Our meeting with the Coventry wetlands commission

Teri, Dan, Becca, and I went to the wetlands commission to night to submit our application for consideration to build in a designated wetlands area.  It was a very positive experience.  Thankfully we have the (unofficial) approval of the commissioner and he gave me some very sound advice as to how to present the application.  One of the primary things he suggested was that we have pictures taken of the property.  Here are some of the pictures that Teri took:

Needless to say  I mentioned that the property, due to the fact that the tree fell on the house, is unlivable.  I also mentioned that even if we were going to try to build on the same footprint, we would have re-excavate because the foundation is no longer usable.  This would cause the same amount of wetlands disturbance as building the new house.  The commission agreed, and decided to decide on the application at the next meeting.  This is common procedure.  They could have instead  a) extended the application to two months for further study, or b) decided a public hearing was neccessary, and extended the application upwards of four months.  The commission decided neither of those choices were needed.  WOOT!  Thanks Teri for taking the pictures today.  They were exactly what we needed!

Thanks for reading.

Tuesday is going to be a big day!

I have two meetings, one with the wetlands commisioner, Todd Penny, and the second with the building inspector, Joe Callahan.  Wednesday night is the wetlands commission meeting and Todd has been kind enough to meet with me the day before to make sure that I have all my paperwork and data that I will need.  I am meeting with Joe to apply for a building permit!  YEAH!

The wetlands commision, by statute is required to hold onto the wetlands request for 15 days before rendering a decision.  Usually they just meet once a month and give their decision at the monthly meetings.  I am considering asking them if they would be willing to meet again after the 15 days to grant the application.  I'm not sure if I would be pressing my luck here or not.

The building permit generally takes two weeks for approval, as long as all paperwork is in correctly.  Also, the loan application takes about two weeks to process, so we are getting to the home stretch in terms of permits and applications.  I can't wait to start tearing down the old house!

crunch time

So this week has been fairly discouraging so far.  I received my first bid for geothermal work and it came in at 41,000 dollars, the solar, about 42k.  I also found out today that the CL+P lease program has ended.  I was really hoping to be a part of that program.  I am pretty sure that I will not be able to afford the solar panels, even with the rebates because I do not have enough "up-front" money.  I absolutely want to go Geo-thermal, its the most efficient, will cost the least to run, and it's the most environmentally friendly.  So that means the solar is going to have to go for now.

The other frustrating piece is the survey maps.  It seems that my house is going to be 16ft. from the designated wetlands area.  The wetlands commision would like at least 25ft and preferably 50.  This could get interesting...

Tommorow I am getting a second bid on the Geothermal bit, and hopefully by the end of the week I get the "to shell" estimate of material costs from sanford and holley.  My goal is to get the loan application in by the end of the week, wetlands application, and possibly even the building app in the same timeframe.

I think I will feel better when we actually break ground. 


Thanks for reading.

phone time

I spent almost three hours on the phone today tracking down information that our banker wants/needs.
Whew, after today, all he will need is some w-2 forms and we are on our way. 

Chris, from Nutmeg construction has bid for the geothermal part- haven't gotten the email yet, but he said that he is sending it.

Wendy, from Sanford and Hawley (the lumber people) said that their bid for the to-shell material list and estimate is about a week to a week and a half away.

I am hoping to get everything together by Friday to submit a building permit application and wetlands minimal impact application.  The town estimates a two week turn-around for these applications.

Things are getting complicated in the Norman household.

Thanks for reading.

5 days and counting

Our new boiler/water heater is being installed today.  Thanks John!  We have been without heat or hot water since Thursday. Each evening we have been traipsing over to my parent's house to sleep. 

Anyways...

This weekend we went to the HBA homeshow in Hartford, and it was great.  Got a lot of good ideas, met some very cool people, and saw a "green" house.  It was built in three days, in the middle of the showroom floor.  All the elements that we want, geothermal, solar panels, closed cell insulation, were all on display.  Very exciting.

I have submitted all of our cost estimates to the bank, and Gary is going to be going forward in processing the loan.  We can't close until a building permit, of which we are still working towards getting.  We have the wetlands report, (which quite frankly were very disappointing.  The wetlands expert puts the boundry of the wetlands very close to the house.) the blueprints, as well as all of the forms.  We are waiting on the elevation sheets, and something called a rescheck.  At that time we will submit everything for the building permit.  The town says about two weeks from receiving the application to approval.  Whew- Things are getting close.

Thanks for reading.

When it rains, it leaks?

So a week ago Wednesday, during our extensive rain showers, I noticed a leak coming from my kitchen ceiling in the morning before going to work.  Seems that one of my attic vent's flashing wasn't well sealed.  Wednesday afternoon I went up on the roof and slapped roof cement on and around the vent.  Seemed to work.  At the same time, there is water in our basement.  In the spring there always is a little water in the basement, but I thought there was much more water than normal.

This gave me incentive to get new gutters.  My old gutters were in rotten shape, leaking everywhere, and just not doing the job.  I got three quotes, and they put in new gutters.  Cost 650.00.

The water problem did not go away, and worse 1) the hot water was not coming on consistantly, and 2) the water in the basement now had a rust color, which it never had before.  So I called CNG, and they sent a guy out.  Five minutes, if that, into the service call he calls out "You have leaking boiler."  You need a new one.  YIPPEEE! Estimated 4k-5k.  That certainly cuts into my buffer.

Problems come in threes, right?  leaking roof, leaking gutters, leaking boiler.  

Thanks for reading.

solar power

As I mentioned in my previous post, I met with Gordon to inspect the site.  We did, and the results were not as good as I had hoped.  After using his instruments he determined that we were eligible for about a 6.2 kilowatt (kW) system. I was hoping for an 8 kW system.  Currently my house uses about 6.6 kW.  Factor in a larger house (1000 square feet), add the geothermal piece, which is powered by an electric pump and electric water heater, I figured that I was going to need more juice.  I estimated about 8kW system would cover 100% of my electrical bills.

This is how you figure how much power you are using here is the tip that I found somewhere on the web:

Take your current electric bill.  On it you should find a listing of kilowatt hours (kwh) in my case it was 772.
divide the kwh by the number of days billed.  My last bill was for 29 days. That comes to 26.62 .  Lastly, multiply the 26.62 by .25.  This number (6.65) is approximately the kilowatt system that you would need to get 100% performance. There are other variables, but this can give you a rough estimate.

Changing the subject-  I went to Coventry town hall today where I had a meeting with the wetlands commisioner, Mr. Penny.  It looks pretty good and we might not even have to get a permit to build, since we are fairly far (more than 75 feet) from where we estimate the wetlands end.

I also stopped off at Sanford and Hollie, a building materials contractor, to drop our plans off for an estimate for building costs.  They are going estimate to "shell" status, or weatherproof.  This will not include any interior items, cabinets and such, but will give a good feel for where we are.

Our plan is that we demolish the existing house, crush the existing septic, and start building by the beginning- to mid April.  I am getting very nervous but it is a good nervous.  :)

Thanks for reading.

Solar power

Gordon Schies from Alteris Renewables called me today. He was the presenter at the solar seminar that Teri and I went to.  He and I are going to go on-site to test the suitability of installing solar panels on our location tomorrow.

Here is his company's website: Alteris Renewables

The website claims that they are the largest installer of solar solutions in New England.  Frankly, the only thing that I didn't like about his almost two hour presentation was that he talked about installing the panels as a patriotic duty to lessen our dependance on foreign resources.  I guess that is a reason, but he seemed to come back to that point a number of times....

Secondly, our plans came in!  WOO HOO-   Teri and I can't seem to stop looking at them.  We are so pleased with them.  We are going to have some slight modifications to them, two that I'm aware of. 

1. I suspect that we are going to go to a full slab on grade, instead of the 1/2 slab, 1/2 crawlspace model currently planned and,
2. moving garage from the NW corner of the house to the SW corner of the house.

Tomorrow I hope to find out "true north" to better understand the orientation of the house.  In the accompanying details in the blue prints the architect suggests that the house be oriented no more than 10 degrees off  south.

Thanks for reading.