Lot surveyed. Cabin corners marked.

The surveyors were out to the property on Friday. They marked the property lines and also the allowed building envelope.  Thankfully, I was figuring my property lines incorrectly, and based on where they are, I'm not at all concerned about my neighbor's proximity to the property line.

I came up on Saturday early afternoon with my friend Norm, who's planning to do the excavation. We walked the property lines, measured setbacks, and decided where to position the cabin. We set it about 10 feet inside the West property, and right up near the 150' setback from Nason Creeke to the North.

Here are the videos of the different stakes.

(Not too easy to see what's going on. Sorry.  I need to get a drone or something to film this stuff.  I did buy a time lapse camera last week that I will position up at the site to document things as they start to go in.  More on that later.)

"People who like sausage would like it a lot less if they saw how it's made."

Well....I've transitioned to participating in the making of my sausage cabin.

Important developments of the last couple days:

• 👍Found a surveyor  to do a lot boundary survey next week
• 👎The survey is going to cost at least $1800, and maybe more.
• 👍My building designer sent me a revised site plan with the house and drain field positions swapped...and didn't charge me for it. (He earned my hero of the day award. 💪😁)

In any case, here's a sausage summary of my last few days as a pseudo-general contractor:

• Called a surveyor, who gave me a bid of $2500 and can't do the survey for at least a month.
• Call to friend who works with surveyors, and call from another friend who works with surveyors -- they're putting out their feelers for someone who can do it sooner.
• Call survey company recommended by friend (see above). I'm sending over my title report so he can take a look.
• Called another surveyors who can do it in the coming week. He followed-up the next day and said he could do a boundary survey for $1800.  If he can't find *any* other pins, it may cost more because he will need do make it an official, recorded survey with monuments. I need to get him an updated sitemap with some pin locations on it so he can help me identify the setbacks and easements for the building. Hopefully I can do that tonight.
• Call to a excavation/septic install company to let them know ground is clear. Waiting for a call back. Several additional calls with no answer. Sent an email as well, and got an answer the following day. They don't have availability to do the project. I let them know I already have the excavation lined up, but still need someone to do the septic install by October. Are they still interested?
• Call with my friend to bring him up to date on roof engineering. He suggested I talk with SIP manufacturer to see what span the SIPs are engineered to -- might be able to eliminate joists?
• Call to sales rep at Premier SIPs to figure out cost and specs for SIPs for the roof -- can we eliminate joists?
• Called Tricounty septic to get a quote on septic install.  Emailed permit/designs. Estimater is in tomorrow. Follow-up by end of week.

1 step forward. 2 steps back.

I drove with a friend to the lot on Saturday morning--rented metal detector in hand--to try and find the corner markers for the lot. We were successful finding the pins relatively quickly.

One was right near the water and power boxes (behind the car) between my property and the lot to the South.  And the other was exactly 60 feet away.

I'll cut to the chase with all the findings:

• 👍Found both the corner stakes. That was my main objective, and it was accomplished within about 30 minutes.
• 👍The corner stakes were exactly 60 feet apart. 
• 👎The stakes are just metal rebar that were pounded in to the hillside at least 10 years ago. They may have moved as the hillside settled.
• 👎The neighbor's cabin to the East looks to be very close to my property line, possibly over. I had been assuming all along that the cabin was in the middle of his property. (You know what happens when you assume!!)
• 👎There's no way I want to build with my site-plan as-is. Our cabins would be much too close together, and there would be a huge build up of snow between the cabins in the winter time.
• 👎It's possible that his staircase landing is either on or *very* near my property. No way to tell for sure without a proper survey. 

So, what next?

Made two calls this morning:

1. I called a land surveyor in Leavenworth. He's going to give me a bid and timing/availability tomorrow. Gotta get someone up there ASAP to establish the true property lines.
2. I called my plan designer/drafter to request an updated site plan that swaps the location of the cabin and the drain field. The cabin will be on the West side of the property and the drain field will be on the East side, near the other cabin. Hopefully he can get on this quickly, as I need to get the amended site plan approved by the County -- shouldn't be hard.

It turns out the origainl plan was to have the cabin on the West side of the lot, but at the last minute I asked for it to be shifted to the East.  The original position for the septic field was also on the East. I can't remember why I asked for them to be changed. I'm regretting it now.  If I'd had access to the lot at the time (it was covered with snow), it would have been apparent, but I didn't. There you go.

Over the weekend, I also sent an inquiry to my building engineer asking about the possibility of changing from LVL to Glulam (due to reduced price) and also whether we could increase the on-center spacing of rafters.  Good news on both fronts, but it cost me a bit to have him do the research.  But I'll save 1000's of dollars by reducing the number. Money well spent, but I also could have avoided this with clearer instructions to the drafter and engineer at the outset.  (What is it they say about hindsight....?!)

Olaf Bites the Dust (or Water)

Olaf's prediction was too pessimistic. Based on reports from other residents, the snow was melted sufficiently by about Thursday to drive in to the lot. The snow melted 10 days earlier and was about 20 inches more than his data suggested.

I drove up on Saturday and confirmed it empirically.

Let the cabin building begin (hopefully)!

Olaf's Snow Melt Prognostication

Olaf is currently predicting the snow will be melted at my Yodelin property on or about June 20, 2017.  Stay tuned to see how reliable Olaf's predictions are.

Failed attempt at custom front door

I spent an evening surfing around the web trying to find a company that would make me a custom front door. I want a fiberglass door that will stand up to the sun and the cold without warping. That part is easy. But I was thinking it would be really cool for a ski cabin to have a Swiss cross as the glass litethrough in the door, like this:

I found a website (glasscraft.com) that advertised custom doors, and even provided an order form. This morning, in my email I received an email response after submitting their custom order form saying, "We are sorry. We do not offer custom doors."

Back to the drawing board.