the $6000 day

I can think of many ways to spend $6K in a day...let's just say that paying 2 electricians, 2 plumbers, a surveyor and an arborist is not what I would have had in mind.

So here's how a day like this goes:

Plumber arrives at 7am to start digging trenches for storm water drainage. 9am council checks the necessary measures and leaves. 9:30am arborist arrives to supervise the said digging of trenches around native trees. 10:30am digging works come to a stand-still as arborist does not agree with construction certificate plans and shuts down digging in the tree affected area and leaves.

Meanwhile, electricians arrive and require new account numbers for power boxes (phone calls to providers) and surveyors don't show up. Plumber continues to dig in unaffected area but cannot get correct levels from engineer's drawings. Phone calls back and forth to hydraulic engineer. Correct levels confirmed.

3:00pm council returns and approves one of arborist's change in plans but overrules the other. 3:30pm plumber leaves for another job - can only return in 3 days. 5pm electricians leave but will be back tomorrow to finish connecting power to the house. 6pm arrive home, get changed and fill conduit trench with sand and safety tape.

That's right, all of this happened without us even here to see our $6K being spent. This is soooo stressful. If I've ever made out that this is a cruisy project - it ain't! Trying to field the phone calls today, find solutions, not explode on the phone to my husband and prevent this week's schedule of works from blowing out is my definition of hell!

And how does $6K look at the end of the day? Like a bunch of empty trenches, lots of conduit and a pile of mess. Ughh, and it's only Monday. Tomorrow it's onto council to get a final ruling on the digging in the tree area, arrange inspections for later in the week and begin excavations on the driveway for a Friday finish. Wish us luck!