Hired

I think we just hired a concrete contractor last night. We talked to two different guys. They both visited the site and submitted bids for the work. We liked the higher priced guy better. After receiving the lower bid, we went back to the first guy and asked him if he would do the work for the lower price. He agreed. We're happy because we hired the guy we liked at the price we liked. I suppose we should be getting three bids on jobs like these, but both contractors came in pretty close, so I feel like we are getting a fair price. He is writing up the contract and going to be putting it in the mail soon. We are still waiting for the paperwork on our building permit and don't want to start anything until we have that in hand. To be on the safe side, we told the contractor we were looking to start work around the middle of October. That should give us plenty of time to finish up any last minute paperwork, as well as give him plenty of time to finish up before the ground freezes. I am so relieved to be passing off this job to a professional. For us to pour these footings ourselves would have been backbreaking. We have done a few footings in the past (for the front porch of our house) and it's not complicated, but hauling concrete is heavy and dirty. We have no access to water there right now, so I was pretty stumped as to how we were going to mix it. We had talked about hauling water up from the lake, but it has so much sediment in it, I think we would have had to filter it before it could be used. Not to mention that if the concrete cured wrong because of the water, we would have had thousands of pounds of bad cement to haul out. Also, if you get the concrete mix on your skin, it can start to burn pretty quick and with no place to wash it off, that could have been a real issue. This guy has a bobcat and a concrete truck. What would have been weeks of hard labor for us will be done in a few days. This seemed like an obvious time to hire out.