I've Got the Power!

It's gettin', it's gettin', it's gettin' kinda hectic... sorry for the 90's Snap reference, but it was a joyous day! 

At 7:15 AM, I had a message on my phone from Al (from WPP).  He said they made good progress yesterday and they are on pace to have electricity to our house today and the meter set. 

Around 11:30 AM, Angela called to tell me the were actually working on our house at that point.  She didn't want to promise anything until she heard for sure that we had power.

She called back around 2:30 PM to let me know we had power to the house.  Barring anything unexpected at the inspection tomorrow, we are all set to close on Friday!  Maybe the complaint I filed with the PUC (Public Utility Commision) against WPP paid off!

Here is one of our ceiling fans.  We added one in each bedroom for overhead lighting.  There is a triple switch on the wall to control an outlet, the light and the fan separately (and we could actually try it out today because we have power!).

 And here is our chandelier in the dining room with the lights ablaze!  Proof that "we've got the power!"

Progress

Well, I got a call yesterday (Monday) afternoon to break the news.... sadly enough, I already knew.  Earlier in the day, I spoke with Al (the designer of our project at West Penn Power) and he said that the best case scenario would be them completing the work on Wednesday.  He could not say why they were not out working over the weekend or why it was not finished by Sunday.  I left a third message (without any callbacks) to Mike, the scheduler at West Penn Power.  I've basically written him off as useless.

So, 4:00 PM yesterday, Pat (the PM) and Mandy and Angela conference called me to tell me it doesn't look like WPP will have the meters up until Wednesday.  I told them that was the same story I got from WPP.  They too could not get an answer from anyone as to why it wasn't finished this weekend.  It was beautiful weather all weekend long!  Anyway, they backed everything up to Friday so we wouldn't have to try to change our moving date again.  If WPP keeps to schedule, we should be official homeowners on Friday. 

Good news is they were out working again today (Tuesday). 

Bad news is that Angela just told me that they won't know for sure until tomorrow (Wednesday) if we'll be able to move in, based on WPP's progress.

I did take a ride to our site yesterday to try to speak to someone from WPP in person, but there was no one around by the time I got there.  Surprisingly, Ryan Homes put the finishing touches on our house...

 They finally painted our front columns!  And they completed the landscaping...

We even got a little tree in the front yard!

Electricity???

Well, Amanda, with Ryan homes spoke to us last night and felt confident that West Penn Power would be out today working on the electric.  One of her "higher-ups" gave her the go ahead to call all of the families affected by this West Penn debacle to inform us that things look promising. 

This morning I got an e-mail from her saying West Penn Power was at the site working and their guys said we should have electricity to the house by the end of the day Sunday.  She'll get back in touch with us on Monday morning to report on the progress (based on how much they get done this weekend).  Looks like someone finally lit a fire under them because they are going to work on the weekend to pull this off... hopefully!  So with this news, it looks as though we are still sticking to the schedule of walk through on Wednesday and closing on Thursday.  We could even push it back to closing on Friday if necessary because our movers aren't coming until Saturday.  We just can't go to the next week because our movers are booked up for the rest of the month.  Keep your fingers crossed for us!

Sorry, no new pictures yet.

Bad News

I wish I had new pictures or something great to share, but today is just going to be me venting.  We just got off the phone with Pat, our project manager, and he informed us we'd have to push the closing date back.  I don't have a problem with Ryan Homes right now, the house looks beautiful and they are finishing up on time.  The stupid power company, West Penn Power, has not yet hooked up power to the house though.  It's not just our house, the house across the street won't be able to close either.  We have put in numerous calls to West Penn Power, but it hasn't helped.  Pat said "the guy" he is working with at West Penn Power really couldn't even give him an estimated time of completion.  I just don't get why they sat on their butts this long.  They got the work order from Ryan Homes on February 7th.  If anyone has any suggestions on how we can get them to move this along, I'd appreciate it.  Pat said we could try calling the PUC (Public Utility Commission) and file a complaint, but he doesn't think that will really light a match under them.  So here we are with a beautiful house, but no power.  There is so much that rides on having the power... the plumbing inspection, the electrical inspection and the final building inspection.  Maybe they can knock all three of these out in one day once West Penn Power finishes their part.  They don't even have power to the street or transformers in place yet, so Pat is not optimistic.  I just feel like they are not making us a priority.  West Penn Power wasn't even at the house the past two days (and the customer service rep I talked to today said they don't work on Saturdays).  What are they waiting on!?  If I was in charge, I'd have some guys on overtime out there to get this job done on time.  Alright, I'm done venting.  So as of today, we've moved our final walk through back to June 13 and a closing date of June 14.  So now we've got to make phone calls to the cable company, movers, furniture store, and our parents (who were to help out with the kids during the move).  Not to mention, now I have to reschedule days off of work.  Glad I didn't change our address with the post office yet!  Well, we've got to be out of our current house by June 15th, so keep your fingers crossed that West Penn Power pulls off a miracle next week!