ineptitude.

do you ever feel like youre simply spinning your wheels? like youre seeking some grander purpose thats just beyond your grasp? ever contemplate if you actually do anything of merit with the time god has allotted you? or like youre just drone-ing along, a worker bee in a cosmic hive, fulfilling your day-to-day responsibility, a cog in the proverbial machine... do you ever walk away at the end of the day questioning if you've actually done anything of real worth?

im having one of those days.

dont get me wrong. im not unhappy, im not sad or depressed, im just feeling a little... well, inept. i chose that word for a reason. its about as perfect as it gets for my current state of mind.

ive been thinking about design more and more recently. partly because im actually being afforded the opportunity to do some in limited degrees, partly because im not really doing it. partly because im starting to yearn for it again... that friend ive lost touch with over the last 3 or 4 years... stupid economy...

and the more i contemplate... the more i experience...

the more focused my vision gets on the areas in which i truly want to design...

i wish id finished my second masters - urban design. i really do enjoy it [or wish i enjoyed more of it to be more accurate... sigh...] i was so close, i could almost touch it... seriously, 9 credits... thats just... nothing. thats a light [please note the formatting irony, haha! i kill myself...] semester in grad school. i could have done it with half my brain turned off... and yet... life tends to take us on a path inevitably not the one we set out on. im not bitter, not by any means... but ive been thinking a lot about urban & landscape design. along with my typical musings of architectural, graphic, and web design of course. and well, im a designer. there's no escaping it [granted, i didnt add any adjectives to that term. ill be the last to ever admit anything ive designed is "good" but design itself, alas... you are my curse...] my mind is incessantly toiling over some idea or another... im also a doer, ive certainly discovered that. i have a passion for getting my hands in the actual work. ive gotten hooked on the high that comes with accomplishing something you can touch, see, something with resolution. to whatever degree that may be... and i miss design... ...did i ever truly have it?

i digress...

[substance]

i know i havent update anything on the house recently, and well... thats because things have stalled out for the moment. as far as updates go, i can happily report that the roof is finished. whoop! [for all those fellow ags out there] they finished the roof about a week and a half ago and have since been getting the interior of the house thoroughly cleaned and prepped for interior re-construction. and then theyve had some rain delays [will it ever stop raining in cincy?] and so they should be getting to actual work very soon. in the meantime we've been working with the flooring guy to pick out flooring and we've done that successfully as well. we're going with a light-mid-tone neutral carpet throughout the majority of the house and then in a few key places we have a medium-dark hardwood laminate that will replace vct, tile, etc. as needed.

we received some discs in the mail yesterday from rainbow with pictures of the carnage and devastation that has become our house being gutted, and then some pictures of the roof going back on - my first actual glimpses at the roof of our house! [3 years too late?] the roof looks fine enough to me, im satisfied. but the interior... it hurts going through those pictures... knowing how much we put into that house, and seeing what its been going through... i may post a handful later, we'll see...

at work things are slowing down a little, but at the same time, gearing up. i feel kind of in limbo between projects right now. one is winding down and my services are limited on it, another is starting up and my services arent needed yet. and in the in between, ive been working on revising our standards, templates, documents, etc. to stay current with the better ways we've discovered to do things [as well as overhaul the copious grammatical and spelling errors of my predecessor.... heh. hes a really nice guy, but he certainly was not an English major. to that fact, nor am i. however, i do have a knack for seeing blatant errors at times.] as well as a new pet-project on the side that is filling some of my time - but i wont get into that here. truth is, its an internal thing, any information i could potentially divulge is more or less restricted, so im pretty well unable to say much on the subject anyhow.

outside of work.. karen and i finally joined a gym. we'd been talking about it for a good 2 or 3 months, and then 3 weeks ago i just, did it. i can be impetuous like that at times. just, stop the talking and do it already. at any rate, since joining and then getting back on a better diet and a supplement regime, im feeling much better physically, but im frustrated with the overall state of my physical self. 4 months outside of a gym took its toll on me. im fighting just to get back to where i was before i left cincy. which is troublesome, because when i was in cincy, i was fighting to get back to where i was in denver. needless to say, the road ahead is long and arduous, and im impatient. ive worked too long and too hard in the past to get to where i was, and now to have lost it all and feel like im starting over... its a mental obstacle to say the least.... luckily, i have all the drive and discipline in the world when it comes to working out [plus ill admit... i can be a bit of a workout junky at times. it is an addiction, although i wouldnt say a negative one, haha!] so i should have no problem sticking with it. i just hate the waiting and the time it takes to actually see results.

and other than work, and working-out. well... there's not time for much else.

saw the fam for easter and had a great time. took the mutt to the beach and he had a blast.

things are generally fine, although some things are frustrating and trying on my patience [do not even attempt to broach the subject of finances with me. seriously.] finding a church in houston is proving even more difficult than id imagined [and i have a pretty wild imagination], and i regret to say, im getting disheartened with the search. ill never find what i had in denver again, i know that. but its so difficult in texas. finding any church that isnt plastered with a denominational marker is difficult enough, finding one that actually fits... harder still. finding the perfect one, well... i wont say impossible, but i think you get the gist. i love texas, i do, but dammit... i do not like closed minded people. and sadly, we have more than our fair share.......

all in all. its just one of those days. ineptitude. yep, that does it...

catastrophe_part.four

[and we're still going... ]

for those of you just joining us, the title of this post specifies part four. so... go read the first 3 if you want to get caught up. for everyone else, im not re-capping, so lets dig into the meat & potatoes.

at this point the house was drying-out pretty well.

i'd been in fairly frequent contact with greg, who was more than happy to keep me apprised of the situation. however, i was having no luck finding a roofer that would put on the torched-down modified roof, and i was getting frustrated.

then saturday i get a phone call from ryan - not happy again. great, now what?

apparently he'd stopped by to check on the progress of the house dry-out [during yet another rain storm... this has got to be one of the wettest seasons on record in cincy, its just been non-stop.] only to find that the new tarp was billowing up and water was once again getting into the house. are you freaking kidding me.... obviously he wants me to get something done. and now.

so we hung up and i gave the roofer a call... and got his voicemail. what kind of a roofer doesnt take calls on a saturday? frustrating... so i leave him a voicemail and let him know that the tarp is coming up and i need him out there asap to get it fixed. and... he doesnt call back...

in fact, its not till monday that i finally hear back from him and hes not happy either. he says he'll have his guys go out and look at it, but ensures me that they installed it properly and theres no way it should be blowing up.

the next morning i finally get some news on whats happening with the tarp. the roofer calls me back and lets me know that he sent guys out monday and as it turns out the tarp was in fact blowing up on one of the front corners of the house. the bad news, is that from what he tells me the tarp was obviously tampered with. [what??]

the tarp was brand new when they installed it and they used a series of 2x4 nailers on top of the tarp all around the edge to pin it down uniformly so that it wouldnt tear out around a nail. well that makes sense to me, so what the hell happened?? apparently someone got out there and removed the nailer boards in the corner area and when they put them back they somehow did so wrong [im still lost on how the hell you can do that wrong!] and the roofers guys could obviously see new nail holes in a different place than where they had them originally and somehow this accounted for it blowing up in that corner. [again. im still lost. if they nailed it back down in the same manner as before, even in a slightly different place, then how exactly did it come up?? and while we're on the subject, who the hell was tampering with the freaking tarp? whats the point in that??]

anyway, hes pissed and informs me that i will be billed for them having to go back out and fix it after someone else messed it up. great. whatever, the insurance company said they'd handle the temporary roof repairs, so im not worried about it. at this point anyway...

since i have him on the phone, i take the opportunity to discuss the situation with the estimate for the repairs. i tell him what the insurance agent told me and discussed what money they were going to provide and what they were and werent going to pay for and asked if we could negotiate on his estimate at all. to which he replied flat-out, that its their company policy not to come down on their prices, period. [wtf??] seriously?? who has a company policy like that?? i tried to reason with him, i tried to make him understand that there was no more money, i tried to get him to help me out at all, and he just was not willing to budge. instead, he started to tell me that the insurance company is screwing me over and that theres no way in hell i'd find anyone to do that roof for cheaper than what hes quoting me if they do it right, yada yada yada.... great. im truly screwed here.

so eventually, after hes been chewing on my ear for a while, he decides hes done and lets me get off the phone. and now, i dont know what to do. i dont have an extra $7000 just laying around to put into this stupid house[nor would i want to if i did!], hes not willing to budge on his price, and the insurance company isnt willing to give me another dime. so... now what??

well, at this point my old buddy greg just happens to give me a call to update me on the dry-out. mmm-kay... what else could go wrong?

well, luckily, on greg's end. not much, lol! considering hes already all but gutted my house, what bad news could he have? "we've decided to bulldoze the whole thing and start over"?? ;]

apparently the house isnt/wasnt drying out as fast as they'd hoped, so its probably going to take another week. additionally, there are some places that the walls just arent drying out and they were hoping they would. one wall in particular is the one between the kitchen and dining room and theyre pretty sure theyre going to have to open that one up to get it to dry out, if not tear it out all-together. but other than that, everything is going well and they're very optimistic about the process being completed sooner rather than later.

well this is good news to me. something actually getting done, i cant wait! so again, while having him on the phone already, i take the opportunity to discuss with greg the situation with the roof and ask if he thinks he'd be able to help me out. and greg of course says he'd be glad to and will have his guy come look at the roof as soon as he can to put together an estimate on it for me.

not long after i hang up with him, i get a call from the estimator from rainbow, rob - whod id spoken with a little before when i gave the interior work to rainbow, and who is also always happy to speak with me - who wants to briefly discuss the roof. so i give him the whole story and tell him whats going on with the insurance company, etc. he says no problem and they'll get something to me as soon as possible.

/*/ now to clarify on a few things mentioned in the previous section.

1. tearing out walls. i dont know about you in particular, but when my mother heard this specifc little factoid she was very concerned about the structure of the house, and understandably at that. so for any of you out there that had the same initial thought, let me put your mind to ease briefly.

our house is over 100 years old and is essentially a long skinny rectangle in shape. the way it was built is through exterior structural brick walls [that are nearly a foot and a half thick] with timber floor joists that span from one wall to the other along the narrower width. this is traditional construction for that time period, and is perfectly legitimate and structurally sound if done properly. this is also why if you've ever been in a really old neighborhood, you may have noticed that nearly every house was less that 25 feet wide and was long and skinny from front to back. this accounts for the basic material limitations that they had to work with 100 years ago. and responded to the same type of construction that we have here, where the exterior walls support the entire house and the floor/ceiling joists span directly across the house from one side to the other. what this does is put all of the load of the house on the exterior walls, which is then taken straight down to the foundations [typically stacked stone in these 100 year old houses] and then again into the earth. this basically means that every wall on the interior of the house is typically a non-structural wall unless there were some kind of modifications made after the house was originally built. you can further verify that this is the case by simply going into the basement. if none of the interior walls go down to the basement floor [which most of the time they dont in these old houses] then they obviously arent being structurally supported by the ground directly, i.e., not structural. [well, not structural in the sense that theyre not holding up the entire house and you could have some serious issues if you removed one.]

2. secondly, i hadnt mentioned this before but its important to understand how these estimates are being made in this process. in the case of your typical contractor [the first one we were working with for instance] they do a walk through, inspect the condition of things, decide what they will or wont have to repair or replace, and then they do some quick multiplication assuming certain percentages or dollars per square foot, or ratios of man hours/material. its about as simple as that. if you ask them for an itemized breakdown theyll then typically do a little more work/research and give you some estimates on material pricing/square foot or linear foot depending on the material and potentially the number of guys they plan to have working for roughly how many hours. at this point however, once theyve had to give you more specific numbers, you'll probably see an additional item pop-up that says something along the lines of "any additional or unexpected work to be hourly cost plus labor." this means that if the job takes any longer than they originally estimated or anything gets more complicated than they originally thought, its going to cost you a lot more because theyre going to bill you hourly[and depending on the company or type of work, they'll typically bill 20-40 dollars an hour per worker]. just something to keep in mind.

contrary to that, insurance companies do things completely different. when they do a walk through/inspection/assessment, they take measurements and notes on materials the very first time [and hopefully pictures as well] of anything that is damaged and they simply plug in their numbers and materials into a program that spits out all the reports they need [which are your estimates]. this program essentially contains a database of the going rate of labor [either a national average or based on a given region], the costs of all different kinds of materials [same as before] and the quantities. the program then calculates everything and spits out an itemized list of what each piece will cost all broken down and tabulates the total cost.

its actually a neat little tool that certainly gets you very specific numbers very quickly. the only downside is that these numbers are typically a little low. mostly because any contractor youre going to find to work with is going to beef up their labor costs, material costs, time, etc. to increase their profit a little and make the job worth-while to them. they're certainly not going to walk away without making any money, but they're also not going to tell you where and how their profit is being factored in to their estimate, so more than likely the contractors estimate is almost always going to be higher [if not much, much higher] than the numbers being calculated by this program.

luckily for us, rainbow international is a company that specializes in working on disaster claims and working with insurance companies, so theyve made it their business practice to use all of the same methods and programs that the insurance companies use to calculate their estimates, so rainbows are typically near identical to the insurance company youre working with [yes, each insurance provider uses a different program and calculates things slightly different]. so... the estimates for the work that rainbow does, are almost always completely covered by the insurance company.

3. in addition to that, if the company youre working with happens to be approved as a "preferred service provider" [or 'psp' - this may be a slightly different term depending on the situation, but it will mean essentially the same thing] with your insurance company, then this whole process gets even simpler. it basically means that your insurance company trusts them, and basically stops asking questions and everything gets that much smoother. i wish id known about this preferred service provider business up front, it would have saved a LOT of headaches. it's my advice to always find a preferred service provider when dealing with insurance claims [this goes for vehicle too, been there, done that] it just makes the entire process so much easier on you. i havent discovered yet if theres a publicly available list of who these preferred service providers are for your insurance company, but if there is one, its definitely worth getting your hands on at the beginning of the process, instead of stumbling into later. /*/

a few days later i got an email laying out the estimate for the roof, which was well under the other guys $13,000 and i immediately faxed over to state farm.

however, after faxing it, i looked over it more closely and discovered that there'd been a little confusion in our phone conversation and they hadnt estimated for the torch-down modified roof, and they hadnt accounted for removal of the existing. after calling them back i discovered that their guys had only looked at one place on the roof briefly to establish the existing condition, and that wherever they checked the condition, they only found two layers of membrane [probably because the rest was blown off in that corner, lol!] and they were planning to just go over it. i explained that the entire existing had to be removed before hand and that i needed to see numbers for torch-down mod. if they could get them and he assured me he'd get new estimates out asap.

[meanwhile...]

on the insurance side of things, the dry-out process is taking longer than they expected and my mobile rep is now having to become mobile again. bye, ryan... this time around however, because of the type of claim, and the situation we're in, they decided to hand the case off to a local regional office to handle the remainder of the claim. [enter agents 4, 5, & 6] over the course of the next week i spoke with 3 different people who were at the local office and were passing my case around to get it in the hands of the right person to deal with the type of claim i had. [apparently communication is a little off from one branch of the insurance company to the other..] but eventually we got it settled and we have a very nice girl working on the case now with an actual phone number i can call her on if i ever need to, and shes been working closely and quickly with rainbow to get this all expedited and get the work started to put things back together.

monday morning i got the two new estimates, and while they were now higher to accommodate the cost of removal, they were still $4,000 less than the other guys, and since they were itemized and calculated the same way the insurance company would, i was hoping it would give us a little leverage to get it completely covered. sent those off to the insurance company immediately as well, and at this point we're all but caught up to real-time.

the most recent update after all that came the middle of last week.

1. dry-out is complete. woohoo!

2. walk-throughs with new insurance agents have been completed and estimates are being put together.

3. rainbow had been approved as a preferred service provider and the roof estimate has also been approved.

4. work is scheduled to begin on the replacement of the roof this week.

5. an estimate for the interior work has been started [although it's being split up into different parts for different kinds of work] for the interior and we should be getting numbers this week for flooring and then for the rest [hopefully!]

stay tuned, and i'll update again when i know more.

everyone have a great week!

catastrophe_part.thrice

[this saga never stops...]

alright, so where were we? oh thats right, waiting for monday to see if everyone does what theyre supposed to.

[monday]

so monday morning arrives and at 8am central [9am eastern] i give the new roofer a call to see where we are. much to my surprise he answers the first time i call, and to my slight disappointment they are on their way to the house [instead of having been there the last 2 hours, lol]. but this is great news! its going to get done!

around 11am i get a call from greg who confirms that the tarp is on, the roof is sealed, and that his team is setting up and getting started with the tear out phase. sounds great, we're finally making progress! but wait... whats the tear out phase?

so heres my understanding of how water extraction works... first of all they have a list of items that over time and with whatever testing they do, have decided cannot be dried/arent worth the time it takes to fully dry/some other reason they dont dry them. so the very first thing they do when they go into a house is clean up any debris that has accumulated [such as ceilings falling down? yes...] then they begin to remove any type of material that is both wet and on their list. now to determine the level of wetness they have gauges and testing requirements and such to determine the relative level of water penetration and saturation of whatever the material is. in our case, the house has for all intents and purposes not had a roof to prevent water coming in for the last oh... week? week and a half? and through a series of large heavy rain storms no less. so... its kind of pointless to test a lot of this stuff at all when youre wading through water ankle deep...

items on the list for immediate removal? well. carpet, carpet padding, linoleum, vinal composite tile [or vct for you architecture types], anything with visible surface mold, ceramic tile [if the grout is visibly cracked and has allowed water penetration] mastic, caulk, underlayment boards, plaster, drywall, insulation.... hmm.... im not sure if there's more than that, but that just about covers our house.

so really, after the first couple of days, the only floor surfaces remaining in our house was the subfloor decking through out the entire house with the exception of the kitchen [where the ceramic tile held up pretty well and they decided to try and dry it from underneath in the basement] and the second floor bathroom - which magically managed to avoid almost all water getting in altogether. as far as walls go, they were going to wait and see how much they could dry out after the first week before tearing into them [with the obvious exception of any places that the plaster or drywall had already come off the walls - although there was little of this at this point to my understanding]. ceilings - all gone. drywall, plaster, insulation, i think the only ceilings that remained unscathed were again the 2nd floor bathroom, and then the first floor front room [parlor] and entry way - these two they were going to try to salvage if possible and attempt to dry them out.

so... end of week one, my house has officially been gutted. [see pictures here] the dry out process has begun and is going well by all accounts from greg, the roof has stayed sealed up with no leaking, and ive gotten a bill from the first contractors roof tarping attempts [about 500 bucks at this point]. but things are looking up!

at some point during the week i had spoken with ryan again who was glad to hear everything was going well and that we were back on schedule. however we discussed the interior remodeling once the dryout process was completed and he confirmed that there would be absolutely no money upfront to cover any material costs. if i was going to continue working with my original contractor he was going to have to eat that cost and he would be fully reimbursed when the job was complete.

heh, i'll give you 3 guesses how that went over when i gave the contractor a ring... if you guessed not well received, then you were right. so after a conversation with him about the situation we agreed that he wouldnt be doing the interior work either and that other than the bill for the tarping [attempts] still needing to be paid our business together was dissolved.

to be honest with you, i was a little relieved... dont get me wrong, i like the guy [still] hes a hell of a nice guy. but this whole fiasco and his refusal to work with the insurance company was just more than i could handle in added stress on top of the destruction of my house and being 2000 miles away.

however, now i was stuck, right? who the hell am i going to get to do the interior once the dry-out is finished [which i was told they were optimistically thinking would be no more than a week - however at weeks end that was no longer the case] well.... if youve done any snooping online since the last post then you probably have a good idea of what i did next. given that my relationship with rainbow international had been so positive from the first minute i happily called them up and informed them that id be giving the interior remodel work to them. thats right, if youve checked out their website you know, they are a full service disaster services company. not only do they do the abatement [and that includes mold and asbestos as well if i remember correctly] but they also do the work to come back and make it as good as new.

well at this point i was about as happy as i could be given the circumstances. rainbow was doing a hell of a great job, and greg was a hell of a nice guy, and i was sitting quite comfortably in the assurances that this was going to get done and get done right.

[meanwhile...]

i recieved the estimate from the roofer and faxed it over to the insurance company hoping for the best and was soon entangled in a new nightmare... for those of you that are as ignorant about insurance claims as i was, and specifically those that involve the destruction and repair of your home, get ready for a little morsel of information to chew on that i have been fighting with for weeks now. i cant speak to everyone out theres coverage, but if you have the standard coverage that i do, then yours probably looks near identical to mine.

in the event that you have to go through this hell that i am currently stuck in, it will be valuable for you to know up-front that when the insurance company does estimates and decides what they will and wont cover as far as replacement goes theres a little preface that they dont always mention up-front: no matter what damage occurs or what condition your home was in before the damage, the insurance company will only give you enough money to go back with exactly what was there before. thats it, no more, no less, exactly to the state it was in before the accident.

okay, now while you mull that over, ill clarify things for you with respect to my situation.

the roof.

the roof i originally had, if youll remember, was 100yr old roof joists, with 100yr old wide plank spaced decking, followed by a layer of tin/metal roof, followed by 6 layers of torch-down modified roofing membrane, [keeping in mind that because of the weight of that roofing system the structure of my roof had begin to sag in the middle causing a bowl effect and was holding water - which by the way had worsened significantly since this whole thing began and was now visibly sagging something like 3 inches from the reports i was getting] along with a large skylight cut into the middle of the roof [that was a great feature, but was never installed and structurally reinforced properly which added to the structural issues and was an on-going source of minor water infiltration].

so based on all that, just guess what that meant as far as what the insurance was going to cover... the tearing off of all existing roofing membrane and tin roof, and then coming back with one layer of torch-down modified roofing and the recommendation that we remove and cover up the skylight if we know whats good for us. the end. and they werent really allowing enough for the proper removal and disposal and cleanup of the entire flat roof at that.

so um... heres why this is worse than it sounds.

1. they determined that the structural situation was essentially a "pre-existing condition" that was unrelated to the storm damage and they would cover no structural reinforcing or repair. this means that if we put a new roof on top of the existing structure it would more than likely support the much lighter roofing system with no problem, however water would continue to pool and i guarantee that within a year it will have found its way through the new roof membrane and into the newly-remodeled interior of the house.

2. they determined that the skylight was not effected by the storm damage at all and wouldnt have anything to do with it, period. so.... whos paying to have it removed? me. and what about the fact that its a feature of the house that the potential buyer is expecting to remain? dont know, dont care. thanks guys....

3. the method of installing a torch-down modified roof system requires that the underlaying surface be completely smooth and solid so that the membrane has a surface to adhere to when it is torched-down. um... this doesnt work with a "spaced plank" system! that means there are litterally spaces between every plank in the decking that range anywhere from 1-3 inches... in the case of a tin roof [the very first layer] this isnt a big deal, you nail it werever you want and it covers everything. with a membrane system, there will essentially be sags in all the cracks and every one of those would hold more water and create a point of potential penetration.

4. no one [out of the dozen or so roofers i contacted, not a single one] will put a torch-down modified roofing system on a 100 year old house. in fact 90% of the roofers i talked to wouldnt install a torched-down modified system if the roof was in a condition they could! the risk of fire is too great and the system is decades out of date. the current standard in flat roofs is a fully adhered rubberized roof membrane, that is glued to a sublayer of insulating deck board, that is fastened to a smooth solid roof decking system, typically 3/4inch plywood.

so where does this leave me?

um... effed.

i finally convinced them that at the very least they had to pay for new decking for a membrane to go on top of if i ever found someone to install the system they wanted, and they agreed to 1/2inch [not what you want, will result in a more bouncy roof decking] plywood deck to cover the entire roof.

well at least theres that. now heres the worst part yet... all this is going to result in their estimate being right around $6000. the estimate that the new roofer gave me was upwards of $13,000. so um.... wheres that other 7 grand coming from? yeah, my pockets...

and so begins the next exciting phase of hunting for roofers that would be close to their numbers and provide the roof system they would actually pay for [thus the dozen or so we tried, to no avail] and that would install a roof on my 3 story house to begin with. [which only about a quarter of them would do. the majority only did shingle roofs and only 1 or 2 stories max height.]

joy oh joy...

stay tuned for more exciting catastrophe to come....

catastrophe_part.two

[the catastrophe continues...]

/*/ i forgot to mention in my previous post - and it probably goes without mentioning, but just in case, ima do it anyway - that as soon as all this roof business started things with the house selling got put on hold until we were able to determine what was going to happen and when that might be. through a series [i think 4 or 5 now...] extensions on the "inspection period" in the original contract we have been able to legally extend the deadline of the contract with the buyer, pending the outcome of this mess. to this day we are still in constant contact with the realtor and through him the buyer's realtor and the buyer and we have been ensured that she is still very much interested [possibly now more so, pending the anticipated improvements] and that she's just sitting back and waiting for things to get resolved on our end.... /*/

[agent 3]

so when i left off yesterday we had just said goodbye to jane [who was fairly worthless in this entire process so we werent exactly disappointed to see her go... bye jane.] ryan was also not from ohio. at first we were lead to believe that he would be from the local region and we wouldnt have to deal with another mobile agent from here on out - we were mis-lead. ryan was indeed another mobile rep. 3 or 4 days after we said goodbye to jane i got a phone-call from ryan. ryan wasnt irate or fuming, but its sufficient to say that when ryan called, he was extremely concerned.

apparently there had been another series of huge storms that blew through cincy and had yet again blown the tarp to hell [although apparently it was still on the roof and visible through the skylight on the 3rd floor - billowing and blowing around as it may have been....] and when ryan made his appearance on the scene and began to walk through the house he discovered that the tarp was doing absolutely nothing and that it was in fact actively raining in my house. his exact words were "water is pouring into the house" actually... at this point the new damage report was as follows:

ceiling down in every room on the 3rd floor, all but 2 rooms on the second floor, all but one room on the first floor. the carpet was saturated and puddling on the 3rd floor, 2nd floor, and the first floor was puddling in every room but the front room at this point. additionally, paint and drywall were wet, running, drippings, etc. all over the house. so... this is a bit worse, eh?

however, he did confirm that he could see the tarp through the skylight as i mentioned before and that this did confirm for him that we had made attempts to temporarily seal the house, but given the storms blowing through and the amount of rain they were getting, there was no kind of temporary repairs that would have sealed the roof from water infiltration and that we would continue to be covered under the original claim. [whew...]

at this point he advised me to immediately get my roofer back out to the house to re-tarp and seal the house and to take whatever steps necessary to ensure that the tarp was secured to the roof and would prevent any water getting into the house as best as possible - in fact he recommended that we find a tarp large enough to cover the entire flat roof and then roll over the edge onto the mansard roof approximately 6inches to 1ft so that it could be secured directly to the mansard roof [think of a lid on a jar]. in addition to getting the roofer back out to the house, he advised immediately getting in contact with an emergency water extraction company to come in and get the house dried out as soon as possible. with that, he said his goodbye and let me know he would give me a few days to get the roof sealed and the drying process started and hed be back in touch in 3 or 4 days.

obviously my first call was to the contractor. he didnt answer.... my second call was to our local insurance agent to get a recommendation on a local water extraction company that could get in there right away. he gave me a list of options [because legally they cant support one company over another of course] and i just called the first one on the list - rainbow international. well thankfully, the people at rainbow were extremely friendly, understanding, sympathetic, and eager to help me in any way that they could. we discussed the situation briefly and they got the paperwork going, within 10 or 15 minutes they faxed me the contract to go in and begin the extraction process which i immediately signed and faxed back to them. a few minutes later i got a phone call from the project lead for my case who had already been informed on the status of the house and was really just calling to quell any fears or worries i might have, to introduce himself [greg. we like greg.] and to see if there was any other way that they could help me out. i told him about the roof/roofer situation and gave him the contact info for the roofer and let him know that i hoped to have the roof sealed immediately so that i could get them in there to get started asap. obviously this sounded good to him so we hung up with me feeling much better about the whole situation although peeved to hell that the roofer hadnt called me back yet.... [anyone else seeing the pattern here?]

finally a few hours later, after several previous attempts that day, i was able to get the roofer on the phone and apprise him of the situation. the first thing he said when i was finished was that i already owed him money for the first time [and apparently 2 times following that after the wind had blown the thing up...] that he'd had to go and tarp the roof and he wanted to get paid for that as soon as possible. however, given the circumstances, he understood that the payment wasnt my fault [really, considering id seen no bill for it? how generous of you...] and that hed get over there as soon as he could [heres another one...] to get it tarped the way i wanted. at this point he also made sure to explain to me the cost that would be associated with a tarp that size and how hard it would be to find, etc, etc, etc... [whatever dude, i dont care! ill pay the 200 bucks for the tarp just stop the damn waterfall coming into my house!]

[4 days later - approximately 4:45pm eastern time]

i'd actually gotten so busy with work and greg from rainbow had done such a great job of calming my fears that i'd almost managed to forget about all of this shit. well, almost. and certainly not once i got the phone call and saw the number [or lack of number, for some reason any time these mobile reps called it was always from a blocked number, so at least that way i knew who it was. no one else ever calls me from a blocked number...] my heart sank and i knew i had to deal with this mess again.

this time.... yeah, ryan was irate and fuming. just guess what was happening...

thats right. the roof hadnt been tarped yet, and the water extraction team had yet to begin. he was beyond pissed and STRONGLY advised me to find a roofer that would get that roof sealed up asap.

obviously i called my contractor as soon as he hung up [and yes, i was PISSED]. the contractor answered the phone amid a coughing sneezing attack and let me know that he had the flu, and had been in bed the entire day and that there was really nothing he could do for me right then. hed looked for a tarp big enough to cover the roof that week but he was going to have to go to a special roof supplier to find something that large and he wouldnt be able to do anything till monday at the earliest and even then he didnt know if he was going to have the cash on hand to front me the cost of the material and labor to get the roof sealed the way i wanted.

at this point id had enough. however, i calmly asked him if it would be alright if we severed our agreement on the roof and i would find someone else who could get it done [and wouldnt worry about the upfront cost, apparently that was a big deal.... in fact, ill take a brief moment here to discuss that very aspect of all this.]

/*/ up-front payment vs. payment upon completion or some other mixture of the two...

in my working with this contractor before he had always asked for a rather large portion of the total cost up-front in order to buy materials and supplies for the job and then final payment would come on completion. well in my mind, this does make sense. after thinking it over it made sense to not have expected someone to buy potentially thousands of dollars worth of material out of their own pocket to begin a job not knowing if the client was suddenly going to bail on them or be unable to pay or whatever else. it was a kind of insurance in my mind, so i understood, and i happily paid what he needed without question - in the past.

however, when mentioning this to ryan [soon after our initial conversation , i think later that day actually] the warning bells went off in his mind that that was definitely not how this type of business was done and that i seriously needed to consider finding another contractor...

so at this point i have learned that in the contracting business [and we're talking about residential construction and repair work here so this may not be all-encompassing. im still learning all the ins and outs of the larger commercial contracting and how they go about things] it is in fact the standard of any reputable and serious contractor to have capital on hand and set aside for the sole purpose of procurement. if a contractor ever asks to be paid up front for any part of their services, walk away. just. walk. away.

this basically means one of two things. 1. they are possibly trying to swindle you and get as much money out of you as possible before either not finishing the work, disappearing, or doing a really shitty job. 2. if they are actually trying to do a good job, this is a warning sign that they are a very small company and they potentially dont possess all the experience or knowledge necessary to do a good job for you. you are much better off to walk away and find another contractor - even if it means you arent using someone youve worked with before, or is a friend of the family, or that the process of getting your work done may be extended.

and just a side note to that, always, always, always get at least 3 estimates on any work you are going to have done if at all possible. /*/

anyway, he agreed between coughing and sneezing fits that that was fine by him and assured me he was still up for the interior work [well of course he is now that the entire interior of the house has been destroyed. shit, hes seeing dollar signs....]

anyway, i hung up with him and called the only other roofer i knew in cincinnati. they are a huge company, lots of billboards, and id had them out to give me an estimate on the roof a couple of times in the past. they answered the phone and seemed genuinely sympathetic to my situation, but explained that it was now 5:30 on a friday there and that all their people had gone home for the weekend and that there was really nothing they could do for me till monday morning, but that first thing monday morning they would have it taken care of - i could count on it.

and so.... we wait for the weekend to see what happens on monday morning i guess....

meanwhile. more storms blow through over the weekend. greg calls me saturday to see whats going on and i fill him in on the roof situation. he confirms things with his suspicions that in his conversations [ i think there were 2 or 3 of them] with the contractor that week that he was going to be extremely difficult to work with on this. i assured him that the new company had guaranteed to get the work done monday morning and that there was no way they could be that large of a company and not make good on their promises and that he should be able to get in the house and get his extraction team started late monday morning. he was happy to hear it and again tried to reassure me that everything was going to turn out alright and that he'd get the house dried out for me and that he'd be there monday ready to go.

and so... we're at another stopping place. i have to finish getting ready for and go to work, so ill try and post another part of this on my lunch break later today. happy thursday!

catastrophe_part.one

[and so... it begins.]

well i hinted a little in an earlier post that we've been dealing with a bit of an issue regarding the cincy house. theres much too much story to cover in one blog post [especially given the time limits of a lunch break balanced with the usual verbose posting a la moi]

so this all started with the move to texas. karen had just gotten into town, we were just getting settled in and we'd been working with the realtor in cincinnati via phone and e-mail to get the house on the market and try to get the dang thing sold.

at first things were actually going well. there appeared to be a decent number of showings in the place, and the feedback we were getting was positive for the most part. then, right about the middle of february we got a bite. a woman was interested in the house and put an offer on it and we started the negotiation process. considering all the factors involved with us selling the house [like not being in cincinnati for starters] we were pretty motivated to sell as quickly as possible, and seeing as this woman was legitimately interested, we gave in on a few items here and there and eventually signed a contract to begin the selling process. at this point we gave the buyer a few weeks to get inspections done look things over, etc. and then we'd come back to the negotiating table to finalize everything and get out from under this house.

well things were going okay at first. she got some inspections done and everything came up okay, but then she wanted us to turn the water back on - after we had just [2 weeks prior] had the house winterized and the water shut off. keep in mind it was still freezing in cincinnati at this point and we didnt want any issues with pipes freezing or bursting so under the advisement of our realtor we'd had it winterized. anyway, that was a bit of an issue because i felt like we got ripped on what we'd just paid for to have that done, but in the end we just bit the bullet and agreed. so she got the water inspection done and things were looking good. then everything changed...

out of the blue i got an email one day from the realtor with pictures of the backyard and the side of the house with all kinds of black material laying on the ground and the text reading 'we have a problem.' it was hard to tell from the pictures but it looked like tar paper so i was confused by this, not to mention my anxiety level shot through the roof, so i immediately called him to find out what had happened.

as it turns out, there had been a number of big storms that blew through cincinnati that weekend and apparently had blown off a portion of my flat roof. this lead to water infiltration during the storm which had dropped a portion of the ceiling on my 3rd floor/attic and had soaked carpet, etc. i would later learn that not only had it blown that large piece in the picture off my roof, but had blown more off that had damaged a piece of gutter on the neighbors house, littered her roof with debris, and had further blown debris into the neighbors yards 2 houses down the block as well... joy.

immediately i called state farm to let them know what was going on and start the claim process on the house. my insurance agent said he'd get the process started but that this was considered an act-of-god or catastrophe claim, and that those are handled by a different department of the company and that id have to wait for my claim to be processed and turned over to a representative before anything would happen. however, in the mean-time he advised me to do whatever i could to appoint a representative in cincinnati to handle things locally in my stead and to get a roofer out immediately to seal up the roof as best as possible to prevent further damage from occurring. ...and so the real fun began...

as soon as i got off the phone with the insurance agent my next phone call was the remodeler i had been working with to get the house ready to sell before i left and had had a long-standing relationship with and trusted. he'd done good work in the past and been great to work with, so i was hopeful that he would be able to help me out. as soon as he answered the phone he knew why i was calling. hed been out looking at a neighbors roof the day after the storm and while he was up there hed seen some of the damage to my roof and had seen my roof in the yards of the houses of my neighbors. he said hed have called me himself sooner, but he assumed someone would be looking after the house for us and would have let us know... [this probably should have been my first warning sign...] not wanting to waste any time i filled him in on the status of everything and asked if he could go over there and assess the damage and get the house sealed up, and he agreed that he could and assured me he would. well okay then. at this point, ive covered my ass as best as i can i think. as far as i knew id done everything i could on my end, now it was just a waiting game for everyone else to play their respective roles.... right? heh, sure....

[agent 1]

we'll call her jane. jane called me 9 days after i had initially filed the report. jane was not from cincinnati, jane had just flown into town and was ready to go look at the house and proceeded to get all my information, take down notes on everything that had happened up until this point, and assured me that she would be in contact with my contractor and realtor to go investigate the house and write up an estimate of the damage.

4 days later, i get a call from jane. she looked at the house with the previously mentioned representatives and she was not happy. the roof is kind of high, if you hadnt guessed. being that its a 3 story house, that would make sense. well seeing as its a 3 story house and theres no roof access hatch on my flat roof, she was unable to assess the damage to the roof and would have to have another team come out at a later date to assess the roof damage and she was only able to write up her estimate for the interior damage she saw. additionally, the roof had not been sealed properly and there was water leaking into the house when they were there - she was not happy about that. i would later find out that jane was not even qualified to be my insurance adjuster - she was still in the process of training and had her trainer with her during the walk-through of my house to make sure she was getting it even remotely accurate - which she didnt.

i immediately called the contractor to find out what the deal was and he informed me that at this point he hadnt sealed the roof because he was waiting for the agent to see it before he sealed it. they would have to look at the damage and anything hed done to seal the roof would have to be ripped up in order to inspect the damage so he was waiting for the insurance people before he could do it. while on the one hand this made sense to me, on the other hand i was a little pissed. i wanted that roof sealed almost 2 weeks ago and i was not happy it hadnt been done, not to mention that based on the way he was handling it, it wasnt going to get sealed anytime soon because now he was waiting other team to come out that was actually going to inspect the roof - in his eyes this was all the insurance companies fault with the delays and he couldnt believe they were doing this to me. i asked him to please just put down a tarp temporarily to try and prevent any further damage until the next round of agents came and he said hed work on it.... [yes, im an idiot. i believed him...]

[agents 2]

dont know their names. 3 or 4 days later they met up with the roofer to get on the roof and inspect the situation on the roof. i found out later that both of these guys had been flown in from the south and while one of them actually did have roofing experience [the other one is still out to the jury] neither of them had ever worked on a flat roof and didnt seem to have a clue what they were doing. the result of the inspection determined that the roof was a total loss and would have to be replaced - wow, thanks guys. way to be thorough. the contractor supplemented that with a core sample and discovered that the existing roof was comprised of 6 layers of torch-down modified roofing membrane over a layer of tin roof over 100year old 1inch thick, wide plank, spaced, decking over the roof joists. well that was a start at least. now we know what was actually up there all this time...

not long after this i received janes initial estimate in the mail which resulted in a phone call with me being as calm as possible while pissed the ef off at this nonsense. she quoted slightly less than $6000 total for the roof and interior damage combined and estimated that the entire interior damage amounted to a single 4x8 sheet of drywall worth of repairs as well as a little spackling and painting to finish it and that my carpet could be cleaned for a reasonable price to repair the damage [from it being completely saturated when they were there???] this was not good. my estimate from the contractor was upward of 13,000 for everything he needed to do at this point. i wont even go into the saga of actually getting a freaking estimate from my contractor.... [at this point i really should have known where this was going...]

a few days later i get an irate phone call from jane. the roofer had finally tarped the roof at some point, but the tarp had blown up in another storm and there was extensive further damage from the storm. more of the ceiling had fallen down, now in another room on the third floor, the carpet was soaked throughout the 3rd floor, there was a piece of ceiling that had fallen on the second floor under the original area the water had started coming in on, and she was fuming that i had not gotten the roof sealed properly and was in breach of my claim requirement to mitigate further damage to the house.

i tried my absolute best to talk calmly to jane and calm her down and discuss what needed to happen at this point and what the heck i was supposed to do from 2000 miles away. eventually she did calm down, apologized, and expressed her concern that i was being taken advantage of and couldnt believe that someone had actually put down 6 layers of roofing on my roof - for anyone that doesnt know, thats waaaaaaay too much. the weight alone from that much roofing is a serious structural problem, i dont know how the roof never caved in. not to mention that over time that weight had caused the roof to sag and hold water [the bowl effect] and that was causing even more problems...

so after calming her down she spoke with her supervisor and called me back to inform me that state farm was sympathetic to my situation and wouldnt hold me personally responsible for the damage not being mitigated and would roll the new damage up into the existing claim [and save me the additional 1500 deductible for a second claim, thank God] and we'd be going from there. however, at this point, her time in ohio was up and she was flying off to the east coast somewhere [to possibly get some real training?] and would be handing off my case to another mobile agent that would be in town soon and would be in contact with me...

i think this is a good place to stop part one. now that we've gotten rid of jane and are about to meet agent 3. hopefully hes less useless....

until we meet again...