The Great Paver Adventure

I'm always looking for a deal.   After seeing the first round of quotes for the pool deck I decided to check out craigslist for some pavers in hopes that I'd find something cheaper than what the pool builder quoted which varied from $5 sq.ft. for brick pavers and $9 sq. ft. for travertine.  I'll be adding a post about the pool very soon (we are still picking out a pool company).



Pavers in the driveway at Tampa

As luck had it I found an ad on craigslist for 1500 sq. ft. of travertine for $2 sq. ft.  There was one catch however; the pavers were installed on a driveway in Tampa some 60 miles away and we had to remove them ourselves.  Being the skeptic I was we contacted the seller and then drove to Tampa to see this great deal.  As it turned out the house was located in south Tampa (a pretty nice area).  The pavers had been installed about 5 months earlier and because they had been installed wrong were separating and cracking.  They were a little dirty from being driven on and some were cracked; but most were in good shape and just needed to be pressured washed since they had been sealed.  We quickly met with the seller and provided a 10% deposit with the agreement that we'd pick them up the following Saturday.  The driveway however was huge!  There were actually over 1700 sq. ft. of pavers. 

The following day I texted my lawn guy to see if he could help.  He's not real good with english and his daughter called me directly to figure out that I needed a crew and more importantly a truck with a fork lift.  We'd need to stack the pavers on pallets and then transport them the 60 miles to the Sarasota house.  After some negotiation and with her acting as the translator we reached an agreement that he'd help the following Saturday and more importantly had access to a truck and forklift.  Another Craigslist ad and I found some free pallets.

The week went by and  the Friday before I texted my guy to confirm that everything was ready to go for Saturday.  I immediately got a phone call from his cousin looking for clarification on my text.  Needless to say he had no truck and was not ready.  Needless to say I was not real happy.  A quick call to the seller looking for another week on my end did not go well.  They were installing the new driveway on Wednesday and needed the pavers up.   I frantically started searching the Internet for companies that rented trucks with forklifts to no avail (for a reasonable price).    We had a party to go to and I needed some time to think through the problem so we headed out passing through Elwood Park a semi-rural area with horses and lots of blue collar type dwelling.  That's when we saw the sod guys place that we had driven by a 1000 times.  He had a fairly large truck parked nearby so we stopped and I called the number on the sod-by-the-piece sign.  To make a long story short he had a buddy that had a large truck with a forklift and we worked out a deal.  $375 to pick up the pavers on Saturday and deliver to Sarasota.  Another quick call and my yard guy said he'd have 2 guys at my house at 7 AM.

We started picking the pavers up at 8:15 AM and finished at noon - 11 pallets worth.  Along the way I had to find a few more pallets at the local Home Depot.  By 3:30 PM they were delivered to Sarasota and we had a happy ending to the story.  Jan and I had a sore back the next few days - but we had found a deal - remember I like a good deal!  Next deal is to get them installed... and that's another story I'm sure.

Unexpected Problems at Garfield Delay Homeowner and Title Insurance

Problem #1 Live wires at the wall heater

As with every real estate transaction there's always a surprise or two along the way. With the Garfield house we had some electrical issues and a survey issue that had to be cleared up before the insurance company would issue a policy and before the closing attorney would issue title insurance. We had the house inspected before closing but apparently the insurance company looks for a few more things than the home inspector did. Luckily we have a good electrician that we've been working with for several years because as expected I had to had travel out of town for work that week.

The first electrical issue was in the retro bathroom where there was an original wall heater than was not working. We had to either fix the heater or ensure that the electrical connections to the heater were capped off.
Being that the house was 60+ years old we opted to remove the wires all the way to the power source ensuring that it would not be an issue. We could have just added some wire nuts but decided to just pull the wire.


Problem # 3 Exposed wire in closet

I actually like the retro bathroom - it's the original bathroom and looks like something from 1950, because it is!  So far Jan has it last on the list to rehab so it'll be safe for a while.  Gotta like that yellow tile!

Electrical issue #2 was an unterminated wire under the eave of the house on the west side.   This is another one that a couple of wire nuts could have fixed but we had the wire on this one pulled also.  I believe the previous owners were planning on putting a security light on this side but never got around to it.   It's actually a good spot for one now that decided to put a shed on this side of the house since we will not have a garage.

The last electrical issue was in the outside closet where someone had run wire from an electrical outlet in the attic down the inside wall and through a hole in the outside wall and connecting to an outside receptacle.  The receptacle was used to power the sprinkler system control box.  To fix this issue conduit was added between the attic receptacle and the outside one and the wire run inside it.  Another easy fix.

Moral of this story is that even if you have an inspection don't expect it to find all the problems that the insurance inspector would have concerns with.  I'd expect they would but this is not the first time we had a problem like this.  In a previous blog We Need Rehab: Home Inspections Lower Risk I discussed how inspections can lower risk.

The title insurance issue problem cost a bit more to fix and started at the seller closing table when the closing attorney was casually discussing the survey and questioning the improvements that the sellers had made to the property.  If you look closely at the survey you can see a wood deck on the front of the house and a fence line on the west side of the house.  The sellers removed both of them.  However, in spite of the fact the lot lines had not changed nor the footprint of the house he would not issue title insurance to us until the survey was updated!  Generally the survey is the responsibility of the buyer and we were going to need to get an updated one anyway - just don't need this problems at the closing table.

Lot Survey showing wood deck that

That's it for this post and have a great day and be thinking about my back.  I'm working on the rock pit over the next few weeks.