Day Three:  Nice warm sunny day.  Much demolition progress.  Some framing lumber is delivered on site. Four guys working, one mostly putting debris in the dump truck.  They vacated about 3:30 with an hour or two demolition work left.  Phil Rea office people are bugging me about a "progress payment" which is due upon start of reconstruction.  (Not Yet, guys!!)  They are also bugging us about starting bath demolition on Monday.  With cabinet lead time of 5 weeks, we see no logic of tearing out our bathroom now.

Day 6:  Begins with a wind chill of 19 degrees.  (Mommas don't let your babies become carpenters.) 

Day 7:  Big screw up yesterday.  Good eye Kathy! Roof rafter spacing on right end all wrong. End rafter is a bit wider than the rest (see before photo on right).  Their spacing is not uniform and UGLY.  Asked Tim WHY and he said, somewhat reluctantly, that it was done that way so they could use a standard piece of plywood (without cutting) for the roof sheathing. I told him to fix it.  He was not happy. 

 Tearout/demolition revisited today as they had to remove all the rafters and roof sheathing.  Took the team of four all day. Some of them even worked during the lunch hour.  Reframed roof photo at left. While the spacing is NOT perfect, it is acceptable.  (Where have all the carpenters gone, long time passing....?)

Day 9:  Must have been a tough day yesterday since no one showed up to work until after 0930. Guys came and went all morning, but the first nail was driven a little after 1100.  Progress was light despite a nice 60 degree day. Roofing shingles about 30% done.

Day 10: Another nice morning. It would be good if they could finish the roofing shingles before the promised afternoon rain.  They, mostly just Tim, devoted their day to adding the bead boards to the underside of the exposed roof overhang.  I'm thinking they need to do this before the roof shingles can be nailed down.  Beadboard about 66% done.

Day 11:  Monday, Little snow storm ends about 0800 with 3 to 4 inches of the white stuff.  Cold at 26 degrees.  Don't expect to see any workers today.

Day 12: Begins with snow still on roof and ground, 17 degrees with a 10 degree wind chill.  Not surprising that no workers have showed.

Day 13:  Tim only worker on site.  27 Degrees.  Worked part of the day.

Day 15:  Nice 70 degree day.  Again not much progress. Hurricane straps did appear on the framing.  I suspect the city inspections make them add them.

Sunday:  While Kathy and I were walking around the yard, we discovered that the brick wall adjacent to the construction had suffered MAJOR damage.  A fifty foot section of this 5 foot tall wall had structural cracks, bowing and was leaning toward the sidewall at much as 10 degrees.  It is in serious danger of falling over and perhaps injuring pedestrians.  Contractor had been backing their dump trucks up the wall to load the considerable demolition debris.  They had caused the damage.  We also discovered a tile on the porch the crew had broken.  We emailed Phil Rea and asked them to come out Monday morning to discuss the wall issue before starting any new work.

Day 16:  Les' brother came out.  He disavowed any responsibility for the wall damage.  Later that afternoon, he showed up again with Kenny Brown, who was the project manager of our kitchen renovation in 2002. Again they were not taking any blame.  They said they would return on Tuesday with their insurance adjuster to view the wall.  So, what do you think THEIR insurance provided will do.  NOTHING.  Their insurance adjuster (Kathy Miller, Nationwide) called me for a chat, but said she had no plans to come out the next day.  Work on the porch has stopped.

Day 17:  Kathy, the "nice cop", has taken over our negotiations with Phil Rea.  Tim, the recalcitrant on-site project manager, has been replaced with Kenny.  Kenny says they will come out within 24 hours and shore up the leaning, broken wall.  They are exploring the cost to fix the wall which will likely mean tearing down the bad section and rebuilding it. We had Sidney Pierce, a masonry contractor, come out to give us an estimate for the repair.  Sidney did say that cleaning the old bricks and reusing them will cost 2 to 3 times what new bricks would cost.

Kenny came out late in the day and added some bracing for the sagging wall.  Given that he used a single nail at all joints, I'm thinking this is a very flimsy band aide.  Kenny said he would get free to work on our project next week and even admitted that they were now thinking that MAYBE they were 5% at fault for the wall damage.  Small progress.

Days 18-22:  No progress.  Sidney Pearce, a masonry contractor came out and gave us an estimate of $8046 to tear down the damaged wall and rebuild it.  OUCH!!!

Day 23: Framed in the door to the removed deck so they could begin installing the bead board porch ceiling.  They primed all the bead boards and left them to dry.  I was gone most of the day and there seemed to be little progress in general. It was a nice 60 degree day.  Insurance adjuster called about 5:30 and asked for copies of my wall photos and the Pearce estimate for repairs.  Emailed 17 photos (Ah, the joys of digital cameras!) and FAXed the estimate.

Day 24: They put in the bead board porch ceiling and did some trip work. Two guys working. 

Day 25:  Kenny came after lunch.  Repaired the roof over the front dormer.  Replaced maybe 16 square feet of rotted sheathing and got the tar paper back on.  Will finish on Monday and fortunately there is little chance of rain over the weekend.

Day 26:  Roof patch done and most of the day spent on trimming out the porch.  All bead board done.  Of course there is still substantial work to be done replacing the windows in the dormer and associated trim work both inside and out.  

Day 27:  Kenny worked half a day (or less) cutting shingles to size.  No other work done.

Day 28:  Kenny put up some shingles between times doing some framing work in support of the plumbers.  

Day 29: Misty rain, but warm.  Kenny showed up but decided he would work on the roof brackets at home.  He called me a bit later saying he had left the pad with the dimensions on the porch.  I read him the numbers, not feeling very confident with the translation.

Days 30-31:  Kenny still doing final trim on the porch.  He said it is taking far longer than he expected.  Looking good.

Day 32:  March 31.  Porch construction done (except of course for the new window wall in the dormer (where the door the the deck used to be.)  Windows are scheduled to be here on April 20. Kenny will try to get the painter out to put a coat of primer on it.  House painting will happen much later.

 . . . . . . . . .

Day 58:  May 11, Exterior cornice trim over windows done incorrectly, Kenny will redo.  Interior wall has not been started yet.