Will work for true right angles?
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Lately, it would appear that many builders aren’t familiar with the 3,4,5 right triangle.
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Construction…carpenter, plumber, tradesman in general with a level doesn’t exist today…
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If everything had to be plumb, on grade, and square nothing would ever get built. Everything has a tolerance.
Edit: to clarify: a level is a reasonable degree of accuracy 
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You want to experience true level? Take some tips from Rick.
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Reasonable yes, (spirit levels had lines to aim the bubble in between to keep in “reasonable”) to but in the real world that doesn’t apply to the end user.
The first Tradesman onsite (plumbing in the case of residential) starts the avalanche of errors for the rest.
The “shake and bake” developments have the lowest (if any) actual quality control outside of barely meeting the local minimum building codes.
When my wife and I built our Huntington home in 1991 we visited the building site every day. We selected the lot and the building plan as well as added lots of custom additions ranging from high end fixtures to additional storage areas and a drawing room.
We believed that the builder was one of the very best in our development. We had visited a number of similar floor planned homes and were suitably impressed.
When the contractors had just poured the foundation I measured it for compliance with the architect’s drawings and noticed it was a foot wider than the plans called for. I told the builder and he said it couldn’t be true because he had his best crew doing the work. Sure enough when he remeasured it was a foot wider.
All of the cabinet work, walls and plumbing had to be adjusted. They tried to get me to pay for the extra square footage and I told them I’d let the city know of their error. Turns out they had to get a waiver from the city for exceeding the necessary separation between homes. I got about another 110 sq feet out of the deal, but not without a ton of hassle.
When the builders were framing the house we saw all kinds of lax quality. They used studs, that had been finger jointed to form a single 2x4 and had started to crack, some were severely bowed, they stuffed their lunch trash into the areas which they believed would be covered by sheet rock or paneling, they buried trash in the yard and they tried to cut corners when the walls weren’t true. They would try to force them into shape by hammering them and pulling the joints apart elsewhere.
I raised hell with the builder and told them that we hadn’t closed yet and that I wouldn’t accept the home as it was currently constructed. I also called the city inspectors and told them they should inspect all of Huntington’s homes. Lastly, I raised hell with the contractors themselves. A combination of these things got the framing contractor fired and another came in to do the reconstruction work. It was at least more consistently good, but not excellent even then.
There were a number of areas which required my intervention, too. It was clear to me that the “cheapest” bidder was being hired and not the one that did the highest quality work. The truth is that I don’t think any builder does a much better job than this because shoddy work seems to be the norm among most contractors these days.
Up until I beat on the city they hadn’t sent an inspector to the property either. I’m not sure how useful they were anyway. Moral to the story, “You have to watch your builder/contractor like a hawk and complain loudly if you see something that needs to be addressed.” It still may not be effective, but it will at least make you feel better.
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I believe there will always be a trade off triangle for construction between price, quality, and speed. This as we all know can be applied to just about anything.
It does suck when contractors get a bad wrap today (as a GC I’ve dealt with bad subs just like anyone has dealt with a terrible contractor), but there’s still plenty of good craftsmen out there today.
The stories of your build are scary in the sense that it does seem to be a common occurance in today’s market, especially as the economy does well and people are looking to improve/build their homes. Also noting just the lack of respect (throwing trash behind drywall).
As a contractor, I find it’s important to realize early on the type of client and their expectations during a build and approach that situation with its own set of nuances.
Does a client want non textured walls but perfectly flat walls and amazing tape and bed? Then they must expect to pay for the extensive labor and or LSL stuffing.
Oh, your last contractor or tiler did this stand up shower with cement board and nothing else? See all this black mold…thats spreading to other areas? They didnt waterproof…these are Kerdi products…we’ll show you standing water tests before tile goes up. But I’m not your last contractor charging you $1.50 a sq ft.
And more often than not some clients need to be informed and educated on the matter to explain or justify the costs (which some clients take offense to…and I’ll say many times a contractor shouldn’t have to justify costs).
I could give tons of examples of me explaining why I couldnt do a job for a client because of where they sit on that triangle in conjunction with their expectations. Likewise, there are many satisfied customers who at the end of the day refer me to good friends. And I bet clients that dont understand the triangle talk down the line that I’m too expensive, or too this, etc.
My moral of the story would be that customers who are looking for a contractor is to find one you trust and is willing to work with you and your expectations within your budget. Build a relationship with them, they are the ones that are at the end of the day responsible for where you’ll be spending your time and hard earned money. Yes, monitor them and let them know when you don’t like something, but also when you do. Have a realistic expectation of your build within the confines of what’s agreed within your contract and knowledge. Yes there are tolerances to be worked with, but please don’t expect if you’re paying for cheap labor, materials, etc that a contractor will give you something that looks like $180/ft build. And lastly, keep referring the contractors that do good work to others and the opposite.
Too often what happens in the real world of “housing developments” is zero accountability.
When a “developer/contractor/sub” (insert your preferred term) agrees to a job based on a contract based on written specs and then ignores them.
A popular one is gypsum board “drywall” - often the contract specifies that it is to be glued and screwed to the framing. But nails are cheaper and faster and no one will know until it is too late
This is so true. Was talking to another member about a client of mine who purchased a new build recently.
The builders (specifically the cabinet installers) didn’t install any of the cabinets properly. Nothing was level. In a 350k new build this shouldn’t occur…but of course it did. The countertop people obviously didn’t care enough to shim on their part. The trickle effect of cheap is just a bigger pile of crap.
So when I was asked to do all new doors and drawer fronts (full overlay) I told him what to expect. Obviously the 1/2" overlay before his a lot of the visual problems and my full overlay would only highlight them, but we moved forward.
In the end it looks beautiful but of course the client as well as myself acknowledged the short comings before and after with such problems…what a headache and frustrating thing to deal with!
That’s interesting. I’ve never heard of gluing drywall. Please never do this. I could only imagine how disastrous removal would be. It apparently a thing up in the Northeast. Screws work just fine (if you use enough).
So no updates for a month Because Reasons™:
- Heavy foot traffic and reduced sun exposure has killed off a lot of grass which mixed with monsoonal rains in have turned portions of my poorly-draining back yard into a veritable mud pit
- I’ve not made much progress as a result of (1)
- That brief period of Talk going overwhelmingly Members Only™ irked me
But all these conditions have mitigated to a degree, progress has resumed, and I’m inclined to post about it.
Got the vertical trim painted and installed. Construction adhesive went a long ways, but didn’t quite do the job as well as intended, so 3x screws per to backup the glue. Note the now-perpetual mud splatter - a gutter arrangement might happen next year sometime to mitigate this problem. Need to inject more caulking into those seams and touch-up one last time.
“Slat wall” siding installed. I will later realize that I should have just …
- Waited until the door was fit in place before doing anything, and …
- Just used plywood anyway
Ah well. Ain’t building no boat.
I did all my design work around a door I found on Home Despot’s website that …
- Isn’t available within a few hundred miles
- The Despot won’t ship
- Was markedly larger than all other nominal 36 x 80 doors
So thankfully other same nominal size doors are smaller thus I can rough that rough opening smaller to fit.
Filler materials added to narrow the door to that ideal +½-¼" size the manufacturer recommends:
- One 2x4
- One 1x4
- Some sections of <¼" underlayment I came across … somewhere … to bridge the gaps between shims so the door maintains some semblance of planarity with the rest of the arrangement
Did something similar on the header. On second thought, perhaps that door I designed around was more like 38 x 82.
After some amount of cursing the Despot for failing to provide the door I actually designed around and more cursing at the unreasonable precision and fitting that a door requires of the shade tree carpenter, it swings reasonably freely and has stopped moving around on me.
It’s getting dark, it’s been drizzling for an hour, and the skeeters are trying to carry me away, but I have now achieved MINIMUM VIABLE SHED at this moment: it’s minimally weather-tight and minimally secure.
I have since installed some more shims, the deadbolt, sunk some impressive #10x4" screws into critical points, and fixed some fitment issues that interfered with true free-swinging.
Painting the door trim - it takes forever when the weather doesn’t cooperate and you have to prime and double-coat. Did the second coat today and barely got it under cover as it started raining yet again some time between the paint being “wet” and merely “tacky”. Probably gonna have to retouch some of those edges once installed. Ah well, gotta do some retouch when you’re invariably smearing white caulk over dark paint anyway.
So, shambling towards completion I’ve got the following absolutely mandatory exterior tasks remaining:
- Install door trim
- Paint remaining horizontal trim
- Install horizontal trim
- Install flashing along long sides since that 3/4" trim is going to catch some drippage from the roof as close as it sits
- Cut, paint, and install the diagonal siding
Other than that, it’s just been a 2 month project running into 6 months. In the software business that’s not even cause for real concern, right?
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Another couple weeks of monsoonal rains, another couple of weeks of slow progress. 90/90 rule in full effect:
The first 90 percent of the code project accounts for the first 90 percent of the development project time. The remaining 10 percent of the code project accounts for the other 90 percent of the development project time.
So about that slat siding. There’s a variable gap. I’ll figure this out soon enough, but it’s annoying nonetheless.
Expanding foam … works as advertised.
Horizontal trim. With unwanted cutouts because Mistakes Were Made™.
Behold the caulk expansion joint!
This is why clay is such fabulous soil.
Clearly, I need to put up some NO LOITERING signs.
A little paint covers many sins.
With the purchase of some flashing, I believe I’ve made my final purchase for the exterior. I might even get the last of the trim with bespoke flashing installed tomorrow between a vet visit, voting, and another errand which will put me at the SUBSTANTIAL (exterior) COMPLETION milestone.
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I’m gonna need that letter of substantial completion, milestone pay application, and updated certificate of insurance now please.
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You can print one for your own edification if you want. As far as I’m concerned, the fewer building inspectors I have to deal with the better.
As far as payments go, my suppliers are always current since the arrangement is cash on the barrelhead.
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Installed the horizontal trim over a number of days this week.
Got dark on Tuesday night inconveniently early.
Thursday I got the other half.
This evening’s endeavors.
(Dirty rotate in my image viewer since I seemingly can’t frame properly)
Fun fact: I finally used nails. The nature of this usage is presently left as an exercise to the reader.
My goal of finishing the exterior this weekend is within sight: need only cut, paint, and install the last bits of siding. Heck, the weather might even cooperate.
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My ambitious cutting plan.
The actual cutting plan.
Layout, as usual, consumes an amazing amount of time.
Lining up cuts is for suckers.
… Second only to painting, which has both execution and drying time. I didn’t wait the recommended 2 hours between coats since this is the least likely to be rained on.
Mistakes were made. Then swept under the rug as I happened to have a ready-made replacement piece from the scrap.
East end.
West end.
And like that, the exterior is anticlimactically done.
Or maybe, I’m done with it for this year. There’s some touch-up to be done to hide the sins of caulk hiding the sins of less-than-perfect alignment. I’d also like to do something about the east/west end eaves - some laser-cut plywood at the ends and some furring around the ridge beam and purlins to clean it up a bit.
There’s always the interior and its largely-untouched punchlist.
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Made some progress on the interior…
… but first I cleaned up the caulk lines by hiding them with paint. It’s not like anyone other than me noticed … but notice them I did every time I looked at it, so one evening after work I made them less prominent.
Implemented half of the solution to the transparent roof panels: white masonite sandwiched between the panels and the rafters (they float over them). Suspect I can just tape the seam between the masonite and the outer purlins to seal up that roof enough to keep the bugs out.
Underlayment put down and electrical stubbed out for future … potential.
Insulation installed - some of that surplus will end up in the ceiling, but since I don’t relish cutting most of it lengthwise to fill in the difference between 16" OC studs and 24" OC rafters some of it’s going to be surplus.
Anyone that’s installed insulation before can probably spot the huge mistake in application…
… which I agonizingly un-did …
… and corrected.
Never not laying out.
But it has its benefits - all the cuts align.
4 / ~10 panels installed. Naturally all the rest are partial panels and the most complex one hasn’t been touched.
The cheap faux wood panel at the end is deliberate - they were cheaper but the Lowes I was shopping at only had 4 that weren’t completely chowdered up. White along the length seems more important for lighting the interior anyway.
Interior punch list is winding down:
- Finish stubbing out the wiring (need to fish some low-voltage wire down to a light switch by the door)
- Cut and install the remaining panels
- Install the “baseboard” molding (mostly to protect the somewhat fragile Masonite)
- Lay out the foam-rubber floor tiles
- Start loading the thing up!
Some longer-term goals:
- Power
- Trim out the door interior nicer than the current plan of “cut panel edge at door frame interface”
- Install ceiling insulation / panelling, which will require some interesting fixtures
- Lighting - got the homebrew fixtures, just need to lay them out down the center once it’s all said and done
- Retrofit a window unit into one of the sides - ideally one that can also produce heat on demand
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Really nice work … wonder how much the tax assessor will add to your estate!
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Unlike previous bumps it will be for an actual improvement rather than mere inflation appreciation.
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