When the leaning Tower of Pisa becomes the Titanic

Those of you who have visited the new house might have been shown our own personal leaning Tower of Pisa, aka the utility pole that wasn't upright and pulled mightily on our electric line and phone line.

I complained about it to every CenterPoint Energy employee I ever saw at a neighbor's house (and that was several). Most of them said, "it'll be fine, I've seen much worse." Finally, one day last October, I called CPE -again- and used the "right words" to get to a live person and then continued using the "right words" (imminent danger, I believe) to get someone sent out to evaluate the pole immediately.

Thus, we got a red service tag on our door letting us know that he'd put in a straightening order, but "pole is fine until straighten".

Fast forward several months. I happened to be home when I saw a truck carrying utility poles driving down the street. I went out to meet the guy and found out we were getting a new pole as part of a larger pole replacement project in the area. Although the pole is technically not in our yard, the only access to the pole is via our yard (which we will want to take into consideration as we redesign our garage and access to our backyard, which is currently wide open to the driveway and not gated).

Weeks have gone by. The end street had several poles replaced weeks ago, but still our new pole languishes, killing off our neighbor's grass (with our trees out front, they couldn't deposit the pole at our house).

Then, on Saturday, 4/13, (yes, the day after the great Tile Move), as we were about to lie down for a nap, the most awful noise started. It sounded like the whole house was groaning and grinding. Then it stopped. Then it started up again, mere seconds later. Roy later likened it to what the Titanic sounded like when it struck the iceberg in the movie. It was horrible.

Then, the crashing and popping and undefinable noises started. We wondered whether a tree had fallen onto the house and power lines. I ran to the back door (utility room), which was open (for the kitties to come and go as they pleased), and discovered all of our utility lines laying on the ground, phone line pooled in loops and draped up at our door and on the deck, electric line draped over one of the worm bins, etc. (Yes, I freaked out, as both cats were outside.) This all transpired in maybe half a minute.

Then the zapping and zonking and popping started up again. The middle set of lines on the pole (where the houses connect to) were crossing in the trees and sparking and smoking, etc. The trash trees that had been allowed to grow under the lines were all that was keeping the pole and its two transformers from crashing all the way to the ground.

 

That was about 11:30 AM that Saturday. Over the course of the next 6 hours, we talked to lots of CPE folks and we took lots of pictures and video. They initially started to winch the pole vertical using only human labor. Later, when they decided that the pole could snap and swing at any minute and become a serious danger to the workers, they left and brought back a motorized winch to assist the manual winches. (I highly recommend you watch the video - I think it's pretty interesting.)

The end result is that the broken pole is bolted to a stub pole, which is tied off to one of our galvanized fence posts.

The broken pole is further tied off to our tree up by our deck. Yeah. It's quite the sight to see.

You can see from the pictures of the base of the pole that it is completely rotted (or termite-eaten) inside. But, "it'll be fine".

Oh - and the Titanic-sounding noises? That was our weatherhead and house holding up the pole and its two transformers, then the stranded metal wire connecting our line to the pole giving way under incredible stress. Most awful sounds to have experienced, reverberating through our house via the attic.

Minor correction

We realized that we didn't move 2 tons of tile on Friday - we moved 4 tons of tile. We put 2 tons of tile onto dollies in batches of roughly 250 and 500 pounds each trip upstairs - and then we had to pick up that tile and put it in our storage unit.

So, we moved 2 tons, twice, which equals 4 tons. And we lived to tell about it!

Insanity confirmed

We survived the moving of almost 2 tons (3,941.30 pounds in 75 boxes, to be precise) of tile today. I only wound up with a few smashed fingertips. We've both taken some Advil (and will take more later, I'm sure) and Roy said he is beginning to feel it across his shoulders. I'm sure we'll both be pretty stiff and sore tomorrow.

Yes, I helped move tile. The larger and slightly heavier (54 lb) boxes (the Poseidon Lake tile for the pool room) were actually easier to move as you could tilt them and pivot them. The boxes of Unika Crema (50 lbs each) were small and very dense (plus we moved them last) and I found it hard to get a good handle on a box, so Roy had to move most of that 27 boxes.

Some of the boxes of the Poseidon Lake were pretty wet and the cardboard holding the tiles together somewhat disintegrated/disintegrating. When we saw that, we were kind of like, "well, I guess we could have stored them in the new house's garage which gets wet when it rains. Seems like they are used to it." But that was a little late as they had already been unloaded at the storage unit facility by then.

Ah, well. You'll all have your chance to help us move the 2 tons of tile again - into a vehicle and then to a house, so never fear! There's always next time!

The very definition of insanity

No update in a while, because we have been busy.

I have designed the kitchen cabinetry layout fitted (roughly) into the architect's suggested new floorplan (which has some walls and doors moved). We have begun the arduous task of re-selecting products for the floors, kitchen, and bathrooms. Again.

And, what would you imagine we discover while making product selections? Why, YES, they have discontinued most of the selections we made back in 2010, so we had to start all over. On everything for the old house.

Only, wait a minute, the blue/gray tile for the pool room (to be located in the new house) has been discontinued?!?!?! Nooooooo.........but there is still some 2000 sf of the larger size in the warehouse? Okay, we can probably make that work.

And then...wait a minute, the tile I just selected for the hall bathroom LAST WEEK is being "phased out" and there is only 300 square feet of it left in the warehouse now?That's ridiculous.

So, we asked our architect to go out of his way to purchase the tiles for us. All 800 sf of them.

Only, we can't store them at the old house anywhere as it will be remodeled real soon now (late summer) we hope. And we can't store them at the new house, as that worthless garage takes on water everytime it rains.

So, on Friday, the tiles, all 800 sf of them, will be delivered to our storage unit location, where they will be forklifted off of the truck. And then...

yes, Roy thinks he is going to move all 2 tons of tile, box by box, from the delivery drop zone to a flatbed dolly to our upstairs storage unit. And he thinks he will be able to move a box every minute from drop zone to dolly and dolly to the floor of the unit.

By my estimate (we don't know how many tile per box but we do know weight per tile), that's crazy talk. I know I won't be able to help much, if at all.

If anyone wants a real back-breaker event, come join us Friday afternoon.

I'll try to get some pics on Friday to share.