Heavy rain moved through the area early Friday morning, before daylight. With intermittent light rain and overcast through the rest of the day, I was not surprised John and Tim did not appear as they said they would. While nothing was done in the backyard, some "progress" was made.
Late Thursday evening, I got an email from Frank (HAC) stating that he had learned of the Plan "B" proposed by Bob and Drew (landscaping) to move the two existing AC condensing units in two steps. Bob and Drew had proposed this plan after Mike had contacted them about initiating Plan "A", which Bob described as a "Chinese Fire Drill" to get the east slab pour immediately. This east slab was never in the landscaping scope of work but was to be arranged by Mike (Plan "0"). Mike apparently had concluded that he did not want to do this after all and turned to Bob to get it done. As proposed by Bob, Plan "B" would first move the units to a temporary pad and then, once the east slab is poured (at the same time as the other walkways) the units would be put in their final position.
Frank's Thursday night note was not subtle. He thought Plan "B" was a BAD idea and would cost us a lot of money, potentially damage the equipment and result in an AC outage during the hot part of the year. Frank's note did not copy anyone else. I responded to Frank that perhaps we needed to talk Friday.
Friday morning, Frank called and he reiterated his opinion that the "two-step" Plan "B" was not in our best interest. While he did not give me any quantitative estimate of the additional cost of this plan, I told him that I would contact Bob and ask him to provide a cost estimate of pouring the east slab separately(on a non-emergency basis) from the walkways so that Frank could move the AC units just once. I subsequently did call Bob and made the request. I then called Mike to alert him of Frank's concerns. Apparently Frank, after talking with me Friday morning, went ahead and called Mike and discussed the matter. Shortly after talking with Mike, Bob called back and said they estimated that, due to the "short load" that would be needed for the east slab, the cost would be about $1500 higher than if they poured the slab at the same time as the walkways. These walkways would be poured toward the end of the landscaping effort. I asked Bob if they could do their landscaping work around the AC units in their current position. Bob said that they could.
Later in the morning, I sent a note to all the affected parties (Mike, Frank, Bob and "Solar" John), summarizing the discussions and proposing a Plan "C". This plan would delay movement of the AC units and installation of the solar inverter panel rack until the east slab is poured, which would happen at the same time as the walkways. I concluded my note with a request for any additional information that might drive us to rethink this approach and stating that no response would be interpreted as agreement with Plan "C".
Later in the day, I got another note from Frank stating his disagreement with Plan "C". While he said that the cost of the two-step Plan "B" would far exceed the additional $1500 cost estimated by Bob for Plan "A", he did not offer any new information or suggest any alternative other than to just go ahead and pay the additional $1500. My response was: "If there is yet another option we need to consider, I am willing to do so. Otherwise, unless someone identifies additional costs or other impediments associated with waiting until the walkways are poured, we will save the $1,500, which to us is a lot of money." I have received no further messages from Frank or anyone else. Therefore we assume Plan "C" is a go.
The other development was that, in Frank's note of Thursday evening, he said that despite his efforts to bring Patrick (ventilation engineer) into consultation on our ventilation issue, it does not appear that Patrick has any intention of doing so or even letting us know that he has no intention of doing so. Frank was very apologetic about this since he had recommended Patrick and apparently had gotten assurances from Patrick that he would honor his pledge to work with us. While we have wasted three weeks to come to this conclusion, I feel it is for the best not to have Patrick involved. Damn engineers!
I sent an email to Mike, Tyler and Frank Friday afternoon stating that we were no longer going to wait for Patrick's involvement and were going to go ahead an place the order for the 30" sunroom cupola. We would somehow resolve the ventilation issue between now and when the cupolas are ready to be installed. This morning, I sent a note to the cupola builder asking them to include the 30" cupola in our order.
I noticed that 12 more bundles of shingles had shown up in the garage since Wednesday. Good news indeed. Don't know when the roofers will be back to finish, but at least they found some more shingles.
T returned from her two week Texas adventure Friday night. It is good to have her home safely.
Drew (pest control) was here today (Saturday) to treat the ground under the sunroom and garage in anticipation of pouring the slabs next week. He said they injected a total of 100 gallons. Drew requested that we notify them at least 48 hours prior to pouring the exterior walkways so that they can return to treat those areas as well.
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