Preparing for inspection (again)

Thursday had been unusually hot. It was 95 degrees in the late afternoon. Friday was also hot, and we had spent much of it in Prescott in the Planning Office getting the loft fireplace added to the plans. Our inspector had said the reason he was really pushing us to get it done now, is that it would cost us $300 if we added it later. So we were surprised when it cost us $300 anyway. $302 and change, to be exact.

While we were at Rumors Friday night for dinner, it started to rain pretty hard, so we rushed home to enjoy the rain on the tin porch roof only to find that our land was dry. It was disappointing, not only because we didn't get any rain, but if we had stayed put we could have enjoyed it.

On Saturday, J.C. was supposed to come up and so was Dave, the shop manager at Gerald's business. The plan was to get the flue installed on the loft fireplace and complete the fix for the missing I joist. Our engineer had returned from India and revised the fix according to what we had already done, but it would require some additional screws from the roof. When we woke up, it was cloudy, but no rain.

Dave called just as he was pulling into Yarnell to say it had rained all night at his house and all the way up until he reached the top of the hill at Yarnell. He almost didn't come because he was sure the project was going to be called for rain. But he came anyway.

Then, about the time he arrived with donuts, it started to rain. We were all sure the day would be shot, but then it quit. It had rained just enough to cool things off, and the clouds kept everything pretty comfortable. Since the bulk of the work would be done in the loft, which tended to be hot, and the rest on the roof, it was the perfect weather.

J.C. did some last-minute wiring, while Dave got to work on the flue.

Then Gerald and Dave built a higher platform for the fireplace and the three of them set it in place. It had taken a crane to put it in place the first time, so needless to say, it was very heavy.

Unlike the first fireplace, this flue went together easily.

Then J.C. and Dave went up on the roof to complete the fix for the missing joist.

Gerald got out all his paperwork, including past inspection correction notices and he and J.C. went over everything to make sure nothing got overlooked. They did a couple of additional little fixes and we were done.

It was a shorter day than we had expected. The weather was perfect. Everything went well. We all left in high spirits.