It’s been a bit crazy since our last update. We’ve got progress in a number of places but we’ve stalled on electricity and as a result of a huge storm we had here in Houston, it’s not clear when electrical will progress
Electrical
As we mentioned last update, we were expecting an inspection the next Monday. Electrician 2 felt a couple of things needed to be fixed before that happened so Electrician 3 made those changes. Ultimately, the inspection happened late that week and passed with no problem.
Travis had already put in a request for electrical service several weeks before this so we expected the meter to be installed and power to be connected pretty quickly. Early last week, we saw on our security camera that two guys had gone back to where the service panels were and then came back out. They didn’t look like they would have been there to install (they weren’t really carrying anything significant). We figured they were the “team before the install team”. Turns out that was the case and they red flagged us indicating that we needed 400 Amp service rather than 200 Amp service. Travis had spent a lot of time on the electrical plan and knew for a fact we only needed 200 Amp service, but we weren’t really sure how to escalate this.
Travis called CenterPoint and after quite some time was given the name & number of our service representative who could help sort it out. He tried called her several times but the phone only rang and rang for minutes before coming back with a message that the number was not set up for voicemails. In the mean-time he talked to Electrician 3 and he gave some clues for who to ask for. Travis calls back and ultimatlely asks for the regional service manager. The guy comes on the phone and they discuss our inability to connect with our service manager. Turns out that person doesn’t work there anymore and he’s shocked we were given her name/number to call. This guy ultimately talks through our problem with Travis and asked him to send the load analysis showing that a 200 Amp service will suffice. This is 2 weeks ago on Tuesday. Travis sends it off and by Thursday morning, the guy comes back and indicates that CenterPoint agrees we are good with 200 Amp service, but for some reason, their contractor that actually does the work still isn’t comfortable installing 200 Amp service rather than 400 Amp service. He indicates he’s escalating to see if he can just get CenterPoint technicians to do the work. On the same day we’ve been told that it’s been 30 days since we requested service and because it hasn’t happened, ERCOT (the group that manages the Texas Electrical grid) has cancelled our request and we’ll have to re-request. Travis puts in a request for electrical service again and that afternoon CenterPoint guy comes back and says they will do it themselves as soon as they see the request come through (usually takes 1-2. business days to filter throught).
Two hours later, we have a massive storm in Houston that knocks out power for about 1 million homes and does tremendous damage in our part of town as well as many other parts of the city. We lost power at both Travis’s house and the new house, but luckily we had no major damage (in comparison, the house next door to Travis’s as well at least 3 others on the street had big trees fall on their roofs). Needless to say, we are not going to be a priority for the new service so we’re in a bit of limbo on when we can expect that. It’s been 9 days now and all but about 1200 houses have had power restored, but there will still be a lot of work for them to make some of that work more permanent. We’re hoping we’ll get it soon, but who knows.
Garage Door
The replacement panel for our garage door arrived and was installed yesterday
Notice how the windows all line up!
Bricks
As of this week, the masons have just about finished everything. Since our last updated, they’ve finished all the columns (front porch and back porches), bricked round the replacement patio door, and done most of the patch work they need to do. We believe there are two minor repairs they need to make and finish cleaning up everything. We’re both quite happy with how it’s turned out.
We forgot to take a picture - here is one from the security camera.
Doors
All of the external doors have now been installed (but not painted). We’re really happy with them. In the picture above you can see the replacement patio door that is finally correct (after 4 attempts by Home Depot). It looks great! You can also see one of the exterior doors (on the patio - it leads into the utility room).
Our new front door. It will ultimately be a darkish orange color.
The interior doors will start getting installed next Wednesday
Interior doors waiting to be installed.
Floors
Over the past couple of weeks the guys have been working to prepare for the hardwood floors. The hardwoods will still be quite a while, but they’ve been preparing subfloors. This is a multi-step process. First they used some self leveler to fill in any low spots in the concrete slab (all on the original slab). Once that set, they heat up tar and brush that all over the slab and then stick 2x4s in the tar at very regular spacing (boards used in this fashion are called screeds). The tar dries overnight, but that portion probably took 4-5 days overall. Once they finished with the tar/screeds, they started putting down plywood subfloors. In our case, they’re put 1 1/8” tongue & groove plywood. They wrapped that up yesterday and it all looks great. it’s nice to have a level surface throughout the majority of the house now.
The big room with half the tar/screeds installed.
View through front door with subfloors in place.
Living room with subfloors and new patio door
Paint
After a bit of work, we think we’ve made all of paint selections. We probably need to do a bit of review at different times of day to make sure they work with varying amounts of light, but all in all, looks like we’re in a good place.
Travis checking cabinet color against some paint options.
Upcoming Work
As we indicated above, the internal doors will be installed starting this week. We expect the mason’s to finish the last two small items. At this point, we’re really needing electrical so that we can get air conditioning working in the house. There are only a few things they can still do before we have conditioned space. They won’t do trim, cabinets, final paint or hardwoods until the are working. Hopefully we’ll get power this coming week!
Some photos from the storm
The first photo below is our downed fence at the new house. The guys have temporarily got it standing with braces but we’ll need to put in a new one once we’re done. it was in bad shape anyway, so not a huge loss.
