Progress

I haven't been posting as much, but things are moving forward quite well on the 2nd floor project.

We have selected a contractor and that is Miro from Miro Home Improvement Inc. He seems very honest and reliable and he re-worked his price with our changes and he's within our budget. He wants to handle the demolition and when we told him his quote for demo was $3K higher than the demo companies, he was able to adjust his pricing.

We've also selected an electrican and made a decision about what to do with the wiring for the building. We are going to get a third panel for the common areas, which will give us the flexibility to move upstairs to the 2nd floor should we decide to. This will take away quite a bit of usage from the 100 amp panel on the first floor (electric dryer main culprit), which will enable us to keep the 100 amp service on our floor and not upgrade to 200 amps. We are going to put 100 amps upstairs and then 100 amps for the common area panel. We will also be getting 3 new meters and new service into the building- alot of stuff!

In case anyone doesn't know how it works with owner occupied two-flats, the city is concerned about owners being sneaky and putting common area wiring on the rental unit and making the tenants pay for the building lighting. In our building we pay for everything, but some people can be very sneaky and pull things like this. The city frowns upon that and we were concerned they might make us put a third panel in anyway.

We also got a letter from our structural engineer verifying that the roof is supported by clear spanning joists from masonary wall to masonary wall. Every other joist, there is a vertical 2X4 connecting the roof to the 2nd floor ceiling joists. This is good news because it technically is not a load bearing wall and this means we can move it with little trouble making the bedroom larger.

Steve has his appointment with the city the first week in May to go over our plans and get the "easy" permits with electrical. Since we are not touching the plumbing or structure of the building, we qualify for an "Easy permit." If we were doing the plumbing etc... it could take up to 3 months to get permits.

So after all the trials and tribulations, we are making decisions and on budget- things are OK.

The tenants are scheduled to move end of May, and since I feel like hissing like a feral cat every time I think about them, that's a good thing. Oh, and I got a raise at work that starts June 1st. Provided the tenants leave as promised, June looks to be a good month here at the homestead!