I didn't go to the site today. No need to. The garage was poured and only minor things were getting done by Carbide Construction. I am a little disappointed with myself that I have wasted a few days since the modular units arrive. I did not have all my subs lined up to get started. I was still trying to figure out who to use. The good news is that next week the site will be busy. Very busy.
I've been busy since we (more of an I than we and Daniela going along with it) decided to buy the lot. I originally submitted the construction plans to the city in October of 2015 with the old design (see Day 14) and in July 2016 I submitted the redesigned plans. Technically the outline was roughly the same as it had to be due to the approval of the Planning Commission and City Council. The redesign is about 100 SF smaller in building area which gave us a refund from the Alexandria Water Quality Improvement Fund. This fund was created to protect the Chesapeake Bay. Looking at a map we are about a hour drive from the Bay. So why were we being charged for this? This fund and many other's across the East Coast take into consideration the Chesapeake Bay Watershed area which covers every river going into the Chesapeake Bay.
In addition to making the building area smaller the facade changed materials and the floor plan worked better for modular unit construction. The new design is much more traditional. This goes well with the neighborhood for resale value and it was cheaper to build as the majority of materials are common and the tradesman are familiar with them.
When I resubmitted the plans to the city they wanted me to slip sheet all the new sheets over the old one. I was there over 2 hours adding the new sheets. It was basically a new house. The good thing is that the modular house is approved by a third party state inspector. The city only has the plans for reference. Additionally superior walls is a system so there is no real review required. The city had some basic comments they needed corrections but nothing an architect could not handle. Finally in August, 2016 the revised plans were approved!
We were ready to build! We only had to finalize the loan.