Houston, we have a permit

As promised, Nuñez Engineering got their plans to us on Friday.  I was amazed.  After taking the cat to the vet, I rushed over to City Hall to get a permit.  The whole process, while a little more intricate than I thought, was not that bad.  First you go to the Planning Department.  They give the plans a thorough look, ask you questions, inform you of code.  In planning they seem mostly concerned with the cosmetic side of things (color, height, etc.).  Once done there, they send you to Building Code people on the other side of the room (10 feet away).  Here they take a second look at your plan and determine if the engineering looks complete and up to code and whether you need additional permits (grading, sewage, etc.).   Buildings sent me downstairs to see if I needed a grading permit.  Apparently I didn't.  A few papers to fill out, a dash to the cashier, one check for 366 dollars...And we're off. 



I spent Saturday and Sunday watering the areas to be excavated so that the soil would be loose and easy to get out. 



Things to do today:  1) Head over to Quinn rentals to give them my credit card for a bobcat rental.  I'm going to check and see if I should go ahead and rent a plate compactor too and just keep it on site the whole time.  2) Head back over to city hall to order a 30-yard container where we'll be putting our excavated materials.  Because of the size of our yard, we don't have a choice but to get rid of our dirt.  Besides, given the our soil type (clay), we couldn't use it in construction anyway. 



Tomorrow the real work begins.

Still Waiting

I hate to wait by the phone. That's what I'm wanting to do today.

We need those specs. We need those specs.

Of course, if we get the specs, we'll need a permit.

Inclined to change

Anticipation

Well, it's Thursday. We are supposed to have specs for our backyard tomorrow. In light of this prospect, however distant it may be given our past experience with deadlines, I'm making plans to start work.

First I called Quinn for a bobcat. Apparently bobcats are quite easy to get. With any luck, they'll be easy to drive too. If not, we'll probably have some new ventilation holes for our house.

We've decided to rent the Bobcat for a month. The price will be $1090, plus sales tax 8%, 14% insurance/risk, 1% environmental fee, plus an $85 dollar delivery fee each way. I figure that comes to about 1500 dollars.

I also called the city for a 10-yard container to put all the dirt in. 437.95 cents will do it for that.

2000 bucks and work hasn't begun!

Delays

Before I could even catch you up on all the delays we've had, I just heard of another one.

We were supposed to be getting our engineering plans from Nunez Engineering on Tuesday. It looks like that's delayed because of some software compatibility issue.

Here's how this works/How we got here:
After thinking for months about whether to get a permit or not, we decided that, yes, permitting is important, especially in our situation. You see, our backyard is on a slope that rises about 1.4 feet for every ten feet of run. That's pretty steep and the main reason we need retaining walls. Given the slope and the amount of flat area we would like, we figured that our walls would range from 18 inches in height to 48-56 inches. Anything over 3 feet means you're retaining a lot of dirt, which is especially heavy when it rains. We wanted to do this right.... So we go to the city.

Last April, then, I went to city hall, wrote my name and address in the booklet and waited to be called. Ten minutes later, I was talking to a city engineer who said "We won't permit that unless you have an engineer look at it."

You see, city engineers (A) don't want to be responsible, so they make you pay another engineer (B). After that engineer evaluates the site, the city gives you a permit. That way, B can say to A "You permitted it," while A can say to be "You designed it." It's neat. Anyway, this is what happens when you "do it right."

So, we called Nunez Engineering, right here in Whittier. They came around may 10th, they made a topo map and then... nothing.

We're still waiting.

Supposedly we're getting the design next week. The current delay is that the software for the Allan Block* material isn't working on their system. Now the topos and stuff are being sent to Allan Block so that they can put the final touches on the design: number of blocks we need, yards of dirt to haul away etc.

I should say though that even though the engineers are doing the drawings, all the design is our own. That's right: Home grown.


*Allan Block is, we hope, a stackable block that doesn't look like other stackable blocks. It's a little more complicated to put together, but we think the look will be worth it. Here's a picture from the AB website:

We must cultivate our garden

"Il faut cultiver son jardin."
Voltaire, Candide

Introductions
This is the first post of what I hope will be many about our backyard. Why am I backyard blogging? Well, after two long years of waiting, wanting and at times needing a backyard, we're poised to actually begin work. We've talked to landscape architects. We've been to nurseries, we've been to city hall, we've talked to builders, we've talked to engineers, we've examined our ecological footprint, we've badgered friends, bored relatives and, well, you get the idea. Here's the thing, though, we're doing all the work ourselves, with (we hope) a little help from our friends.

Rationale
Why, you ask, are we doing the work ourselves? I would like to say that it's because we know what we're doing and that we're licensed landscape professionals. That would be an egregious fabrication, however, because I teach French and my partner teaches child development. (You can begin laughing, crying or sweating now.) We are landscaping neophytes but we've come to the conclusion that we can't afford professionals except where absolutely required by law. All I can say to your protests and to your mockery is "we know already!"

But here we go anyway.

You see, we've talked to landscape architects and contractors and searched the world over for all the solutions to our backyard yuppie dreams, and all of those solutions start at 50,000 dollars.*

F-i-f-t-y-t-h-o-u-s-a-n-d.

Maybe you didn't know it, but steel and concrete costs are way up. This is true. I didn't believe the contractor's bid, in fact, I laughed cried as I screamed "Get the hell off of my property you shyster." But then we started shopping around, doing more research and we realized that we we're dreaming when we thought we could start the work on the yard for anything less than 30,000. Reality: we didn't and don't even have 30k to spare. I haven't seen the contractor again. Hmm.

A New Backyard at 15,000 Dollars?
We have about 15,000. Within that budget, we hope to have a livable, environmentally friendly backyard with flat living spaces, terraces, retaining walls, sprinkler system, lights, etc. Can you get all that for 15k? We'll we're not sure, but, by the sweat of our brow and the seat of our pants we're hoping for it.

If we fail we've got some good advice from our colleague's wife, who put it this way: "When it gets to that point where your relationship is in trouble because your backyard renovation is not going as planned, hiring a contractor might be more efficient than a therapist."

Lost to the sands of time?
So we haven't so much as stuck a shovel in the ground, but we've actually spent a lot of time fretting, thinking and dreaming. Talking to prospective landscape architects, nursery visits, books, phone calls, going to city hall, figuring out materials all takes energy and time. We don't want our efforts to be lost to the sands of time and we hope that our story here will be of help to the outside world. So we'll be showing you our plans and talking about where we've been, and we'll be posting pictures and information about the building process as we go. That's what this blog is about.

I don't know how things are going to turn out, but I'm looking forward to the next couple of months. I hope that our experiences, both good and bad, can be informative.

*As you'll seen in later posts, the number is high because we need to terrace our backyard. That means walls, and walls mean money.