This week was a slow one. Everything is still at a stand-still while we are awaiting electrical to be connected.

This week, our builder requested the 2nd draw for payment on services rendered so far. At the beginning of the project, we agreed on 4 draws on completed work: at 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100%. This would be the 50% draw. All draw requests would require an inspection by a representative of the bank. On Tuesday, 1/2, I met with Gary. Nice guy. He was there about 10 minutes or so, took some pictures, and left. He filed his report, and on Thursday, the check was ready to be picked up on Friday and distributed to the builder later that afternoon.

Our electrician supervisor, Gilberto, contacted our builder and let him know about the visit by Johnson County REMC this past Thursday. Where work seemed to stop was the need to install a new meter. I’d suspected that the work stopped because we were going from 100-amp to 200-amp service, and in general, that seems to be the reason why (unless there’s something that I’m not being told). What the builder communicated to me on Tuesday was that I needed to contact the REMC to schedule an inspection to install the meter. So, on the afternoon of Wednesday, 1/3, I met Gilberto and an engineer from JCREMC, Dillon, at the house to inspect the work done so far… or so I thought. He informed me that the county (aka Johnson County Planning & Zoning) needed to inspect the work in the context of the permit issued. Good to know!

I called “JC P&Z” when we left the house. I got a rep on the phone who was… “slightly less than patient” with me. Clearly, she didn’t have enough time in her busy government day to waste time on a homeowner making a request. After some condescending conversation, we scheduled an appointment to meet at the house for an inspection on Friday, 1/5. I called Dillon from JCREMC to let him know that we’d schedule the appointment in hopes that he would be there as well to move this along. He wasn’t. 😦 A guy named Wes from JC P&Z was scheduled for the inspection at 1pm. I pulled into the driveway at about 12:50pm and Wes was there and had already placed his approval sticker on the meter box and was pretty much done. He did look at the breaker box and took some pictures. But I talked with him for about 60 seconds overall.

Leaving the house, I passed the Johnson County REMC truck going the other direction and didn’t think too much about it at the time, but it turns out that it was a tech going to the house to install the meter. By about 2:30pm, we had power going into the house! It wouldn’t be ready until Monday, but it was a significant step forward.

That’s all for this week, everyone! We should have some more exciting news next week.