Tuesday and Wednesday, I spent in Oregon with my building contractor, who is also my son, to meet with an Oregon Engineer to check the plans to see if they meet code in Oregon. I usually take pictures of Mt.Shasta and Black Butte, but they were shrouded in haze. I enjoyed the fall colors in this dry section before reaching the Oregon border from California.
We stopped at a rest stop at Willitts and my Prius gave a check engine light. I called my roadside service. The dispatcher was somewhere in Iowa and didn’t know what a rest stop was. He kept asking for a nearby street. I kept telling him we were on an Interstate traveling North and any nearby tow service would know where we were located. Anyway, after 40 minutes, the car started and never peeped the rest of the trip. Western States really do have a great system of rest stops for travelers, every 30 to 50 miles along I-5.
Doug drew the plan on pilings, something more economical than a conventional foundation. He could calculate loads and stresses but he could not calculate wind and uplift. None of the books and information from the county gave him a wind calculation for the area. Meet Charles “Bud” Furrey of Precision Structural Engineering, Inc. at Medford. What a super guy. He was instantly helpful and did the calcs for Doug, then checked Doug’s plans thoroughly and pronounced them excellent. He told us the county will not accept plans from a non-engineer, which we knew, and he was glad to write a letter saying he approved the plans and provide his stamp for a very reasonable fee. Doug was really sweating this because a California Engineer he went to was very unhelpful about wind calcs.
We tromped my property, and measured the exact points where the building will be built and noted other tasks, tree limbs to be cut and so on. We were so busy I forgot to take any pictures. We had a late dinner and spent the night in a local hotel. I didn’t get my camera out until we were back on the road for home. The cascades peeking from behind a wall of green.
More fall color.
And, home sweet home.
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