I called the salesman, and he explained that not only was walnut REALLY expensive, but he had forgotten to quote on the landings for our stairs. And for some reason, aircraft wire is really expensive. Weird. But I had him go back to maple, and put in horizontal steel spindles. Another week goes by, and the quote is now down to $85k. Of that, $49k is the stairs and landings. And we're still talking about metal right from the basement to the 3rd floor. So that's still in line with the quote from the metal fabricator. But the railings alone are another $36k. Thirty-six thousand dollars. For pretty basic railings. I think this is still "we don't want this job" pricing. To put it in perspective, that's more than the entire kitchen, including cabinets, counters, floors and possibly even appliances. It's more than we are spending on triple glazed euro style windows with custom colour trim. And that's for RAILINGS.

So, MrDinks talked to our GC, his brother. They spent the weekend joking about taking unpaid leaves to build our stairs themselves. Or hiring families from South America, flying them up here and putting them up for months at a time. Apparently, the stairs in the second photo above would cost about $3k, and the railings another $2k, for a 3 story house. But then we'd have to put carpet on top of that.

So, now I call more companies for quoted on wood sections, and railings.

And maybe some elevator companies. 

Basement height

We got drawings from the joist/truss company this week. BIL took a look, and noticed that in the basement, they had spec'd a 7' post at the bottom of the stairs. Well, next to the bottom of the stairs. Not in a spot where anyone would run into it. But there was a beam that sat on top of this post, that cuts the basement in half. So, max height of 7'? Plus, there are posts on either side of the stairs, with a beam going across them. This hangs below the 7' post, across the bottom of the stairs. BIL, who is as tall as MrDinks (his brother), envisioned a dent in that beam at the bottom of the stairs in the shape of MrDinks' head, and called attention to it. Or maybe he was thinking of his own head, but either way...

So he called the joist company, and confirmed that was a typo, and the post is actually 8'. No problem.

But then MrDinks became concerned, because the basement was supposed to be 9' tall, so why an 8' post? Well, it turns out the basement is actually only 8'8" at the bottom of the joists that hold up the first floor. The beam is 12" thick, and hangs below the joists. So the posts holding that up would be just under 8'. So, what are our options to keep it as high as possible? We can have a flush beam, so the joists butt against the beam instead of sitting on top of it. But then any ductwork will hang below that instead of running between the beams. So, we spent the day considering the possibility of digging the floor lower. That sounded expensive. MrDinks asked about using a steel beam, so it could be only 6" thick instead of 12". But that's also expensive. The joist salesman suggested a semi-flush beam. So we'll have 6" above the beam for duct work and plumbing, and the beam will hang 6" down, giving us an 8'2" ceiling. And only costs about $150 in extra joist hangers. Done.

Now, hopefully, we can get all our ducts run through that 6" gap. And, MrDinks better not complain that the beam is too high to hang the chin up bar from, and that he's hitting his head on the joists!