This Week's Achievement....

Not much progress this week. I did realize that I did not put nearly enough contingency into our budget. "Our" Mike and Nate spent one day (Tuesday) on the sunroom framing, but there was no other outside activity. "Bobcat" Tom did not appear to work on the utility trench as predicted. Frank's (HVAC) John showed up to continue with the basement boiler installation. He was joined this afternoon by Tim. They will continue on Monday.

We did get an invoice from Tyler (architecture) for 10% of the charges for their construction phase services. That percentage represents his estimate of the extent of the construction progress at this point. Realizing (now) that we will pay for these services whether we use them or not, I called "Our" Mike and advised him to not hesitate to consult Tyler whenever possible. Mike, while disagreeing with Tyler's current completion estimate, said that he has only contacted Tyler to reconcile errors or omissions in the drawings. He doubted that he could use as much consulting as I am going to be charged for, but thought maybe he might be able to use Tyler as another carpenter.

While talking with Mike, I took the opportunity to express my disappointment with the pace of the construction. Mike assured me that he was doing what he could and asked for patience.

With respect to "Bobcat" Tom coming this week, he never returned Mike's call of earlier this week. I wonder if he will next week. Mike said that he did talk with Jim (glass roof), brought him up to date on the project status (Jim had requested an update last week) and requested an updated quote for installation of the glass roof. Apparently, Mike has decided that he is no longer willing to install the roof himself. That will increase the cost of the roof by about 20%.

Mike also said he has received an updated quote for the Lincoln doors and windows for the garage. Mike never shared the original written quote with us but told me the cost. While I have not seen the updated numbers, they are 20% higher than what he told me before. Still will be about one-half of the cost of Marvin doors and windows for the garage.

There has been no response from Eric or Betsy (solar) regarding my request for a copy of the Net Metering Agreement. Eric emailed me yesterday, saying the agreement was approved on October 31 and therefore our next payment was due. I replied that I would arrange for the next payment as soon as I got a copy of the agreement. No response...isn't that interesting!

Snow coming this weekend.

Stay warm everyone. Think how cold it would be if it wasn't for global warming...sorry, it is now referred to as climate change (that covers everything, including locust).