All Forum Posts by: Bernie Neyer

I have raised the possibility of having our small city or county declaring itself as an opportunity Zone, but have run into some problems.

1) Kansas created something called a R.O.Z. (Rural Opportunity Zone) qp years ago and that's causing confusion as to what and how local governments can declare an opportunity zone.

2) The city administrator is saying that it's too late to declare a zone. I think he's mixing it up with the ROZ.

Can someone direct me on where to find information on how a city, county or local entity can declare are have declared an Opportunity Zone?

Were the exceptions major? The object of an inspector is to identify any problem and some may not be worth worrying about. For instance, I purchased a multifamily in Wichita and the inspector found issues that were irrelevant. Not that they weren't a problem, but would have been directly dealt with in the rehab. For intance, they identified broken windows. Now I'm glad they listed it, problems like that aren't worth killing the deal. 

Now if you were wanting a turnkey, that is another issue of course.

Well . . . I've got good news and I've got bad. Some windows have finally showed up, but others haven't. We are going to start siding the gable ends and the back of the 4 Plex, as those are the windows that came in, but will have to wait on the front.

The 4 plex has been spray foamed. I have some pictures at the bottom. It will be a snug place for sure. 

We will begin drywalling in a week or  so, but the lack of windows in the front will delay it some. We had intended to wrap the jamb and just put a stool on the bottom, but I'm thinking we'll just trim it out so we can get it drywalled. We also have to redo some of the framing for the PTAC unit. 

The city set the water meters. The plumber wanted them in incase the drywallers hit a line they'll know it immediately and it can get fixed. I can understand that, but the drywallers know where the line are they can see them, but the plumber insisted. 

Finally, if you look at the post above and the hole for the sewer. Well, we've gotten so much rain the fill turned to slush and they had to dig it back out to fill the whole hole with gravel and pack it. Apparently someone got stuck as it became sort of a sink hole. The rain is supposed to end soon.

Got an update. Rough-in plumbing and connection to sewer and water meters are in. That ran me $14,730, but will have a bill for the trenching. There's a picture of how deep the city sewer was. 

There are some issues with the build we're having to deal with. The tubs drains were improperly located, which made the bathroom a foot longer, but we lost a foot in the laundry room. 

As a result we can't put a door on that room and are having to widen the doorway so we can fit the appliances in. There isn't enough room to get the washer and dryer in then situate them in their spot. If you refer to the floor plan above you'll better understand what I'm talking about.

There are a couple of locatio issues too with the washer feed and discharge box and the dryer vent pan. These were the result of the framers not framing the back of the room with 2 x 6 so the dryer vent would fit between the walls. The washer box got installed before we shimmed out the studs for the vent. The vent pans were also put in the wrong position both vertically and horizontally. No big deal, but we need to correct these things.

Still haven't received our windows and we're informed they wouldn't be here till April 1st. As a result, we haven't started siding nor drywalling. I'm going to talk to the GC. I think we can drywall and put the windows in later. Instead of drywalling up to them, we'll just trim them out instead.

I'm looking at some lots just down the street for my next build. I can get two 4 plex units as there are 3 adjacent lots.

Here's the sewer depth picture.

ESS? When I do a search I get computer storage hardware. Can someone post web links to the web sites or at least spell out the full name of ESS?

Haven't had a lot to post. The plumber is doing their job and we have the water meters installed. I'm not sure if they have the sewer connected, but they were wanting to get that done as well. Electrician is supposed to start next week, and absent our windows, which are supposed to get here around the 15th, we are going to side the gable ends. We need that done so the electrician can install the masts and meter bases. 

I don't have a picture yet, but I'm lining up 3 adjacent lots for a 3rd build. I intend to replicate this quad, more or less. The extra lot will solve some of the parking issues, but there are a lot of trees on it that need clearing. I'll post a photo here and a link to the 3rd Build in Chanute forum to follow after I close.

In reference to a previous post, we have to change the water heaters and will be putting them in the attic. Since we are insulating the roof, not the ceiling, that won't be an issue. However, in examining the heaters it was noticed that our plans on double wall noise abatement, is causing problems with any electrical outlets on the adjoining walls.

In the past we'd put up the fire wall between the two walls, but this GC thought that was wasteful since we'd have to drywall both sides of the wall and the center divider. He insisted he'd done this previously without issue when inspected. We went with his plan, but this inspector won't allow outlets from both apartments in that side as he considers it penetration of the fire wall.

We are exploring the fireproofing that spray foam offers thinking we can fill the cavity and eliminate the cavity on one side. If that doesn't work, we'll have to take down the double wall on one side, put the 5/8" fire rock up between the two walls, then stand the wall back up. 

This isn't a big deal, but it will delay it some and add a little cost to the build.

Well, we have a change in plans. I had purchased some tank less water heaters, but they had a high power in draw. They needed 3, 40 amp 220V breakers, requiring us to upgrade the service en to entrance to a 200 amp entrance. 

It didn't end there. The city which owns all the utilities here got their panties in a bind supplying the power to the 4Plex. They couldn't hang the transformer needed. 

it became a mess, so we're returning to a regular, electric water heater. In the process though, we discovered that electric water heater can be mounted horizontally. This should allow it to be mounted in the attic more of easily. We do have to find a pan for it that is large enough if laid down.

During this discussion, the inspector informed me that because of how we built the walls and was going to install the fire board, we couldn't have a box for this unit across from a box from the unit next door. We had to actually mount that box 2 no feet over. However, I discovered a rehab of a downtown building with a residence upstairs that they were able to use a special spray foam that had a 4 hour burn through. This is double the required 2 hour burn through, so we may have averted an issue.

Window won't be here till March. We are scheduling the plumber and electrician meantime. We are also going to do some landscaping and pour the porch and parking as time and weather allow.

What are you ordering them for? Alside was only ~6 weeks. We went to order them there, but lead time for Weather Barr ended up being about 6 weeks till arrival by then, so we stayed with Weather Barr.

Some of what we do now won't be very visible. We are going to rough in the plumbing, lay the water lines out to where the meters will be set and connect up the sewer. We can't side in the property till the windows get installed and they won't be here till March. We ordered them two months ago, then a couple of weeks back we got informed the lead time increased another 4 to 6 weeks. 

Here in Chanute, the city owns all the utilities, water, sewer, gas electric and garbage. It is going to cost me $1,100 for the water meters. This will be total electric.