Construction Contract

Another milestone has been reached! We signed the construction contract with YS Development.

The contract specifies the responsibilities of both sides, the fixed price of construction, the start date and timeline, and the penalties that apply if either side fails to meet their obligations. YS Development has a base contract for their projects. Our final contract integrated terms from the standard AIA contract and others terms suggested by What Your Contractor Can't Tell You into that base.

We waited this long to finalize the contract because we needed a cost. Yuval worked hard to get quotes from vendors that were as close to accurate as possible; a fixed price contract needs to be based on reliable data. The final number was close to the target we had aimed for. We included a bit extra for small changes and contingencies for some small items that need to be finalized. With the quotes in, the price of construction could be locked, and the contract signed.

This was one of the easier pieces of business we've dealt with, and now that it is settled construction can start in earnest (well, once we finalize financing).

Permits Issued

We finally have city-approved permits for building our house! The last sign-off happened a couple weeks ago, but it took an additional week to finish processing everything and get the permit set ready to issue. If you are curious, you can view the online history/status of the process by the city.

Brent, the project manager, scanned the corrected plans into a PDF and made copies to work from. The official permits must remain on site, but they would get too tattered if they were the working set. The official set is usually kept safe in a box and work is done off the copies.

We should be starting construction shortly. Yuval has started prepping the site (getting a survey, staking the boundaries, and removing trees that will be in the way). Excavation is scheduled to start within a few weeks, maybe even by the end of the month. The last thing we're working on is getting financing fully approved and closed. Soon we should have regular status updates with pictures of construction!