Why Us?

Maybe it's just the sheer number of contractors we've had to have dealings with.  But we're running about 75/25 good to bad.

Our electrician, Max, has been spectacular.  He will be getting business from us in the future.  If you need an electrician, ask us; we'll give you his contact information.

Our roofer was great.  Depite delaying starting on our roof for about a day, he was fantastic.  Cleaned up all his debris and left the job done right and both Karl and I completely satisfied.  (We're happy to give you his contact information, too.)

Our drywall guy was great, too.  Came in on a Saturday to do some work and, over all, did a nice and professional job.  (Need drywall?  Let us know; we'll give you his info, too.)

Our A/C guy was darn good, too.  His crew went above and beyond what they were supposed to do and helped make us satisfied customers.  (Yeah, you know....)

On the other hand, our roofing framer (you know, the one who left us without a roof for a week in the rain...) I simply can not recommend at all.  He can't even be counted on to hammer in a nail properly.  (Literally.)

And, now most recently, our refrigeration guy for the walk-in cooler.  He doesn't follow (or doesn't remember) directions well.  He tromped around on our roof in the heat potentially damaging some of the brand new shingles beyond repair.  (Roofer guy is coming to take a look at it to give us his opinion; hopefully tomorrow.)  Claims to never leave a job without being paid right then and there for the work.  (The first I'd heard of it was when he was demanding payment in full after the job was done.)  Seems to have been offended that I found several problems with his work (which, if he had done it the way he had been directed by Karl, wouldn't have been a problem).  He freaked out when we called him today asking about the damage to the roof threatening to come back and rip the condenser unit off the roof.  (Which, by the way, is now ours since we paid him for the equipment yesterday.  In other words, he threatened to steal my equipment; not exactly professional.)

And perhaps the cause of most concern is the fact he did not return our phone calls for three days.  (Granted, one of those days was a Sunday.)  We had expected the unit to be ready on Thursday.  We called on Thursday afternoon and left a message.  Left at least two messages on Friday; no call back.  Same for Saturday.  And one message on Sunday.  Finally, on Monday, he called back saying that he'd be able to come Tuesday to install the unit.  Communication does not seem to be this guy's strong point.

Honestly, I think the poor guy is just completely, utterly overwhelmed by having been handed the business by his father.  He doesn't seem to have the business sense needed to run a business well (or at all).  He volunteered that he had lost his credit because of the economy.  I think the guy has a major cash flow problem and a major problem with listening to his customers.  (Is it my fault he doesn't follow directions or take care to not damage the roof he's tromping on?)

Regardless, all the stuff needed for the fire repair has been done.  (Aside from a little plumbing work I'm going to have to do on the roof tomorrow.)

You read that correctly.  The fire repair is complete.

We have the county Health Department coming on Friday.  I know we'll have some concerns to correct.  Most likely having to do with clean up of the dust and assorted construction debris.  And we'll take care of that over the weekend with a final inspection to take place on Monday.  (Now that I'm reading all of this, I think I should have them come on Monday instead....  Meh!  I'll think about that tomorrow!)

Finally Crossing our Fingers

It's been a long day.

BUT, we have our final building inspection scheduled for tomorrow. (Well, today now.)  I expect to have a few corrections -- there almost always are -- but nothing show-stopping.  And, depending on the corrections the inspector potentially wants, we may get signed off tomorrow!

We still have to get the Health Department's approval and I have a call in to them to get that scheduled hopefully for Friday.

Then, if that all goes well, we'll clean like mad over the weekend, fix whatever the Health Department needs done, get reinspected on Monday and throw open the doors at 4:00pm Monday!

Could this long process finally be *that* close to being over once and for all????

Coming Along

Things are coming along nicely.  There have been a few additional surprise delays that have the potential to throw off our carefully constructed schedule.  Mainly delays that could cause our inspections to take a day or two longer than expected.  We're trying to get it right the first time now rather than doing what we think will pass and correct it later if asked.

The light fixutres are up and the A/C registers are in and the walls are mostly painted.  It really is starting to look like a bar!  And our LED pool table light looks quite nice!

The insurance adjuster has been out for the vandalism and I believe we're only waiting for a final determination which I expect to be favorable.

This weekend, we have friends coming by to help paint the rest of the place.

Next week, there's more clean up work to do and orders to place and inspectors to call and a bunch of small touches to finish up the job.  And I think you'll find all the diamond plate you see on our sites will begin to make a little more sense.  (It looks pretty darn cool if ya ask me!)

(And, ya know what?  I kinda envy you guys (and gals) who will walk into the bar and get the impact of all these changes all at once.  I've (obviously) been living with it for months and months so I've seen it change over time.  We really think what we've done with the place will impress you.  At least we hope it does.)

Amazing People

We know some truly amazing people.

We're less than two weeks away from our planned opening (and still on track) and more and more friends are popping out of the woodwork to help us!

There's a guy we know who is going beyond the call of duty to help us change the look of the bar itself to something that's going to be really, really cool.  (We think.)  And it'll make the background of our website make a little more sense, too.

There're others who are helping just do "whatever we need".  Yesterday, our ceiling got painted by one such of these.  Our fence has been strengthened. A toilet was fixed (it was broken by one of two of our contractors but everybody denies it was them.  Patches have been made for stucco.  There are many, many examples; these are just a couple that I can think of right now.

Frankly, we could not even think about meeting our June 20 deadline without these people.

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Now, back to work.  The electrical and A/C guys are at the bar today finishing their work and should be done by early afternoon.  Our refrigeration guy is coming tomorrow and he'll be done with his stuff tomorrow.  Then, we think we're ready for our final building inspection on Friday.

(We did have a vandalism "issue" again this past Thursday night/Friday morning and again Monday night/Tuesday morning.  Some donkey--and by donkey, I mean jackass--broke into the back yard and destroyed the old walk-in refrigeration roof unit as it was waiting to be put onto the roof.  It should be covered by insurance (adjuster arriving this morning to check into it) but it has caused a bit of a delay; and that delay shouldn't be too bad.)

Framing Inspection: Passed

Just got word from Karl:  The roof framing has passed the inspection.  We can move on.

Spinning Wheels

I'm not sure what to say today.

This week we should be (finally) getting the work finished by Demo Guy.   You know, the work that should have been completed a whole month ago.  If it goes well, I suspect we can have a finished roof within a week or so.  Demo Guy has caused us nearly two weeks (if not more) in delays.

We should also be able to get the electrical work finished.  We've a meeting tomorrow with Electrical Contractor's former employee to see if working with Employee can work for us.

This was also supposed to have been the week we were going to announce an opening date.  But I don't think we're quite ready to do that.  First, we wanted to be open for the Rapture on May 21 and have a Post-rapture hang-over party on May 22; that's not happening.  Then it was Memorial Day and that's looking increasingly unlikely.  And finally, Fresno Pride on June 4; and that's not looking promising as an open date either.

Our Trump Impersonation

After a particularly serious lapse of judgement on the part of our electrical contractor which caused an unconscionable security problem and combined with a near complete lack of the ability to communicate with each each other (we have a very hard time understanding him; English is not his native language) we had to fire him yesterday.

Karl had been doing most of the talking with this guy until yesterday so I didn't fully understand the language barrier.  His employee was able to understand him just fine (employee's native language is English) and we were dealing with him most of the time.  We learned yesterday that Contractor had fired Employee the day before.  Employee had been working with Contractor for about three years and the firing apparently came from out of the blue.

We would really have rather kept working with the same guy.  But, after a conversation that lasted at least 5 minutes (if not longer) and I still was unsure whether or not PG & E even knew we existed--much less was coming out to hook up our power to the pole--and apparently talking in circles Karl and I decided we didn't want to continue with Contractor without Employee.

On the Plus Side....

It looks like we may have temporary electrical service sometime this week; it depends on how quickly PG & E can make it out to connect things up.  And that will make construction work go a lot easier for everybody.

And, Jeff of Club Legends stopped by with a small entourage to take a look at the place.  (I assume he was driving by and saw Karl's car.)  He had some excellent advice that might save us a bunch of money.  (Which may go a good distance to making up for the costs of completing Demo Guy's work.)

"Is There a Lawyer in the House?"

Turns out, it wasn't all resolved on Monday.

As I mentioned very briefly yesterday (it was a mobile blog posting) we met with Demo Guy yesterday afternoon.  And it turns out we're going to have to take him to small claims court to recover the costs of repairing the damage we firmly believe beyond any shadow of doubt to have been caused by his construction crew and his own negligence.

Rolled into that claim is going to be money to finish the job correctly.  We discovered yesterday that the two guys Demo Guy sent on Saturday did not install the truss correctly at all.  Even after Karl had shown the crew the plans which clearly show the proper way to install the connectors they were not done correctly.  At all.

We're considering naming names here with this contractor.  We don't want to get caught up in a libel or slander lawsuit for defamation of character so we have to tread carefully.  That's not too difficult; we just have to make sure that our opinions are clearly stated as opinions.  There can be no defamation of character or libel or slander if what is said is true; the problem becomes being able to prove in court that what we present as fact is, indeed, factual.

The Best Laid Plans

If I were baking a cake and left out flour, it would not turn out to be a cake. And if I did, I could not go back later and add flour to the mess and call it cake. This is the type of problem I was facing yesterday. One ingredient was left out of our plans and since then many solutions have been put forth about how to fix the problem. "We could put this here, and that there, and then these could go here, and you would only need a few of these..."

Some of them sound like feats of engineering. Consider that the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, The Hindenburg, and the Chevy Vega were also feats of engineering. Others sound very "rednecks with duct tape". Before anyone objects, I know that NASCAR has made great strides with duct tape, but it hasn't yet been approved for new construction. If it was, Dale Earnhardt Jr. would be selling it on TV.

But after careful consideration Bryan and I have reached the exact solution to this problem. READ THE PLANS.

Wow that sounds simple. Now let's see if we can get them to do it. Your favorite soap operas may be going off the air,... but stay tuned for Crisis with the Contractor!

Correcting the Corrections

We got the revised plans back from the resubmission (or whatever the real thing it's called) to the city yesterday.  There's a list of corrections.  It's a short list, but a list nonetheless.

And this whole thing is just $%@! annoying.  We were told we could get any truss company to build the trusses for us; so we did.  We found a company that would do the trusses cheaper than the company the engineering firm had recommended.  What nobody told us, though, was that we had to inform our engineering firm that a different company was making the trusses.   (If they're made to match the approved truss sheet, why does it matter who makes them???).  That omission of information is costing us time and money.

Now, we have to wait through this ridiculous and slow back check bull$#!& to have corrections made that, quite frankly, make no sense to me.

And I question the thoroughness of some of the people doing work at various places.  We were asked to move the insulation from on top of the ceiling to directly below the roof.  Why wasn't this requested during plan check and back check two to three months ago?  Why do we have to pay for this?  Who the #*&! dropped the ball two months ago??  And how many more times are we going to have to go through revisions and spending more and more money to get new things approved that should have been caught in the first place?

I'm sure I'm just ranting and raving out of sheer frustration with dealing with something I have no experience in.  But, fuck! Make it logical!

Were We Raised in a Barn?

Over the weekend, we got the siding put up.

First, the old falling away, burned stucco was removed:

The going theory is (I haven't bothered to verify for certain) the bar used to be some sort of housing for agricultural employees back when it was built. We believe it was built in the 1950's. The somewhat bizarre door-shaped and window-shaped framing lends credence to that theory so we'll go with it.

And, now the siding:

This isn't quite what we expected even though it matches exactly what our engineered plans show. We thought it would be vertical rather than horizontal. We're not complaining -- the siding is a lot more secure than the plain wallboard you see in the "Before" picture -- but it really does make the bar look like a barn. A bright, sunshine yellow barn.

Next on the list: Buy paint that isn't bright, sunshine yellow.

(The grey paint on the door is covering even more graffiti. It was just a tag and nothing like the graffiti that brought ABC 30 out earlier.)

The New Ceiling

If you've been following this delightful process of opening a bar, you'll know that way back in December we posted some really bad renderings of the new ceiling.  Much concern was expressed by many people about the ceiling.  And, finally, we can see how well my crappy renderings match up with reality.

Behold!  THE NEW CEILING!!!!  MARVEL in its loftiness! REJOICE in its completeness!

Well, it doesn't really do justice to the sheer impact of having the higher ceiling.  I tell ya, I absolutely love and am thrilled with the way it looks.

Obviously, we still have a lot of work to do on the ceiling itself.  For starters, it needs to be a ceiling and not open trusses like that.  (Which was our original idea; we like the look of the open trusses.  We kinda wanted a "light construction" theme for the bar.  Like it wasn't quite finished.  Like you were walking into a construction site.  But that was going to be expensive for various reasons.)

So, there ya go.  Now on to the next bit of stress.  The interior construction work.  (When do I get a vacation, anyway?)

Not-So-Lovely Rain and Other Bullstuff

(It's a long one; better strap yourself in.)

As you know, we got our building permit on Monday, March 21. That week, it rained pretty heavily so construction couldn't begin immediately. We had been in contact with the Demo Guy (our demolition and construction contractor; not his real name) and he said he'd be ready to start on March 28.

Well, March 28 rolls around and he's not done with the previous job. He blamed it on the rain the previous week. Seems fairly reasonable. Said he would be able to start on Wednesday and that he wanted to meet with Karl on Tuesday to go over the job one final time before getting crews there.

Also on March 28, the A/C guy was going to come and remove the on-roof A/C unit for cleaning and storage during the demolition. He comes with a crane and removes the unit. And that took pretty much all day so it's probably good that Demo Guy wasn't ready to start on the 28th.

Demo Guy and Karl meet on Tuesday to go over the job and Demo Guy says he'd have his crew start on Thursday. On Wednesday, Karl spent a lot of the day at the bar doing "stuff". Fixing stucco problems, building fences where there weren't fences before and that sort of thing.

Thursday rolls around and Demo Guy still isn't ready to start and he'd start on Friday. We start to see a pattern.

That pattern is reinforced on Friday, April 1, as well. He's still not ready. But he will be most definitely, positively, absolutely be ready and start on Monday, April 4. Careful readers will note that's one week after he first said he'd be able to start.

Early Friday afternoon (April 1) Karl heads from home to the bar to do some work (I forget exactly what). Later that day, the truss company called and told us the trusses would be ready for delivery on Monday, April 4; the same day that Demo Guy was to finally begin work demolishing the roof. That seemed perfect to Karl and me but the Demo Guy wanted us to delay the delivery of the trusses until April 11. This said to both Karl and me that the demolition would take a week. (Considering the work, a week always did seem a little long; Demo Guy originally said the entire job would take two weeks. But I digress.)

Karl spent the weekend in Fresno doing various work on the bar. Monday morning rolls around and Karl heads to the bar in the early morning and meets Demo Guy and his crew. They start removing the roof and its trusses and, after a while, Karl leaves to let them do their work.

Later that day, Karl returns and finds the demolition complete. All of it. Trusses, old metal roof, old shingles, old sheathing all ripped off and put into a dumpster. The process that we thought would take a week took a single day. (A very long day, to be sure, but a day nonetheless.) This was a nice surprise! (But then why did Demo Guy want to wait a week to start putting up the trusses and why did he have us delay the delivery of the trusses a full week?)

The demolition broke a few things in the bar--glass counter top, a mirror, a speaker, drink rail, things like that--but that was nothing compared to the problems that were about to occur.

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Since the bar was going to be without a roof for so long (upwards of two weeks) Karl wanted to sit at the bar over night to help prevent any vandalism that might occur if nobody was there to watch the place.  So, Karl spends the night on Monday sitting in his car staring at the bar.  Fun.

On Tuesday, we ask Demo Guy why he is leaving us without a roof for a week. Turns out Demo Guy was doing two jobs at the same time; ours and someone else's. I'm sure Demo Guy has his reasons for leaving us without a roof for a week but I don't know what they could possibly be. Looks to me that this guy seems to have a scheduling problem. It seems more logical to me to knock out one job before starting another. Is this guy so good that he's in this much demand? (Quite frankly, I doubt it; in my opinion, his attention to detail and concern for his clients seems a bit lacking.)

On Tuesday afternoon, we received the lovely "homo fagét" graffiti. And that was annoying and disturbing. I also see that there's a 30 to 70% chance of rain on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. No roof and rain do not mix. Demo Guy has his guys off on his other job and I have no roof. We get in touch with the truss folks and they can deliver the trusses Wednesday afternoon. Why Wednesday? We want to try to get Demo Guy to start work on Wednesday afternoon in preparation of the 70% chance of rain on Thursday and we figured he'd be concerned about his client's project being damaged by rain. It was too late on Tuesday to get a hold of Demo Guy so we have to wait until morning.

For various reasons, we couldn't get a hold of Demo Guy Wednesday morning to see if he could start that afternoon. When we finally contacted Demo Guy, he said his crew could not work on our roof on Wednesday but would be working on our roof at 7:00am Thursday and, unless there's a downpour, they'd continue working to get us a roof. And, even if there was a downpour, we were assured that the crew would resume work when it cleared up.

Wednesday night, it rains. The bar gets wet. All of the bar gets wet. And Demo Guy didn't even bother to try to protect the interior with tarps or anything and didn't even offer to come help put up any sort of protection. (To be fair, we didn't either but that's not the point. The point is he didn't even seem concerned for anything but the pool table.)

Well, on Thursday Demo Guy's crew shows up at the crack of dawn again and beings working. A couple hours later, there was a 45-minute downpour and the crew left. Since Karl had been spending his nights at the bar keeping tabs on the place, he couldn't stay at the bar during the day; he had to sleep at some time, right? Before the downpour and after Demo Guy's crew had installed one truss, he went and took a nap. Mid afternoon, he gets up and heads to the bar to see what progress had been made after the rain had stopped. There was no crew working. The work had stopped, no progress had been made despite having no rain during the afternoon.

We called Demo Guy and asked him where his crew was. He did not know and could not get a hold of them! That's right, he did *not* know where his crew was and could *not* get a hold of them. To say that we were furious is a gross, massive understatement.

Demo Guy assures us up and down that, despite not knowing where they are, his crew will be there at 7:00am Friday to continue working and that his crew didn't come back on Thursday afternoon because "every time they picked up a saw, they were getting shocked" because the equipment was so saturated. (I thought, "SO IS MY BAR!!") (I don't mean to say that I wish his crew to be placed at risk of electrical shock, mind you.)

We have serious doubts about whether or not Demo Guy can even try to make good on his word about showing up on Friday morning; his track record is not exactly stellar in that regard. But, we can do nothing--literally--but believe him. What else could we do? Hire another contractor to finish the job? The place still had no roof. I'm sure we could have hired another contractor to finish the job but the annoyance of doing that would be unfathomably stressful for both of us.

Friday comes around and Demo Guy's crew shows up. I guess he finally figured out how to get a hold of his employees. Karl goes and lays down for his daily rest. Later that afternoon the crew finishes with the trusses and sheathing. The construction is complete in one day.

Also, ABC 30 comes out and does their piece on the graffiti. The police show up and assure us that they do, in fact, care about the (legally defined) hate crime of the graffiti. Ultimately, Friday ended up being a pretty great day for the bar. We simply love the vaulted ceiling (pictures coming tomorrow of that) and are thrilled to finally be at this point in the process.

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In the end, Demo Guy scheduled two weeks for a job that only took two and a half days. Why he couldn't have just had the whole thing done by Wednesday before the rain started is simply beyond my comprehension. EVERYTHING was ready for him and he chose to delay things. He is the one who had us delay delivery of the trusses. He is the one with the apparent scheduling problems that made him unable to start when he first said he could. He is the one who couldn't communicate with his employees at a crucial time.

In all, the bar survived. The rain didn't cause too much obvious damage; there could still be some moisture problems with the drywall in the future but we're taking some proactive steps to help slow--if not prevent--that. It could have been a lot worse if the floor hadn't been concrete. But the problems and delays this guy caused for us are reprehensible and wholly unprofessional.

We have a roof!!!

Details will come later but the new roof is up!!  Still need shingles put on but the trusses are up and the sheathing is on.

When You Hit Rock Bottom

For reasons that I hope will become clearer to you next week, this week has been truly one of the worst--if not the worst--of this entire project.  We think it's getting better today, right now, as I type this.  We hope.  Again, I'm sorry for being so cagey about this week but I think it may be for the best.

The $10,000 Piece of Construction Paper

Phew!

Three months and four days after we started the process with The City of Fresno to get the building permit and after spending darn close to $10,000 on various services, government fees, and probably a few other things I've completely forgotten, we have our building permit.

I feel like I can finally relax for a bit.  I can't.  But I feel like I can.

Both Karl and I have been waiting until we had a permit in our grubby little hands before we made any real construction plans.  And he's been on the phone today with the contractors that will be working first.  A/C guy, demolition guy, and the truss guy.  (No, not the truss your grandfather wore.)

As early as next week you'll begin to see some actual physical work on the bar as you drive by.

It's a great relief to finally be at this point.

Here, Karl is holding the $10,000 sheet of construction paper.