I’m incredulous that certain trades remain in business at all. Some of the frustrations I experience on a weekly basis:

- Businesses who don’t respond to voice mail, who don’t answer their phones at all, or who hire an answering service. I have left messages up to 10 times for a return call, and get nada in return.

- Tradespeople who say they’ll call or drop in to the job site on a certain day, and just don’t show up. No phone call to explain.

- When I ask for a quote, some businesses take up to 2 months to prepare one. It’s very hard to make informed decisions and comparisons when there is not a professional response. One supplier quoted me a price on interior doors, saying they were “on sale” until a certain date. I responded that I’d like to order the doors, but he didn’t get back to me until after the date passed. When he did respond, he assured me the price remained the same. However, he then emailed to say that that was the price for one supplier, but the one I wanted charged more for their doors (who knew there were more than one supplier?) The price difference wasn’t huge, so I said “go ahead.” When I didn’t hear from him about a deposit, I emailed him. He responded by sending a third quote, this one substantially higher. ( “Upon closer examination appears Wescon price on 3 ft bifold was provided on paint grade not fir.”) At this point, about 2 months after I first agreed on the quoted price, I just told him to forget it, I’d get them in town.

- We have been trying to hire locally, but sometimes it’s just too much work to communicate, and sometimes I think they feel there is no competition, so they price their services unreasonably.

- A few tradespeople make a habit of blaming everyone else for their delays. “I told the electrician we needed the wiring done.” ” The warehouse screwed up on the order.” “I told my guys to install that. They messed up.” Etc. etc. As far as I’m concerned, the buck stops at the boss. He/she takes the responsibility, no matter who is at fault. And, he/she communicates with the general contractor by phone or email, so that we know when to expect them to show up or fulfill the order. It’s also interesting how well they can communicate when they want to pick up a cheque (on the spot – am I an easy mark for cash, compared to the more experienced contractors they deal with?)

- Many tradespeople aren’t interested in re-using the used materials I have purchased. They can’t be bothered to exercise their creativity in figuring out how to make these interesting materials work. Granted, they can’t upcharge for the materials I have sourced myself (standard practice.)

-Some pay lip service to our philosophy of building green, but then turn around and use the toxic materials they’re used to working with when I’m away from the worksite. Generally, I have caught the important items (such as styrofoam insulation underneath the concrete floor in the garage and studio) before it’s too late. I’ve talked before about trying to get the people working on site to recycle materials into the appropriate bins, but that is always a job for me.

- And, while I’m on a rant anyway, I just want to say that building inspectors, as good as they are here in the regional district, should be getting educated about new building materials and methods. They should not be offloading the required inspections onto the engineers whose expertise we have to pay for (building envelope and spray foam insulation, for example.) I called an inspector this week about regulations regarding hearth requirements for our fireplace. The inspector said “call the fireplace people who have the WETT ticket, for your answer.” I think he should have said, “I don’t know, but I’ll look it up and call you back.” We pay over $5000 for a building permit. I question what we get for that.

I’m sure I’m not perfect as a homeowner/general contractor.  I negotiate for the best price, and will argue with the contractor if I think I have been overcharged. But, I pay my invoices on time and seldom ask for trade credit (30 days) or withhold the 15% builder’s lien holdback. I check references. I attempt to communicate in whatever way the tradesperson works best. Occasionally, I will pay cash for casual labour.

I plan to review some of the many trades that have performed their jobs professionally.

We moved out of our two storage units into the garage.

Movers chose the studio roof route to move the fridge into the house.

The van driver insisted on driving down the driveway, even though I’d mentioned how many trucks had to be towed out already.

This was the result.

And then, they needed a tow.

And, in a non sequitur, Happy Canada Day!

This is the first time, and hopefully the last, that a Hummer parks in our driveway. It’s the guy doing the pre-wire for audio/tel/internet/video.

In fact, you can tell how much activity there is around here by the number of vehicles on the road:

In the continuing saga, begun from my point-of-view on Nov. 19, the day I first applied for a Hydro connection, we have progress.

The “T-connection” could not be found by our electrician in either the stated location (the first lot line when the developer subdivided a dozen or so years ago) or 3’ inside our altered lot corner, as it was supposed to be. It could not be found by the Hydro crew, who then applied to BC Highways to trench a line from across the road (a two week permit delay.) In the meantime, Hydro hired a private crew, who found the line and inserted a new T-connection. Our electrician did a temporary service last week, and then re-applied for Hydro hook-up. We waited 8 more days, and now, finally, Hydro has hooked up our temporary service. They could only charge us for the actual hook-up ($885), not all the work that was, somewhere in the history of the development, not done or not properly located.

Now we have electricity to our temporary home, and the infernal noise of the generator can be silenced.

Here’s the latest “look”. The roof rafters are mostly on, and window framing is nearly complete. The main entry roof, parallel to the dormer roof, has yet to be framed.

The weather deities smiled on us for two wonderfully clear (little wind, no rain) days. We met with tradespeople, and D even became a 15-minute expert on building forms (for footings for pillars to hold up entry roof- he was the “steel re-bar guy”.)

In other news, we have learned from the Highways department that Hydro’s permit application to dig a new trench to install a connection duct should be processed within a week, so we’re hoping Hydro will be on top of it, since the promised connection could not be found by Hydro. Hydro will have to pay for the connection. The crew has been building for more than 4 months with no electrical connection (running off a generator.)

It was exciting for me to watch the first finish on our home taking shape this week.

After the foundation concrete has cured for a month, we can backfill, or place soil up against the foundation walls to bring it up to more-or-less finish grade. At this step it’s necessary to bury “chases” or ducts for telephone, electrical, water, and natural gas to provide a passage for these services to get from the road to the house. We have to locate the connections at the lot line. Unfortunately, our lot line has moved about 40 feet or so since the services were installed. Our natural gas and electrical connections are in fact on our neighbour’s lot, across his paved driveway, and will require considerably more digging and expense to locate and hook up.

We are anxious to hook up electricity especially, so that we can shut the generator up. So, backfilling is important.

We needed to import 24 more truckloads of sand to fill in behind the 14′ foundation wall.

Much more fun is watching the drama of bringing in a truckload of big boulders, which could, without very careful control, continue rolling down the hill to crush an RV or a storage shed or a bear who might be walking across their path.

Steve, the machine operator, has such precise control that he could pick up, with his one-yard bucket, a  stick that’s 1/2″ in diameter and place it into a scrap pile. (I’m sure he just does this as a parlour trick! Oh, wait, I guess the excavator wouldn’t fit into a parlour.)

Steve placed the great rocks at the edge of the driveway, to create our very first finished “something”, a rock garden. I was itching to go out to buy daffodil and tulip bulbs, but controlled this urge.