Working with an agenda

I've made a new effort to get moving on the house. Every day, I call and try to talk to various people to get things done. After almost two weeks, I've finally got the siding people (almost) ready to work on the parapets. The thing is, it was almost a week or more of phone tag before finally pressing the issue. I had to tell the assist (yesterday) that I was getting tired and that maybe it would be better for me to double my chances for success by calling a second siding company and seeing which company could get out to do the work first. I received a callback within an hour.

I'm going over to the siding company tomorrow morning to get the contract started, but the sad news is that I was told it could be 10 weeks before they can start. This isn't what I was originally told. However, this is their busiest time of the year; but it's their busiest sales time. This is a sure-thing installation and I've been waiting long enough. I expect to not have to wait that 10 weeks. I better not have to wait even half that time.

I finally got a bid from the plumber. I'd waited over a month with no response from that guy, so I pressed the issue with him and got a $12,800 bid from him yesterday. I've mulled it over with Rachel and intend to go over it with him in person later today (I haven't verified that with him yet, but it's my intension). It seems like a lot of money, but it's for the sub-slab work, plus topping off after the slab is poured. I'm hoping that we can get him on this work real soon.
I think I'll be moving more gravel inside the house to get the sub-slab area to the right depth. With the plumber's help, we've pretty much determined that the sub-slab depth needs to be pretty close to where Terra-Dome recommends, which is the 4 inch slab sitting ontop of the footings. I was hoping to be below that a little bit so that we'd have more head room above the slab. In the end, it's no big deal. It's only 4 inches.

I hope to arrange for more gravel to be delivered, as well as getting a delivery of the cheapest fill dirt (it's a bit rocky). This is great for starting a new berm, which is what we need on the north side of the master suite.

This is what I'm hoping to get going. Once the plumber is doing his thing, I'll probably start my own sub-slab work. I just didn't want to interfere with the plumbing (since it has a set flow that must be maintained)(wiring and central vac do not). I will be running the central vac piping, plus conduit for phones, computer network, stereo, security sensors, etc. There are also the fresh air lines that I want available for the wood stoves and the water heater. (The house is very tight, so we need these fresh air intake lines).

Once I have all that, I'll determine if I want to do the electrical lines or if I'll call in an electrician. Considering that the last time we paid an electrician, he didn't do what we wrote out for him to do, I figure I'll probably run these conduits too. At least then I'll know that I'll get the lines where I want them to be and I wont be paying $50 (or is it $70, I can't remember) an hour to get it done.