Lots Of Progress: Stairs, A/C, Sprinklers…

Posted on August 26, 2011 by BeatingUpwind

We had another week of full-speed work this week – lots of stuff got done.

Steel for main staircase is now “done”

The steel for the 4th and last flight of stairs went in this week – from the top floor to the roof. It’s sorta cool to be able to walk all the way up and down on close-to-normal stairs. I say “done” because there are still finishing details that have to be taken care of, but it’s all there, and looking good.

One thing that needs to go in are the railings and side panels. There will be simple steel frames with plexiglass panels attached to them. The plexi will be somewhat translucent, but you can imagine that it will block a fair amount of the light you see coming through in the picture below…

Here you can see down (and down and down…) It’s a long way from the parlor floor to the roof in a quadplex…

It’s really not all that spooky with all the height and the open risers – unless you’re silly enough to actually look over the railing and down the center core… Here is the view looking up…

There had been some debate between the stair guy and our architect. Our architect insisted on a pretty gentle 7″ rise from step to step. The stair guy was used to doing 7.5 to 8″ rise. Logistically we had to do 7.5″ rise on the top and bottom flights, but the two in between are 7″ rise. I gotta say you don’t get all that winded walking up the stairs when the slope is nice and gentle – our architect really knew what he was doing…

Here you can see the stairs from what will eventually be our roof deck…

A/C refrigerant lines going in

Another bit of progress this week was the refrigerant lines going in for the mini-split A/C system.

If you’re not familiar with mini-split systems they’re those cassettes that you see on the walls at restaurants and small shops. There’s a condenser unit outside and then refrigerant lines are run from the condensers to a unit inside that has a fan that essentially pushes air over cold coils.

Mini splits are quite efficient and they give you a “central air conditioning” effect without the cost of a forced air system. You also don’t give up valuable floorspace to duct work. About the only downside of a mini-split (+ radiator) system is that no fresh air gets into the building. Forced air systems usually have a fresh air intake with a heat exchanger. It’s not an issue in an old drafty building – but we’ll have to see whether it’s a problem in a well-insulated building like ours will be.

Sprinkler risers going in

Another exciting bit of progress is that our sprinkler system is starting to go in. They’re just starting with the riser pipes.

There was supposed to be one riser going up the center of the building through the plumbing wall, but then we had the problem of how to get the plumbing lines past the stairs to the front of the building. That problem was solved by using two risers – one for the back of the building and the other for the front of the building. Now the supply lines can run through the walls and then up into the joists. (That will all make sense when it starts taking shape. But the bottom line is that with two sprinkler risers we don’t need to drop the ceilings to get the sprinklers where we need them to go – we get maximum ceiling height.

Gas lines installed

Another item they worked on this week were the gas lines (the plumber has been busy). It’s always good to see them doing pressure tests of gas lines – it’s not something you want leaking… 🙂

General plumbing being completed

And there’s more plumbing being done… The plumber hadn’t done the copper supply lines in the rental apartment and cellar probably in part because the basement and cellar aren’t locked up as tightly as our unit is and copper is popular with thieves. But it’s finally going in as they finish off the plumbing. We did have to remind him at one point that gas and water needed to be separated for the two units.

Street torn up, but water main connection delayed

I should have taken a photo, but forgot… I was expecting things to be really torn up when we got there today, but they weren’t. There was a big plate in the middle of the street where they had torn up the street and then put a plate over it. I guess they need to trench all the way to the house, but they haven’t done that yet.

They were supposed to start tearing things up on Monday. Then they said Tuesday. Then they said Thursday with DEP coming on Friday. But then hurricane Irene became an issue and folks at DEP were told to do storm prep, so our water main connection is now supposed to happen on Monday (possibly).

I get the sense that the water main sub-contractor (different from the plumber) is a bit of a prima donna since they deal with something that is rather complicated and delicate. They show up when they show up… But it’ll get done fairly soon – just not sure exactly when.

Ducting being put in

Last week they started running ducts. This week they went further. There’s the dryer ducts, the bathroom vent ducts, and the chimneys for the boiler and water heaters.

Stoop restoration begun

Another cool step forward is that they’ve begun work on the front of the house. To the right you can see that they’ve rebuilt the arch that holds up the upper part of the stoop. That brick will be covered in “brownstone” stucco.

The foreman debated how to build the arch and opted for a nice delicate arch. I like it. It’ll let in more light and give more headroom when getting to the door to the basement apartment.

They are actually two (French) doors into the basement rental unit – the one under the stoop and what used to be a window originally. The one under the stoop is too narrow to be a legal fire egress, so we had to maintain the other door that was originally a window. Since we raised the floor slightly in the basement the step into that door needed to be redone…

The narrow portion is new, the wider area is the original portion… Looks pretty good…

Fireplace delivered

Right as we were leaving today the contractor pulled up with the fireplace. It was enormous – at least the crating was… So that will get installed soon… Here’s a picture of it the following day after they had gotten it into the house…

You can’t really tell from the picture, but it feels like a bit of a monster in the space. One thing we like is that it has glass doors (required by code), but they can be retracted into the sides so it sorta looks like it doesn’t have glass doors.

Clerestory window debate

We put clerestory windows (eyebrow windows) from the stairwell into the front bedrooms in order to get light into those rooms. In the picture below you can see the big opening at the top of the wall – all of that will be the clerestory window.

We figured the bulkhead would catch a lot of light and we wanted to make the most of it. But back then we thought the stairs up to the roof were going to be L shaped – we didn’t realize they would need to be U shaped. The extra run blocks a lot of light from getting down into the stairwell – unfortunate, but it is what is is.

I was standing one flight down and noticing that the light from the bulkhead doesn’t get that far down into the building so I was wondering whether we should keep the 2nd clerestory window. Mind you, once the walls are in and painted white there will be a lot of indirect light bouncing around, but very little direct light. But then Dan noticed that even though it was early afternoon and no light was directly hitting the front of the building there was light coming in the front windows and getting through to the stairwell (though the metal studs). So that made us wonder whether we should keep the clerestory window – not to get light from the stairwell into the bedroom but to get it from the bedroom into the stairwell. Then that made us wonder whether we should put a clerestory window on the 2nd floor as well. Gotta figure that out now too…

So all in all a pretty busy and productive week.

The Manhattan Avenue Historic District

Posted on August 24, 2011 by BeatingUpwind

There’s a little historic district just south of 125th Street that it seems no one knows about – the Manhattan Avenue Historic District. The buildings in it are not landmarked by the City, but the area is on the National Register of Historic Places. What that means is up to about $100,000 in tax credits for owners who renovate shells in the area or up to $50,000 to fix up ones that just need some work but aren’t shells.

Now, the sad part is that Wall Street Journal editor Julia Angwin got a public reaming in the comments on her blog when when she decided to rip out most of the original details in her house (because they were covered in lead paint and she was worried about her kids). It’s sad because I don’t think she even knew she was in the Manhattan Avenue Historic District. The $50K to $100K she could have qualified for would have more than offset the cost of keeping her original details and removing the lead paint. Instead, her house was essentially stripped of its original details.

There is a bit of a question about the actual boundaries of the historic district. According to the National Park Service’s web site the addresses included in the district are:

242 to 262 West 120th Street (numbers seem wrong)
341 to 362 West 121st Street
341 to 362 West 122nd Street
344 to 373 West 123rd Street
481 to 553 Manhattan Avenue (West side)

Problem is the addresses on 120th street don’t make sense. There aren’t really a set of buildings that match those numbers. Mind you, I’d love for the addresses to be correct since I know the people who are in contract for 243 West 120, but something tells me the 120th Street addresses are wrong. At first I thought they probably meant 342 to 362, but those numbers don’t make sense either – they include a modern school building. The numbers that would make sense are 351 to 369 – but those aren’t the numbers.

In terms of buildings in the historic district that are for sale – there’s not much… 533 Manhattan qualifies, but apparently the contract is out on it.

Construction Back At Full Speed

Posted on August 23, 2011 by BeatingUpwind

After a slow down for a few weeks things are finally back at full speed and lots of stuff is getting done.

The house is dry

Considering we still don’t have windows the house is pretty much dry now. There was a huge downpour on Sunday evening and when we went by on Monday we didn’t even see any dampness.

The first thing that made a difference is that we now have a proper gutter and downspout…

At the bottom of the building the lightwell is now complete and the drain in it is functioning…

Stairs nearly done

Progress is also being made on the stairs. In the basement the stairs in the rental unit are pretty much done and we can now walk up and down them.

There’s a huge space above them since there are no stairs from the basement to parlor level. Dan wants to put a big chandelier over them to accentuate and brighten the space. To me I just want to put a simple chandelier in there – after all it’s a rental. I’m thinking the old chandelier from our coop would do nicely, but I think Dan wants something bigger and more dramatic.

Three out of the four flights in our unit are in (the last flight should go in by the end of the week). Our architect is pleasantly surprised at how good they look (given that the fabricator isn’t a fan of shop drawings).

Plumbing

Plumbing is coming a long in a major way. Gas lines have been put in. The plumbing in the rental is is nearly done.

But the really big plumbing job is that, starting on Thursday, they’re going to rip up the street and on Friday DEP will do the new connection to the water main.

Other stuff

They’ve also put in dryer vents for the two laundry rooms. In NYC dryer vents can only be 30 feet in length, so we had to run them out the back wall, not up through the roof.

Apparently later this week they’ll start putting the fireplace in the living room. Unfortunately they’re saying the forced air kit we wanted isn’t legal in the US (it’s only legal in Canada). That will reduce the efficiency of the fireplace.

The backyard has also been cleaned out – it looks pretty nice now…

We plan on putting a small birch tree in the back. There will be a 4 foot deep deck – the same depth as the concrete around the light well. The concrete pad you see is where the stairs will come down from the deck. We’ll have a seating area in the back of the yard. To the side of the stairs will be plantings to divide the seating area from the rental unit bedroom windows. Dan also wants to use all those big river rocks for some sort of raised bed.

Not A Great Time For High-End Mount Morris Park Townhouses

Posted on August 23, 2011 by BeatingUpwind

57 West 119 - Top sale in Mount Morris Park

I was just pulling comps for the Mount Morris Park area and was shocked to see there have been very few high end sales in the past year. Of the 30+ sales in the past year…

Only 4 sales were $1.5M or more

57 W 119 sold for $1.75M in September ’10
195 Lenox sold for $1.525M in June, but it’s large building so the price per square foot was quite low (around $230 / sq. ft.)
148 W 120 sold for $1.525M in January
64 W 119 sold for $1.5M in January

Only 1 sale was over $450 per square foot

57 West 119 sold for approximately $495/sq. ft.
Four others sold for between $400 and $450 per square foot

That means there was only one really good sale (57 W 119) and in a few weeks it will be more than a year old and off the radar. At that point the highest comp will be 148 W 120 which sold for $440 per square foot ($1.525M).

That’s sorta sad. As much as real estate agents like to get listings, I don’t know how much the agents with the high end listings are enjoying all the work and advertising expense right now when not much of anything is selling north of $1.5M.

The problem is when there aren’t many high-end comps the banks ay be reluctant to lend on high-end properties because there are no comps to support the price. But the comps aren’t just a problem for high-end properties. Rehab mortgages are based on estimated future value – which is based on high-end comps. So if you bought a shell for $180 / sq. ft. and you want to put $200 / sq. ft. into it, you have to hope the bank’s appraiser finds just the right comps. If they’re lazy and pick the wrong comps you could have a serious problem. (Hint: meet the appraiser in person and hand him/her a list of comps you think are appropriate – and don’t forget rental comps! so they appraise the rental value correctly as well).

What is selling pretty actively are low end properties that need rehab. Quite a few properties have sold in the $125 to $250 per square foot range. It’s great that people are interested in rehabbing blighted and derelict buildings. Ultimately that’s the best thing for the neighborhood – especially if they’re homeowners who have a sense of investment in the community. But we really could use some properties selling in the $1.8M to $2M+ range to anchor the high end…

Sprinklers Approved! (FINALLY)

Posted on August 15, 2011 by BeatingUpwind

The big item holding everything up lately has been approval for our sprinklers. The plans were submitted June 28th and the DOB was supposed to get them reviewed within 2 weeks. SEVEN weeks later they were approved. Just to put things in perspective – 5 weeks of mortgage payments is about $7,500. So a dud of a plan examiner just cost us $7,500. (Thank you DOB).

In the end there was nothing of any real substance wrong with the plans we submitted back on July 28. The plan examiner was just incompetent (IMHO – $7,500 later I feel I’ve paid enough to put it that bluntly). He didn’t seem to have the faintest idea of what he was actually looking at and he couldn’t even count – he insisted we had 68 heads when we had 38 heads and then gave us an objection for having too many heads on a 3″ water main connection when our sprinkler calculations are based on pressure – the number of heads and the size of the connection are irrelevant if the pressure is sufficient to support the load.

The ONLY thing that changed between the original filing and what was approved was the sprinkler schedule. Here’s what what originally submitted…

And here is what what was approved…

Yes, there’s a bit more detail on the approved plans but the original one had the MEA number which is the unique identifier for the sprinkler head. That’s all that’s really important since the specs are based on the particular sprinkler head. If you have the unique identifier for the head there’s no real question about the specs. But I didn’t get the sense that the plan examiner understood the concept of a “unique identifier”. He was saying the inspectors in the field wanted to see things like flow rates. I can’t imagine that’s true – they’d just want to match the part number up to what was spec’d. It’s not like an inspector is going to sit there and do flow rate calculations in the field.

This is the problem with the DOB… Plan examiners need to specialize. Plan examiners for sprinkler systems should have degrees in mechanical or civil engineering. It does no one any good to have a plan examiner review something they don’t understand. If I didn’t trust our mechanical engineer I’d be wondering whether our sprinkler system will work properly when there’s a fire – it’s not like the plan examiner checked the substance of the plans and verified that it will work.

Oh, and on top of everything the plan examiner pads his time sheet. We had 20 minute appointments both times and at the end of everything he was there entering 1 hour into his time sheet. This time he didn’t even bother to discuss anything with Dan and our expediter. He just glanced at the formatting of the sprinkler schedule and then handed our expediter his stamp. Then he signed the sheets once they were stamped. For that he said he worked an hour. “Working” like that, he can get an 8 hour day done before lunchtime.

Now that the sprinklers are approved we can move ahead. The first thing that will get done is a new water main connection (we’ll be digging up the street). At that point we’ll have water, which will be a huge help. Once that’s done ConEd will put in gas and electric. The lack of electricity has been a big problem for our contractor – he’s been doing everything with generators – which gets expensive. Then there will be plumbing inspections and once those are done we can put in insulation. Once the windows are here (in 4-6 weeks) we can start on sheetrocking.