Not a whole lot to report over this last month. Since signing on with Stillwater, I met Michael (the SoCal Project Manager) at my land and we climbed it together and he took a ton of notes and pictures to share with the team back in Seattle. The header picture is from that day and it gives a good view of the slope up to the flatter area – now that all the vegetation has been cut back or died off due to the dry conditions. Michael has been great in reaching out to the geology team to get their findings and recommendations, as well as the surveyor to ensure his team had the latest CAD mapping of the property.
Michael also introduced me to Jeff Sullivan at Coast Engineering & Survey, Inc. They will be responsible for the preliminary assessment for retaining wall layout/heights, all needed concrete work to determine floor elevations, determining the base map for the house footprint, preparing a grading and drainage plan, and identifying the utility points of connection. Given the complexities of my site this work is above what Stillwater can do, so Coast is now part of the team. Their estimate for the above mentioned work is $15K, and I think it is money well spent since their proposal is providing a design that is compliant with the current City of Los Angeles Grading Department guidelines (to obtain a grading permit), as well as meeting with the city as needed. I didn’t feel I needed to bid this work out, as Coast has worked with Stillwater on previous projects and given how green I am, with respect to building in CA, I think referrals and experience with the Stillwater product are worth more than saving a little bit of cash (or not).
On the subject of cash, I had some concerns that I am starting to eat heavily into my downpayment money – the 20% needed against the construction loan I’ll eventually be applying for. I reconnected with George Learn at US Bank who was such a great help in financing my property purchase and he informed me that money spent on getting to construction (geology, surveys, engineering, site design, house design, etc.) all counts towards my downpayment. That information makes me feel so much more secure in my spending, so onward…