The utility split.

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This house was divided into two units before I bought it, but the previous owners decided to keep both units on the same set of utilities. One furnace, one water heater, one set of gas and water and power lines, serving the whole house. To treat this place as two distinct units, I need to be able to present two separate utility bills, at the very least for gas and electric. So, I called a few contractors, got a few quotes, and went with the one that seemed the most reasonable.

That was over a year ago. This project has taken well over a year and it's still not done.

One of the first things the contractors did when they started the project was cut a big slice in the wall of the utility room to locate the current gas line and provide a route for the new one.



That hole was there for months, and months. It was only sealed up recently.

Since that first day, they cut many other holes in the walls, throughout my living space.



You can imagine the fun of waking up every day to giant holes, instantly reminding you of how behind schedule a project is, due to delays from inspectors or the city or the utility company, and how you can do nothing about it but bug people over the phone.

It didn't matter which way my head was turned when I opened my eyes in the morning; I instantly saw a hole. The only difference was, if I was looking up I saw ductwork in the hole, if I was looking right I saw a gas line, and if I was looking left I could see through a hole into the bathroom -- and into a hole in the bathroom showing electrical lines and more ductwork.



At first I kept everything packed away in the garage, thinking that the holes would be sealed up in a week or so. Eventually I started unpacking my things a little at a time and carrying on with life around the holes.



Looking back I'm not really sure what happened; why it took this long. It was an accumulation of smaller delays I think.

The city:

1. Brought out an inspector (5 weeks delay for the appointment) who declared I would need another gas line from the street -- a cost of at least 15 grand.


2. Sent out another inspector to do an energy evaluation of the house, when I insisted that I was splitting my existing gas usage, not adding anything new, and therefore didn't need another line (another 4 weeks delay for that appointment).


3. Sent an electrical inspector (4 weeks delay) who said I needed another electrical line from the pole, and I needed to cut back a tree before they would install it.


4. Sent a guy to tee-off the gas line (4 week delay).


5. Sent a guy to install the electric meter and evaluate the work the electricians did (4 week delay).


6. Had another team come by with pole climbing gear to run the electric line and hook it up (5 week delay).


7. Sent a team of two people to install the second gas meter and connect it to the lines (7 week delay).


8. Insisted on another inspection for energy consumption, and declared that the new water heater they'd approved earlier was actually not approved, requiring me to swap it out (9 week delay).

So the city was responsible for the lion's share of the delay I think. But the contractors contributed as well. Every time I needed to have the contractors come out, it had to be at least two weeks in advance, and there were endless re-schedulings on top of that.

Different groups of contractors had to come out separate times for:

1. The initial quote.
2. An inspection by the plumber for the quote.
3. Initial demolition to locate things in the walls.
4. Consultation with an HVAC contractor.
5. Co-inspection with the city gas utility.
6. Consultation with the electrician while the upstairs tenants were out.
7. Installing a second junction box and circuit breaker panel.
8. Adding additional gas line routing.
9. Re-routing all the hot and cold water piping for the sinks, bathtub, and water heater.
10. Installing a water heater.
11. Taking out and hauling away the old furnace, and installing the first new one.
12. Installing the second new one, and ventilation piping for both.
13. Doing a pressure test on the gas lines and hooking up the furnaces.
14. Redoing some of the wiring.
15. Redoing the ventilation piping for the furnace because it was causing problems.
16. Co-inspection with the city electric utility (where he claimed I would need a different water heater).
17. Removing the first new water heater and installing a different new water heater.
18. Consultation with another contractor to install some insulation.
19. Actually installing the insulation.
20. Consultation with another contractor to replace drywall.
21. Installing half the drywall.
22. Installing the other half of the drywall.
23. Texturing the drywall.

In addition, the main contractor had to be onsite for most of the inspections done by the city. It was a lot of time and work, and it cost me well over 30 grand. At least it's work that clearly improves the value of the house.

So am I done? Nope! I still need to paint a few of the walls.

Here's a memory from the process: Installing new heat piping, while all of my stuff is heaped against one wall of the garage.



Here's another favorite: Some of the spaghetti piping required to feed water from the right heater into the right pipes.



In the end, I can't tell if it was really worth it. I'm hoping to keep this house for a long time, and that means the increase in resale value is not what matters -- it's the ability to divide out the cost of the gas and electricity and pass it to the tenants. According to the bills I've been paying, and assuming I don't alter the rent to compensate, it will take over 15 years for those savings to pay for this work. And that's just the break-even point.

When I started this I thought, "the sooner I get this done, the sooner I can start paying it off." That was sound reasoning. Doing it now is better than waiting 15 years and then doing it to raise the resale value. Am I glad I did it? I don't know. I think this project damaged my enthusiasm for working on the house. The sense of helplessness in the face of delay, haunting me for such a long time, was not fun. Waking up to holes in the walls every day was not fun.

Nevertheless, I am grateful all the time that I have this house. Living in it has saved me an incredible amount of money in rent, even as the house itself has devoured an equivalent amount of money in maintenance and upgrades and refinancing. I'm just about at the break-even point now, and I feel a lot more capable with all forms of minor maintenance, and dealing with the parade of issues that can come up in the role of a landlord. That experience is great.

The next big project: Repainting the entire outside of the house. But maybe I need a vacation before I take that on...