Day 101 – Getting Permanent Power Installed on Our Oregon New Home

The main goal for this week was to get permanent power placed so we could get the heat on inside the house to help the mud on the drywall dry. Last week I called the power company and asked what needed to be done. They said we just needed to have wire from the house to the power pole installed and that they would be out sometime the next week to place the permanent meter and make the connection.

I went to the house last weekend and the wire that we needed was not in place. I called our contractor to see what was going on. I did not hear back from him until Monday morning and he thought that the power company was responsible for all of it, as long as we had the conduit in place.

He was able to talk with a contact from the power company to clarify, and we were responsible for getting the wire into the conduit. Luckily, he had an electrician that has done a lot of work for him in the past, so he met the inspector from the power company and the electrician on Tuesday.

They were able to get the wire pulled and inspected all at the same time. One thing about using Adair Homes is that there are things that are the owner’s responsibility. It allows the home owner to put in some work and helps lower the cost of the build. For this it was mostly making phone calls, but with another builder I wouldn’t have to be organizing all this.

The other important lesson here is that you should always check what the contractor is doing. If I didn’t check on the wiring there would have been even more of a delay. Luckily, I checked on that and told our contractor that we needed to get that in and he was able to get an electrician out quickly.

Watching the Drywall Dry

Now that we have permanent power they can get the furnace running to help heat the house and move air around so that the mud on the drywall can dry more quickly. We had to scramble to get fans last week  for the first layer of mud. The drywall guys were back this Wednesday after letting the first layer dry for a week. They sanded the first layer and put on a second coat. They’ll be back next week to start the texturing.

We were supposed to have the exterior of the house painted this week, but our excavator still has open trenches for the utilities. With the electricity connected, the trench can now be back filled. The plumbing has been connected to the house as well and has been inspected so that trench can be backfilled as well. Another issue is that it has been raining all week so it wouldn’t have worked to paint the exterior this week anyways.

The excavator worked on taking out the old driveway yesterday and putting the forms in for the new driveway. He was planning on having the concrete guy come out today to pour the new driveway, but due to rain he is going to wait to do it until next week.

The Week Ahead for Eugene, Oregon New Home Build

Next week the excavator should be continuing to work on the back fill of the utility trenches. If he is able to get that done then we can get the painters out to do the exterior of the house.

The drywall guys should be back next week to start texturing the walls and ceilings. The week of November 12 is scheduled for the painters to come do the ceilings and walls of the interior.

Progress inside has really slowed down as they wait for each coat of drywall to dry, but a lot has been going on outside the house. Hopefully, next week we have progress inside and out!

Thanks for following along as we build our new Adair Homes home!