RV Travels With Huggy

A near miracle occurred last Tuesday when Paul showed up to start building our new sunroom. Yes, the sunroom that we ordered back in August that was supposed to be finished by Halloween. It turned out that they didn't even order the kit until mid-October- the only construction drawing that we were sent had a drawn date of Oct 10th and that was before it was sent to the manufacturer of the kit in Saskatchewan, Canada. When we ordered it we were told it was a good time as in early September the company (Royal Solariums from Everett, WA) would be at the big Puyallup Fair where they always sell quite a few units. Ordering in Aug would put ours ahead of those.

Well, I think ours at only 12 feet by 12 feet was a small project for them and instead of doing as they said all those other, bigger (more money) went ahead of ours. The kit arrived at our house just a couple of days after we got back from Hawaii in very early November. We kept asking when the installer would arrive to start and there were always excuses, but no installer. When the last promised date had been missed we contacted a lawyer who wrote to them and faxed the letter on Friday, Jan 4th in the morning. We got a phone call before noon that day saying they would start construction on Monday, the 7th. The installer called us the morning of the 7th and said due to slick roads in his home area (he lives about 4 hours away) he wouldn't come until the next day. Wonder of wonders, he did arrive about 12:30 on Tue the 8th to start! But he arrived by himself, no help and he had to do everything himself.


This photo shows the concrete patio on the back of our house where the sunroom is to be built. The patio is 14 ft. deep and 28 ft. wide- the sunroom only 12 X 12. It will line up with the right side of the house as you see it in this photo and extend across to about a foot and a half before the window to the left. These two windows go into the master bedroom and the one closest to the edge of the house will be opened into a door with an external door put in place to allow closing off the sunroom.



This view is of the space behind our garage where most of the bundles that contain the sunroom parts have been stored since they arrived in early Nov. These parts are aluminum, glass and plastic so it should be no problem that they are outside, although they should not have had to be out this long if the company we bought the room from had done what was promised as to its assembly schedule.


Paul didn't arrive until 12:30 on Tue and it is pretty dark by 16:30 so there wasn't very much time for him to work, but he really did accomplish quite a bit in that short time. Rather than having to break up and take the concrete in the patio away, it was decided in Aug to build an insulated deck whose floor height is a match to that of the house, then build the sunroom on that deck. He has removed enough of the vinyl siding from the house to get an exact level for that floor and has cut three 10 inch square holes in the concrete for footings to hold the deck. The footings will broaden out below the patio level to provide a 2ft by 2ft solid concrete block at its base to support the deck & sunroom. He had already made a trip to the lumber yard for wood to start building the framing for the deck and that lumber is stacked to the left out of this picture.


When working this far from his home he stays in a local motel so arrived much earlier on Wed and the weather cooperated with no rain all day. He was able to finish the work preparing the footings and build the support structure for the deck as well as get the concrete in place to make the footings and hold that deck at the outer side, away from the house. Since it is cold here this time of the year, he didn't plan any work here yesterday but gave an extra day for the concrete to setup. He had another job to finish up in a town 40 miles away that he worked on yesterday.

It is now just after 13:00 here and he has arrived to drop off tools, then headed to the lumber yard for plywood. It sounds like he has an assistant to help today- Pat & I were out to lunch when they arrived and the only way I know they have arrived is the tools are out on the patio. I did phone him to let him know we are back although the back door into the garage was left open so they would have access to electric power. I think they will be working on it tomorrow and possibly Sunday too, and I will plan to take daily photos chronicling the progress. Paul told me that it should be finished in two weeks, but it is necessary to have a dry (no rain) day to spread the sealant along the edges between the plastic and the aluminum framing members. We also need to coordinate with our electrician to run two new lines from the power panel to the sunroom and make the connections there. It is finally looking like we will have a finished sunroom before too much longer. Maybe.....

Labels: Griping, House, Sunroom