Rankin Family Website

Week 20

(0)Saturday November 3, 2001 - I left Tokyo at 7 p.m. today, flew to San Francisco, Denver, and then arrived in Austin around 10 p.m. for a total travel time of about 24 hours.

(0)Sunday November 4, 2001 - I went out to the site to see the progress since I was told that they had finished the house on Friday. Well, I guess it depends on your definition of "finished." There were several things that I don't think they finished. Most of them were minor and I am ready to move on to the next phase so I told them to not come back and I will finish what they didn't. The quality of their work was nothing like what it was when they started. Oh well, I guess that is to be expected. As far as the numbers turn out, they overran on the materials estimate by 67% and overran on the length of time by over 100%. The crane ended up costing me almost $2,000 which I think should have been half that because they were not ready for the crane and were doing prep work while the crane operator sat and watched. At least I can move on and work on the rough wiring, plumbing and install all of the doors. The power company put in all of the poles and wire while I was in Japan. There are wires from the transformer hanging on the meter pole but I didn't have a chance to assemble the meter base and main panel so they haven't installed that yet.

Week 20