Slow week. We are waiting for Builder 5 to get us his rough quote and we should have it by Tuesday making it a bit over 2 weeks since he visited. We got a very detailed pre-construction budget from Builder 4 on Friday so Saturday was just going through that one and trying to line it up with the others. It is the highest yet so we are just trying to figure out why. Are the others leaving things out? I don’t want to say that it is overpriced yet. I have already found a bunch of allowances for things that we said we would do (demo, trim, painting) and that are clearly outlined in the scope document i sent, so i am a bit concerned. Maybe we got someone else’s quote? He wants to discuss it on Monday but i am trying to decide if it is worth our time. Builder 1 is coming by this afternoon to review his numbers and our scope document. We did not give him the scope when he came by and i only sent it after providing it to the other builders. I sent it along after reviewing his scope and seeing that they had listed the upstairs kitchen as out of scope. Glad i caught that as it is a big line item. He just felt that we had not discussed our goals enough and that is likely true. We were mostly focused on the suite and foundation at that time.
In other news we heard back from the Vancouver Heritage Foundation about their grant program on Friday and it looks like we qualify! We will have to make a few adjustments to our plans but i think it will be worth it. The main thing is that the 4 original windows on the main floor have to stay in place and we have to get storms made. I resisted that a bit but their grants cover 50% of the cost of the storms and i was happy to learn that we can get the storms made with modern sealed units. They don’t need to be a single pane of glass like they would have been originally. I think that with some good weather stripping and a tight fit that will be pretty much the same as replacing them with modern units, and much less disruptive. Now we just have to figure out if we can get the leading on the stained glass fixed. We also have to figure out the sills because i’d like to add rigid insulation and rainscreen to the outside before re-shingling and at first glance, i don’t think our sills are wide enough. More learning!
The other issue is our door and that is still up in the air. If our door is original we have to restore it rather than replace it unless it is warped and beyond repair. I am not a fan of our door and i don’t think it is original so i need to take some photos for them to make a determination.
The good news is that once we are on the grant, we can get our energy audit, and then start demoing the basement!
Still no word from the city on our Character Home designation which we applied for almost 2 weeks ago.
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