Awaiting Inspections

Get 2 days to exhale while we await a series of 5 inspections this Friday…those consist of mechanical, plumbing, electrical, gas piping and framing. The chance of us skating through all 5, I am guessing, is zilch…but we will see. Have spent many of the past nights at the house running over 5,000 ft of coax, cat5e and speaker wiring – so have not been home for dinner too much…Diet Cokes and Fiber One bars for me…but I am complete (my goal is to not have my DIY work slow the process down at all – which it has not so far).

Naperville requires some more unique tests on plumbing and gas. They do what they call a stack test…basically fill up all the pipes and returns, fill up the bathtub and if it does not hold the water at a certain level in the bathtub…you don’t pass. Same with gas piping…fill the pipes with gas, attach a pressure meter and hope it stays about 30…or you don’t pass.

My only concern about the inspections is the framing/plumbing…we have finished living space above the garage – which includes plumbing. I am not sure if they are going to require anything special in terms of building that area out more. We shall see.

After inspections – or I should say, after passing inspections, I hope to get the siding guy up and running and then at the same time get the insulation guys in there. Quicker we get to drywall phase, quicker we can get on to the finish work.

My desires to turn this project into a long-term business model appear more and more possible – my problem is my mind is always thinking about the next step and every time I sketch an idea on paper (i.e., parlaying this build into two builds, and so on) – its seems possible and only gets me thinking more about it, which leads to more ideas and so on. However, the fact that we are as far into this as we are is something I would not have thought possible 3 years ago…so taking some (calculated) risk and putting your mind to something goes along way.

The other day, the 60yr old HVAC guy was over and made a comment that he wished everyone ran a build like I do – that most builders are morons! So I guess I am doing something right.

More on the inspections after Friday…