Construction Progress

sip,structural insulated panel,construction,energy efficiency,solano county

I was recently asked by a friend how the construction project was going. Another blogreader asked how much I was involved.

A picture is worth a thousand words…

(jump beneath the fold for more)

When you can’t get things in a project completed properly you end up doing a lot yourself. I tried to get contractors to bid on this, nobody, not one, followed through with what I thought was professionalism. So… I took the time off and jumped in to complete the task.

Leadership By Example

Which led to me tied to a forklift thirty feet in the air jumping up and down on a hundred pound SIP to get it where it wasn’t going to go because someone else had redrawn the layout my contractor had previously done.

We used to call that ‘leadership by example’ in the Navy. You don’t want to ask others to do what you yourself wouldn’t want to do first.

Not my fault… not my problem that I created.. but ultimately it was my project, my responsibility.

And the risk associated with tying someone else up there was, in my opinion, not worth it. I had the equipment, and had spent months climbing rock walls in gyms and tying knots. Umm… Because I knew it would come in handy.

Well, in less than two months I and my intrepid band of high school dropouts, (aside from the contractor I brought in periodically) knowing nearly next to nothing about what we were doing took this…

and this..

and by manhandling these energy efficient structural insulated panels (which weigh a LOT more than you’d think) like this…

…We were able to accomplish this much in two months.

Not two months straight working mind you, there was Thanksgiving where we lost a week, and then every other week I was back in San Diego with my boys doing the Daddy thing. Something like 35 days total work sounds about right. With no more than five total people on the site at any time, best working group size was four IMHO.

We are now looking at this (and yes, it’s supposed to look like a barn, that’s what it is designed to be… just a really super energy efficient barn / office space).

Oh, and this…

and this…

We were on track to have our permit finaled at the end of this month however I’ve had just about every single Murphy’s Law item thrown at me during this project, (three relatives dying, one baby born, all sorts of family law issues) why not at the very end of it all just have yet. Another. Family law issue? (hate to vent, but after all, it is my blog).

Like I didn’t have my plate full already.