Our first construction error

The concrete guys were here today to finish pouring the "footings" as they seem to be called here. They poured one layer yesterday and then a second one today. Site Supervisor admitted this afternoon that the concrete guys had made a mistake in the footings: Apparently the floor joists are usually set into the concrete, but ours are somehow floating on the top, according to the plans. As you can tell, I have a deep understanding of the structural engineering. Anyway, the upshot was that the concrete guys had to take remedial action, cutting into the first layer of concrete, adding new rebars with "special epoxy bindings" and generally making sure that the floor joists will have somewhere to go. I thought it was pretty decent of Site Supervisor to confess that a mistake had been made - after all, I would have had no idea simply by looking.

When we got back to the house yesterday dinnertime, we were disturbed by the sounds of giant rats under the floorboards. Of course, it turned out to be the asbestos guys finishing their work; and they weren't done till it was dark. Now that must be a very unlovely job to do. The fact that the exterior of our house was plastered in Danger signs was equally disturbing. Today all the heating vents through the house continue to be sealed up with blue builder's tape. I'm starting to like it - a nice splash of color among the neutrality of our usual background.

Anyway.

The furnace guys were back today installing the new furnace in the garage. We chose to have a high energy efficiency model which will cost us $2,750 more but is apparently eligible for a $1,500 rebate from the State...assuming the State still has any money for such fripperies. Tomorrow the HVAC team (as Site Superviser refers to them) will tackle the new ductwork. Here's a photo of some of it sitting on our drive...
Luckily the weather has been stupendously good the past couple of days - the dashboard thermostat in Hubby's car said 80F at one point - so we are not feeling the lack of heating one bit.

We also had a visit today from our homeowners' insurance company's appraiser. He told us we need to install fire extinguishers in at least three places including the garage, also some temporary fencing along the side of the house to stop people accessing our back yard, and that if the assessed rebuilding cost for the house exceeds $1,500,000 - which it might well do, this being an expensive area for everything - we will be required to install a centrally-monitored fire alarm system. Hubby is not too thrilled about that.


(Photo of the big cement truck outside our house this afternoon.)