Bye-Bye Brick Layers

They managed to finish the second gable on Wednesday, but they didn't start the acid wash as promised. When I called, he said they were waiting for all bricks to be done before starting the wash. So they did the wash on Thursday, along with taking down their scaffolding and hauling their tools & equipment away. That morning before they got there, I noticed a window in the front was cracked. This was the last area they worked.

I told the son about the broken window and the crooked and chipped address number. He said I'd need to wait until the dad got there to talk about the money stuff. After a couple of cycles of me coming & going and missing the dad, I finally caught up with him. I told him the window was going to cost $200 to replace and that I needed him to pay $90 for a replacement address block. He agreed to both. We settled up and I paid him everything I owed minus $200, which I will pay when he comes to install the replacement address block. His son wasn't too happy with me for wanting to withhold money, but $200 out of $13,000 is something he's just going to have to get over.

I also had to ask him about the acid wash he was doing. My mom and others had lead me to think they would get all spots of mortar off the bricks. So my expectations were higher than I was seeing. They were using an acid solution on a scrub brush with a long handle. It got the dust and maybe some mortar off, but there are still many spots. I expected they would scrub with a wire brush by hand. My friend Matt (my electrician) said what they were doing is all any of them do.

Boy, I hate the conflict parts of this job! When I pointed out to the son that the address block was chipped, he claimed they often come like that and the damage occurs during shipping. Umm, no. I had taken it out of the box and thouroughly examined it. So I had to contradict him. I don't like to essentially call people liars, but geez...

I'm thankful that his dad admitted it was not broken when they got it out of the box. Also, the son put up an argument about me withholding money. I said I would withhold $500. He had a strong reaction. I told him he was going to have to work with me here. There was still labor to do, and I needed some assurance that they'd be back to do it. He gave the usual arguments that they'd be right back to do it as soon as I called. (And maybe they would have.) But I still need some assurance. So we settled on the $200.

So the bricks are done and the scaffolding is gone! That leaves a lot of cleanup to do. There are bricks, mortar, and other debris everywhere. I had my friend Tim come over yesterday evening and help me gather all the broken bricks into a pile. It's a start!

My friend Matt is also working on the vinyl trim on the outside. They worked their fisrt full day on Thursday. He and his brother-in-law finshed underneath the patio and the eaves across the back and a ways up the sides. They're supposed to come back on Tuesday to continue.

I called the parish today about the electrical inspection since Matt can never get a straight answer from his local electrician boss. The boss claims he called in for the rough-in inspection, but the parish government says they haven't gotten a call. So someone's either screwing around with me, or they're incompetent, or both. It's been about three weeks and I'm getting tired of this run-around. I need to move past the elctrical inspection to the framing inspection so I can get the insulation. I have calls in to Matt asking him to get to the bottom of it.

Also today, the sheetrock guy went over to put up the rock where I am going to sound-proof. I haven't been over there today to see how it looks. I'll pass by tonight when I go get the two columns I'm going to need for the back patio.

The columns are a bit of their own story. My plans call for three 6-inch wooden or fiberglass columns. I want fiberglass, and all the local stores carry is 8-inch columns. That's fine. And my friends tell me that I don't need three of them. That one will do, but I might want to put two. The framer agrees. But I'm sure the parish will balk at that because it's different than what's on the plans. So to head that problem off, I'm getting the engineer who did my wind load certificate to write me another letter with his stamp that approves of the change.

Well, that's my brain dump for today. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did! :) More pictures to come soon.