We feel your pain!
Friends! We feel your pain! There is no doubt that Phoenix is experiencing a massive building boom right now. Our weather is gorgeous and our state is open for business. This current uptick is being driven by citizens fleeing from California and Washington. While we are happy for the business, we are worried about how this will affect our lives in Arizona so stay tuned and plugged in to local politics if this is something that you care about.
We are also doing some building of our own. After saving for a decade, we are finally breaking ground on a small cabin of our own in Strawberry, AZ. We started this little project in November, 2020, and JUST got our septic permit. Our building permit was just returned with redlines so we have some issues to address.
Where we feel your pain is with hiring subcontractors. It is taking 2 months just to get our building site surveyed and laid out. It is taking our subs a long time to get us an estimate, some aren’t able to take on the work and it’s taking months to get on a schedule.
In 16 years of business, we have never had anyone back out of a contract until recently. People think it’s taking too long for our company to get them to excavation. In reality, we go for permit within a week of your signed contract. Depending on the municipality, it can take weeks to months to get approved. If you have existing structures on your property that were not already approved, it will take an even longer period of time. Although the municipalities are not allowed to hold up our swimming pool projects even if you didn’t get your horse covering or gazebo permitted, they do. Every. Single. Time. Then the homeowner gets mad at us because we step in to deal with permitting and it take a long time with the city or county. We have recently revised our contracts to deal with this but please get those structures properly permitted in advance or deal with them before your pool project to save yourself a lot of time and frustration.
In general, the building industry is straining from demand. We lose entire subcontractor crews to covid and then jobs are pushed out an extra 1-3 weeks. And our subs are subject to the usual manpower issues and increased work production. So please understand that we are working six days a week and sometimes seven to meet demand. We haven’t taken a family vacation in over a year. We understand completely the instant gratification issue that we all have these days as we are dealing with that ourselves. We started our cabin project in November but had our plans drawn in 2016 so it feels like it’s taking forever. I assumed we’d have our cabin ready by Christmas as it’s this very small cabin and we were told we’d be LUCKY to be done by Christmas. WHAT?!?!
The BEST thing you can do is be patient and understand that we aren’t neglecting anyone. If you have questions about your project, then email us. We are trying out a new communication tool called Slack where we can communicate with you directly and immediately. We create a #poolproject and this way I’m in on the communication until the dig and then Nate can take over. That way it frees him up for construction and I can facilitate a little more communication when it seems like nothing is happening. It is, it’s just happening in someone else’s office.
We are in the same boat. I’m am DYING to have a place to bug out to. Fiending, even. I am FRUSTRATED that I can’t have my house laid out for literally one month from today. I mean, WHY? We are on the board to start April 23rd for our land survey and after that the septic system can go in. We started this process in November and our permit is not yet approved. But I would be a hypocrite if I encourage you to be patient and not practice patience myself. So I will. It will be what it will be. In the meantime I can plan for the next few steps to be ready. I can be excited that the process has begun and I’m closer to finishing than I was in November.
To have a swimming pool project in the pipeline is not a common thing right now. You are lucky if you’re awaiting a permit. I encourage you not to give up and not grow weary, the process is just beginning and we are doing everything in our power to get you to the backyard of your dreams. Hang in there and so will we!
