13 years in the making... Update 9/20/10, Final walk through.

[SunnyD]

Got a sweet little update in the op.

8/3/2010 - Look ma, there be walls!

Stopped by today for a meeting with the construction manager working on my house. Just went over construction expectations and such and he answered any question I had... and I got one answer I wanted to hear: Regarding the network cable, I was told that as long as THEIR contractor is willing to pull the cable and does it, then it shouldn't be a problem to run it before the sheet rock goes up. Apparently if I were to do it myself or have my own contractor do it, that would void the warranty on the house. Sweet! So I now have the number for the electrical contractor and will be giving him a call to verify that it's cool with him, and if it goes as planned, I'll have network drops in the locations I wanted them in the first place, which is alongside each coax run.

Here's a crappy cell phone pic... because framing has started going up.

 

[bignateyk]

Holy cow.. they pack you guys in like sardines in that neighborhood.

 

[SunnyD]

Holy cow.. they pack you guys in like sardines in that neighborhood.

Tis the "New America" dontchaknow?

I agree, but after spending 2 years with ~3/4 acres that the kids don't use, I don't give a crap. Less for me to mow.

 

[Anubis]

Tis the "New America" dontchaknow?

I agree, but after spending 2 years with ~3/4 acres that the kids don't use, I don't give a crap. Less for me to mow.

lol thats 1 way to look at it. too each their own

 

[DrPizza]

Congrats! And congrats on a potential victory for running the cable.

 

[Regs]

I am happy for you sunny! I know how much this means.

 

[child of wonder]

Congrats! You're going to love having the house wired for networking.

Wireless is so unreliable and pissy for anything beyond web surfing.

 

[SunnyD]

Congrats! You're going to love having the house wired for networking.

Wireless is so unreliable and pissy for anything beyond web surfing.

To be honest, a good AP makes all the difference. I have absolutely no issues streaming and/or gaming to the kids' computer and the Wii currently.

 

[SunnyD]

8/4/2010 - 2nd floor... check!

Wife wanted to swing by today and take pics. Looks like the roof should be up by the weekend at this pace.

 

[jellyrole]

Damn that seems to be going up quick!

 

[Engineer]

Congrats. Now hurry up and pay that bastard off....not the American way! :biggrin:

 

[Blackjack200]

It's funny how fast framing goes up, it seems like your house is built in a week. Then everything seems to slow way down.

 

[Eli]

Congrats man!

Personally, I could never live within spitting distance of my neighbors like that, but to each their own.

 

[SunnyD]

Congrats. Now hurry up and pay that bastard off....not the American way! :biggrin:

I plan on it, and not by raising foreign debt. Made a lot of mistakes in my life, including financial ones, but I'd like to say I'm a little more grown up now. Not much... but a little.

It's funny how fast framing goes up, it seems like your house is built in a week. Then everything seems to slow way down.

It's nice, but at the same time I sure hope it slows down. Things are moving at what seems to be faster than I want it to be at the moment.

Congrats man!

Personally, I could never live within spitting distance of my neighbors like that, but to each their own.

Yeah, but they're my own four walls, and I couldn't give a crap about my neighbors. I'm pretty tolerant.

 

[Squisher]

Hmm, I'd be interested how they were going insulate the sidewalls of that trussed area and the area over the garage. Have you talked to anybody living in one of these houses already that has seen a winter?

Too often builders neglect this area, the people that built my house did. The first two seasons of Holmes on Homes seem to be all about these issues.

 

[ebaycj]

This. I've already talked to the subcontractor to see if there was any way to strip the package down to just cable and jacks, and he won't do it without the wiring box. It's not that expensive overall, but I'm also limited on how much I have out of pocket. Also the plans are finalized at this point.

I figure the only two things I run on ethernet at this point are my desktop and my xbox, and the latter is going to be getting replaced with a new slim which has wireless built in. I'll probably cope with my desktop in the meantime by having the modem/router with the desktop until I can run some cable myself later. It was determined that it just wasn't worth the effort, though I will ask the construction manager tomorrow (have a meeting with him anyhow) if there's any possibility for me (or them if I provide it) to run cable before the walls go up anyway.

Just have him run (Edit: empty) big wire conduits from the "server room" to all the ground floor rooms (to wherever you want the jacks at), and another big conduit to the attic.

You should be able to run the cat5/coax/fiber/hdmi/etc later, at your convenience, through these conduits.

All of these are low voltage cables and as such, do not have nearly as many regulations on them as power lines. You could probably run plastic PVC pipe through the walls as a form of conduit yourself (or have your normal non-electrical contractor do it for you) and be just fine. Might want to ask about this.

Another way you could do this is run plastic PVC pipe right next to your heating ducts, then have it exit into the wall nearby. All connections will terminate down by the furnace, so put your switch there. Done.

 

[Gillbot]

Damn that seems to be going up quick!

cookie cutter houses go up fast

 

[her209]

 

[SunnyD]

8/9/2010 - Exterior is up, including windows.

Unfortunately it looks like I missed my window to get the cat5 pulled in as the electrical as well as coax are already in. I'm not going to push the issue because I had initially planned on foregoing it anyway, so I'll just run cable later as needed. Anyway, the exterior is up and primed, and windows are in for the most part as well. I took a walk around the house too, checked out my back yard and whatnot. Everything is looking great from what I can tell. Our framing walk-through is supposed to be scheduled for this week, at while point I'll be checking out the interior and getting an idea of what I can and can't do later.

 

[StepUp]

Congratulations! I'm packed even tighter than you are because my house runs almost the entire width of the lot. I use a rotary push lawn mover because it would be a pain in the ass to lift a gas powered lawn mover over my AC unit to get to the front yard. There is literally about 18" of space between my AC unit and my neighbor's fence.

 

[SunnyD]

Congratulations! I'm packed even tighter than you are because my house runs almost the entire width of the lot. I use a rotary push lawn mover because it would be a pain in the ass to lift a gas powered lawn mover over my AC unit to get to the front yard. There is literally about 18" of space between my AC unit and my neighbor's fence.

Holy crap! Yeah, that's actually one of the things I looked at this afternoon - the pad for my AC unit is behind the house rather than on the side. I'll have a 5' strip on either side to mow.

It was funny though, we drove to the other side of the neighborhood and then back, and as we were coming up the hill to our road I made the comment to my wife that it almost looks like the San Francisco row houses from that angle if they were any closer together.

 

[Tristicus]

LOOKS LIKE SHIT.






Invite me over. :awe:

 

[StepUp]

Holy crap! Yeah, that's actually one of the things I looked at this afternoon - the pad for my AC unit is behind the house rather than on the side. I'll have a 5' strip on either side to mow.

It was funny though, we drove to the other side of the neighborhood and then back, and as we were coming up the hill to our road I made the comment to my wife that it almost looks like the San Francisco row houses from that angle if they were any closer together.

Thankfully, his yard runs wider than his house, so it's not like he hears my late night activities... on the other side though, I could literally high-five my neighbor, as their kitchen window is right across from ours. Or play swords...

Hmmm, swords sounds fun!

 

[BlahBlahYouToo]

wow, i'm jealous. i wish they built "smaller" houses like this by me.
over here, all they put up are 5000 sq ft mcmansions and they cost $1M+.
i don't need all that space and don't need to spend all that money.

what's the final cost, if I may ask?

 

[IronWing]

Looks like a temp support.