The masons have to be constantly watched. They do good work most of the time, but we've been noticing they are rushing through the job and aren't checking for vertical and horizontal level. Not checking level results in wavy wall facings. This week they are working on building brick columns that will support 5 arches and carry two additional lintels on each side of the series of arches. Lintels are what we call the supports to carry brick or stone work across the tops of doors, windows and other spaces that will have masonry work overhead. This makes keeping the tiers of brick in the columns critical to keep everything in line. During the day on Monday, on three different occasions, I went down to check on their progress and the column course of brick was up to a half an inch lower than the corresponding course on the back wall just 3-1/2 feet away. This resulted in having to tear out courses back to level and rebuilding that section of the column. As the masons get paid by the brick laid and not by the hour, these "redo's" do not make them happy. They've been doing much better the rest of week.
I've been working on a wall in the living room. Before my coming into the project, metal stud walls had been erected between what will be the library and living room to form a 4 foot by 16 foot long area. This area is being made into a closet and media control room as well as a small powder room. A decision was just made a few weeks ago as to the doors to be installed. Unfortunately I already had wires running through where the doors were to go. In addition, the owner wants to hide all light switched from view. So I actually spent the better part of two days, one was shortened by our Wednesday English class, to build a small wood cabinet with a sliding door that will house a 4 switch outlet box for lights. It was a first for me.
Some additional time was lost on Thursday and most of the day Friday as I was off with my daughter have her wisdom teeth removed. The project manger too got pulled Thursday for some repairs on one of the owner's rental properties and he normally doesn't work on Fridays anyway. Next week we are meeting Monday to discuss bringing in some extra help to make a push to get the 1st floor rooms ready for rough inspection by the township codes enforcement officer. While I would love help, it will really put the pressure on everyone involved to get the owner nailed down on final plan decisions. We've really been operating on a dynamic work scale, but if we're bringing in more work crews, the work plan must become static. In other words we need to have definite plans as to what, where, when and how we are doing things. That would be nice, although the "change plans daily" plan works best for my attention deficit disorder. We'll just have to see what Monday brings.
More to come next week. Have a greet weekend!
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