Rebuilding Our House

We’ve been meeting with a draftsman and trying to get some process in motion for a rebuild. There’s an endless stream of issues.

In no particular order, here’s a rundown of what we’re tackling now so we can move to the next step:

1) The Foundation. This has turned into quite a complex issue. Due to the hillside right behind the house we can’t simply swap out the foundation. So instead we’re looking at ways of using parts of it so that we don’t have to get into the retaining wall song and dance. It seems every engineer we speak with has different ideas about different ways we could handle it–all of them making sense in their logical way–and I suppose they’re all right–to a degree–but it’s going to be up to us to decide what to do.

2) Financing. I’ve contacted a few lenders about construction loans and they’ve all said no, citing the economic downturn and the fact that our house will cost more to build than it would sell for. I guess they call that a bad investment.

3) Insurance. Allstate, god bless their black little heart, is being typically difficult to get straight answers out of. But even more so, they just won’t go to bat for us. We’re now on our fifth adjuster and all they can do is quote BS policy to me, rather than get involved in our situation and look out for our interests. They’re telling us now that since we’re under insured, our course of action will be to get a construction loan *in addition* to our mortgage, which is so out of the bounds of reality for us it’s laughable.

3) Rules and Regs. There’s a whole suite of rules and regs and hoops and permits and we’re beginning to familiarize ourselves with them so we can best prepare for whatever the city may throw at us.

What’s next. Once we get a handle on financing and our options for the foundation, we’ll know how to move forward. I’ve said before that this process is like turning the pages of a book that isn’t written. We can only hope that the story has a happy ending.

There is nothing better than having great friends. And we have a ton of them. Through the mayhem of the last seven months it’s easy for us to realize how many awesome people have been so helpful to all of us. We want to thank all of you, but aren’t quite sure how.

This guy is one example:

Not only did Clay give us the venerable tarp garage that covered our rescued items for the summer while we sifted through them, but he was there to help coordinate the demolition while I had to be out of town for work, and in general was an overall huge help.

Smell is a very strong sense. When we were sifting through things that came out of the house, many were only slightly damaged. But the smell would trigger all kinds of awful feelings. And the smell is nearly impossible to get out of most things. In many cases, the decision to toss items was based on their odor. So whether things actually burned up, or were just destroyed to us, we lost of lot of possessions in the fire.

Two of these items were Meadow’s favorite chair and Laura’s end table that her dad built when he was young. Both were blackened, cracked and up until now I assumed in the landfill with everything else.

But no, they weren’t. Little did we know that Super Clay had rescued them from the ashes and given them new life by disassembling, cleaning, sanding, finishing, staining, lovingly repainting, and reassembling. It’s hard to put in to words how much stuff like this means to us. What once were prized possessions are now priceless treasures. Here they are in all their refinished glory:

chair and end table (click to embiggen)

What a guy!

I should add that when Meadow saw her chair she said “it’s the most perfect chair that I always wanted!”

“You’re in Good Hands”

This marketing slogan pretty much makes me want to puke, because we’re not in good hands, we’re in cold robotic hands that want to make money and don’t really care about the humans on either end of the transaction.

Granted, much of my rage is irrational. Shit happens, right? No one can really halt the hand of Zeus as he rolls the dice.

But there are things that can mitigate disaster, to make it slightly less lame. Like insurance, for example. Now, truth be told, it’s my responsibility to watch out for me and mine. Only a fool would leave their fate in the hands of some unfeeling corporate bureaucracy whose profit margin is undoubtedly more important than the actual well being of their customers.

But I was lured in, not once, but twice. Because I wasn’t paranoid. Because I was in a hurry to buy a house and admittedly a bit naive. I trusted that they actually gave a rat’s ass about my family’s interests.

When you file a house fire claim, the first thing you notice is how cordial the adjusters are on the phone. They’re people, and they’re in it with you, helping you to navigate the complexities and make the best of an unfortunate situation.

But in reality they’re just people doing a job. And they’re expendable. And they keep a distance between us and them, because deep down they know they’re working for some big money devouring gnasher, and if the going gets tough, they’ll always have the option of gettin’ gone.

Already in the process of our house claim, in less that six months, we’ve worked with five adjusters and two agents. During our short tenure, one of the adjusters was reassigned, and another retired. The one who retired didn’t mention anything to us, even though we were waiting a reply from him on a couple matters. Instead, my emails to him simply started bouncing back.

So why aren’t we in good hands? First of all, a robot has no feeling. They can try to program it to display attributes of feeling, but it’s still a robot.

Secondly, we trusted the agents that sold us the policy. You know those Progressive commercials where people are in what looks like a grocery store, picking policies off the shelf? Well that’s pretty much what’s it like in reality. The agent is just the outlet that sells the canned policies. For some this may be fine, but not for home policies. In our case, the agents didn’t ask us anything about our lifestyle. They didn’t know I’m a huge computer guy, and they didn’t know my wife is a huge jewelry girl. They sold us the off the shelf policy and were happy to take our business.

They knew we were planning to do a bunch of work on the house. Did they check on us after a year to help us increase our coverage? Nah. Did they remind us that the cost for new construction in Alaska is far above the amount of our policy? Nah. When I called five years later, a week after my house burned down, and asked them WHY we were so under insured, were they even able to find a copy of our original sale or notes on the transaction? No.

Had they done any of these things, our situation today would be much different. It wouldn’t have cost us much more than another $100/year to have doubled our dwelling coverage. And those computers and jewelry, well we only discovered two weeks ago that inside the grand policy limit there are individual limits. Here’s what they look like for the Allstate Deluxe policy:

I had much more than $5000 worth of computers, and my wife had far more than $1000 in jewelry and furs. Most Alaskan hunters I know have more than $2000 in guns. So beware, those of you that think you have enough coverage, head on back to your agent and get a special endorsement for any items of significant value.

And lastly, the third reason why we feel like we’re not in good hands: the Contents List from Hell. At one point I said to our personal property adjuster: “I’m paying you for a service, and that service is $118,815 of personal property coverage. Well, my house burned up, with all our personal property, so now I need that service I’ve been paying you for. Why can’t you just write me a check?” Of course it isn’t that simple. In order to get the coverage we’ve been paying for, we have to nit, and pick, and jump through myriad hoops, and put values on priceless meaningful trinkets, and accept paltry sums for highly valuable items. Once we’ve listed *everything* we owned, then in order to get the money we have to go out and replace those items, first. Then we have to send in the receipts. Then they send us the check. If we want to get reimbursed for a can of beans that burned, we have to send them the receipt once we’ve bought that same can of beans again. That’s why it’s called “replacement” coverage. They’ll replace what we had, and they’re anal about it, as only a robot can be.

We’ve been clinging to the hopes that we’ll be able to rebuild a new house on the old foundation, but yesterday got a healthy dose of reality. We met with a structural engineer who gave us the low down on the foundation.

Even though it wasn’t significantly damaged from the fire, and is fundamentally possible to put the same house back on it, we’re not convinced it’s the smart thing to do. It’s not up to current building codes, so we’d have to do a lot of fancy footwork to get it approved. We’d also have to do some patching, thickening, and re-pouring in places to make it plumb and sound enough for the new house. But more than the physical stuff, what swayed me in the end is the fact that it may cost us even more in the long term if we keep it.

We imagined having a nice new house, on a 60 year old foundation. We imagined what that would do to the resale value, house upkeep, and the overall nightmare that would come in 10 years if we had to jack up our new house to fix the old foundation.

So, where does that leave us?

Well, since our budget previously was pretty much impossible, this just makes it a bit more impossible. So really not much has changed. It does, though change our tack as far as the type of house we can build, the usable footprint, and the building codes that apply to us.

Yesterday was Thanksgiving, and I’ve been reading posts by a lot of friends and family about what they’re thankful for, so I thought I’d do one too. Although it feels “off” to list only the good stuff, when in reality my family is still very much in the middle of a bunch of crap. So, in the spirit of not tarnishing reality, I’ve decided to do a duality column:
[table=2]
Don’t let my petty whining give you the wrong picture. I’m well aware of how extremely fortunate I am. Not just to have come out of our ordeal mostly intact, but to have been born into circumstance that can only be considered privileged relative to the rest of the world. I have access to communication tools that allow me to read news and consume media to keep me educated and informed. Did I say I can read? I’m able to stand in the shower and let warm water run over my body, on a daily basis. I don’t have to worry about a marauding army pillaging and destroying our lives. I have a job, income, a car, and access to stores where I can pretty much buy anything my family needs. I can walk, run, see, hear, smell, touch. I have instruments, clothes, tools, and skills. Unless struck by some unfortunate accident, I should live a long life with my two beautiful girls.

Speaking of, I have the most wonderful daughter, who constantly reminds me that nothing is very important next to family and friends. And I have a wife who “gets” me, stands next to me, challenges me, and enthralls me.

I’m more fortunate that many people, some far off and some right here in Juneau. It’s actually a bit embarrassing.

The United Way of Southeast Alaska has been a huge help to us throughout our process. From emotional support to coordinating volunteers to helping facilitate donations, without the United Way and her sister agencies (namely the Red Cross of Alaska) we would have had a much harder go of it.

So of course when president Brenda Hewitt asked if we’d be in their 2009 promotional video, we were happy to tell a bit of our story and how they helped us:

Recently we took the pink house down. This was a high priority for us as the sight and smell of that burned out house was rather depressing.

When we think about our hopeful rebuild next spring, and look at our budget, we know it’s going to be tight. We won’t be able to build the house we had. And certainly not the house we want for the long term. But if the stars align we’ll be able to afford enough of a construction loan to get a comfy abode to hang our hats in.

There are three major financial factors that play into this as of yet existing affordable construction loan we’re dreaming about. The first was the asbestos test coming up negative, a huge relief that saves us a lot of money and hassle.  The second was the foundation being sound enough to reuse, which takes a good chunk off the rebuild estimates. And the third is that Waste Management of Juneau has agreed to donate the landfill fees for dumping the wooden shell of the house.

Those three expenses combined add up to about $60,000, which is about 25% the amount of a construction loan we can afford. In our budgets that 25% is a crucial amount. With those costs, we’d be forced to consider not rebuilding. Without them, we can see possibility on the horizon.

Waste Management has gotten a good deal of criticism in Juneau, especially after the incinerator stopped, the trash mound grew, and the notorious Lemon Creek odor problem. We weren’t sure if they’d be able to work with us, as they are a rather large corporation in a tough economy.

I approached Waste Management shortly after the fire and wrote a letter to them describing our circumstance and the weight estimates for the demolition. Local branch manager Eric Vance took it from there. It took a couple months but you can imagine how good it felt when he told me “we’ll take care of you”. And they did, all 34 tons of us.

So here is a huge “shout out” to Eric Vance and Waste Management, who have helped my family out in a Big way.

On August 25, 26, and 27 Jerry and his excavator took the remains of the pink house to the landfill. Here’s some pics:

Exactly three months ago from this very moment, here is what I was looking at:

Tomorrow (Saturday the 29th) from 1PM – 4PM the Tasty Tweets Bake Sale is happening in Anchorage at Bella Boutique.

As I’ve mentioned before, Laura and I are just humbled beyond words at the generosity of our Alaskan community. It warms my soul to know that so many people are pooling together, and makes me even happier to see how much fun they’re having doing it! To see for yourself, tune in to the tweets by doing a Twitter search for “tasty tweets” or “#tastytweets”. Here’s a couple links to make it easier:

http://search.twitter.com/search?q=tastytweets (#tastytweets)
http://search.twitter.com/search?q=tasty+tweets (tasty tweets)

For the purpose of the bake sale, we’ve created a custom PayPal donation link (which of course accepts credit cards as well):

In addition to the bakers, organizers, and the tasty treats themselves, some others are stepping up even further. Kaladi Brothers is bringing their Event Trailer.  Twitter users @jmproffit and @agenticecream are matching donations for the first 90 minutes of the bake sale. And the Bella Boutique has announced they’ll be donating 10% of Saturday’s sales.

And if you’re wondering how all this came about, blame Valette.

Apparently someone’s been getting comfortable in the tarp garage on Basin Rd.

We’ve got a handful of belongings that came out of the house after the fire. Soot covered china, some drenched CDs, and oodles of crispy photos and documents laying out to dry. Mostly things we didn’t know what to do with but couldn’t bear just throwing out.

In the week after the fire we used the tarp garage daily, but over the last month we lost momentum to clean and deal and have only been visiting it once a week or so.

Today we noticed that my trusty ole and partially singed Arcteryx rain coat was missing. Somehow it didn’t burn in the fire but it was too stained and stinky to wear for anything other than digging around the ashes of the house. Also missing were my grandfather’s sodden sooty binoculars.

The minor theft piqued our interest, so Laura and I looked around the tarp garage a bit closer. We found a number of items that weren’t ours! Amongst them a sweater, a canvas bag, a Tasmanian devil t-shirt, and best (or worst) of all some ladies high heeled shoes.

It’s a great tarp garage, and I understand the need to get out of the rain in the middle of the night. But come on people, at least pack out what you pack in and nothing extra.

Tonight we met with a lovely fella who has an excavator and dump truck. If all goes according to plan, he’ll be taking the pink house down on Tuesday the 25th. If you want to get a look at what the burned out remains of the Pink House looks like, this weekend might be your last chance!

Here are some of the logistics we’ve had to work through to get to this point:

• Demolition permit from the city. Check.
• Asbestos test. Passed.
• Personal contents evacuated. Check.
• Metal and stone separated from wood? Check.
• Oil tank drained. Check.
• Cable/telephone wires from pole to house disconnected. Check.
• Metal and rock sorted out from wood so they can go in separate loads. Check.
• Someone willing to carefully excavate so the foundation doesn’t get beat up. Check.
• Someone to do the work in a manner we can afford. Check!

Emotionally, this will be bittersweet.  We will be saying a final heart-wrenching goodbye to the home we lovingly tended for several years and started raising our family in.  We had so many happy memories there.  On the other hand, we have been dealing with a huge weight on our shoulders.  Though the fire was none of our doing, we can’t help feeling responsible for the stinky, messy, hazardous eyesore that neighbors and pedestrians (including us) have to smell and look at on a daily basis.  A sight like that does not make one feel warm and cozy inside – quite the opposite.  As Meadow says, “poor, sad pink house.”

If you want to see what the burned out Pink House looks like. Now’s your chance. Get your pics while it’s still smoldering…