The Sidewalk Police Strike Again!
Unfortunately, right about then we had our sewer back-up, the repairs for which involved jack hammering a ten-foot long trench through the patio area. Now we were going to have to replace the concrete, and that was one too many things for us to deal with back in December. We told the railing guys to hold off on installing the railing, because we still needed to have the shed removed, and we weren’t sure what to do about the concrete. Then we left on vacation.
When we came back, the shed was gone, and the railing guys were at work installing the railing. As I said, communication was not their strong point. Since they were already cementing the railing in place, we figured there wasn’t much point in arguing about it. Then the guy who had paid for the shed showed up and wanted to know where the shed had gone, which came as a surprise to me, since I thought he had taken it. Turns out the railing guys had taken it, because they thought they were being helpful and getting it out of the way. They had paid $150 to have it towed to their house, and they wouldn’t give it back without getting their money back, although I pointed out that they had actually stolen the shed from us. I finally spoke with the boss, who turned out to be the 15-year-old brother of the salesman I’d been dealing with, and the only one who spoke fluent English. We negotiated for me to ransom the shed for $75 so I could give it to the guy who had already paid me for it. I had to go to the railing guys’ house with the cash, and I thought they might kill me. It was not a good scene.
All of this excitement totally sapped our energies for dealing with the patio concrete problem, so we just left the jack hammered trench there for a few months, enclosed by a totally useless railing. Finally, a few weeks ago we got motivated to get quotes on the concrete work, including replacing the sidewalk squares that the sidewalk police had told us we had to have fixed before the summer so that we can get our permanent certificate of occupancy. We found a concrete guy, Matt, who seemed totally competent, reliable, and gave us a good bid. We felt very comfortable about him doing the work, and to our surprise, he was ready to get started the next day.
In order to do the sidewalk repairs, we needed a permit from the sidewalk police, which involves inspections at several stages of the project. Matt’s crew tore out the old patio and the cracked sidewalk stones on Tuesday, and the sidewalk police came out to inspect the demolition, but instead of focusing solely on the sidewalk, the guy walked around the area and noticed that one of our gutter downspouts drained into a pipe that had previously been covered by the patio concrete, and the pipe was broken. He said that we would now need to repair that pipe and drain the water properly to the gutter, which requires a permit from Wastewater Management. Therefore we couldn’t have the concrete poured until a Wastewater Management engineer came out and looked at the situation, which could take six weeks. When any question includes “Wastewater Management”, the answer is always six weeks, even if the entrance to your commercial building is obstructed by a large pit and the entire sidewalk is closed.
At this point, Jill and I both identified a distinctive sinking feeling that we haven’t felt since the end of major combat operations on the building renovations. This feeling characterized the six months between when we first decided to try to buy this run-down building and when we finally wrested the last installment of the construction loan from the bank. I’ve never experienced this feeling in a sustained way in any other context—apparently it is quite unique to building repairs involving city permits. This is the feeling that will prevent me from doing any project like this ever again in my life (unless, as Jill said today, we make ten million dollars on the eventual sale of this building, in which case it might be worth it, but we’re sticking to that threshold). One component of this feeling is the certain knowledge that if inspectors spend enough time at your building, they will find problems.
As luck would have it, the Wastewater Management engineer showed up the following day before I got there, and he did ask Jill several tricky questions, which she did not know the answers to (at least, not the “right” answers in this situation). The engineer must have had a lunch date or something, because he inexplicably did not follow up on those questions, and instead gave us a fairly limited set of requirements for fixing the drainage problem, and went away.
On Thursday afternoon the concrete truck came, and despite the fact that one of our customers walked right through a freshly-poured sidewalk stone (the concrete guys had moved to another area and hadn’t put the cones around it the first stone immediately), we now have a lovely smooth sidewalk, a great patio, plus a new walkway around the back of the building, and much-improved drainage away from the building. I was going to take some pictures today but it started snowing. One of our regulars helpfully informed me that March is
1 Comments:
I'm so sorry about the hassle, but glad it turned out all right (except for the loss of $75 from the theft of the shed). I bet the patio looks really nice, too! Happy spring!
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