Moving Update

Paul Morrone |
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By Tom Morrone, CFP ®, CPA, Principal

Cathy and I have officially moved into our new home in Branford. The entire ordeal was a 14 month process that culminated into a barrage of boxes being loaded onto a truck from our North Haven home and then spread around the various rooms in Branford. The closing for North Haven had a couple of bumps in the road and had to be delayed a week but finally did happen. Our new house in Branford was another situation all together. Our builder has been fabulous throughout the entire process and we could not have been happier with him. There were some items that were out of his control that definitely had an impact on our move. The main item was getting electricity into the house. You would think under normal circumstances that a wire from the utility pole in the street would need to be connected to the house and a switch would be flipped and the house would be energized. That would be way too simple or at least that is how we would have loved it to be.

I do not want to get too anal but the electricity story is worth hearing. The house that we bought had a 100 amp electrical service. Well we knocked that house down and built a new house that required a 200 amp service. No big deal or at least one would think that. Come to find out that the utility pole that the service came from could not accommodate 200 amps. Not good. The power company had to run a line underground from about 200 yards up the street from an adjacent road. That process involved trenching the entire road to run the upgraded service line for our house. At points along the trench, cement vaults needed to be buried and topped with large round steel covers. We take for granted these steel covers in the road but when you watch one being installed it is quite a construction project. There were dump trucks, back hoes, generators, road crews, police, piles of stone, stacks of conduit and a ton of noise and dust. Needless to say we probably did not make our new neighbors very happy.

The coordination of this part of the project, again which was out of our control, took months longer than anticipated. This was the reason we had to delay our closing on North Haven. As we were driving to Branford from North Haven on move day with the large moving truck following close behind, Paul called me. He was in Branford waiting for us to arrive to help us with the move. He called to let me know that we just got power to the house. Talk about cutting it close. If there was not power in the house we would stay with Paul and Jill until the electrical service was completed. We were all happy that the house was energized.

The move day was crazy as you would think. Things were scattered everywhere and boxes were piled in every location imaginable. We anticipated the craziness but it is still difficult when you are actually experiencing it versus talking about it. All in all everything went great. The movers were fabulous and the house had power. The furnace was working so we were warm and toasty on our first night in our new home. There are many things I will remember about our first day. For sure what I will remember the most was the feeling when I knew we had power. Life is good.

All too often we do not miss something until we do not have it. Over the years during a power outage we all have been guilty of turning on a light switch only to laugh because the power is out. I hate when that happens!

Until the next Tom’s take…