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Gounads posted:It looks like a big tub. Do you get in and then wait 20 minutes while it fills? I guess old people don't have much to do? And then sit in it for 20 minutes while it drains and you get pneumonia. The ones that are just a plastic stool in a shower cubicle seem more practical. Or less prone to disaster anyway.
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Aug 22, 2014 20:30
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Nothing like as bad as most of this thread but a compilation of poo poo I've encountered in my flat which is the upstairs of a ~100 house. First problem is that it's got subsidence because, like all the other buildings nearby, the back part is not properly joined into the main body of the terrace, is built on sand (3 streets from a river!) and as a bonus turns out to have no actual foundation beyond about 30cm of brick. Slabs werent invented back then apparently, the floor is just dirt below the ground floor flat. So that was pretty fun and its taken 4 years to get it fixed but hey, could be worse and insurance covered it so the ~£30k cost only actually means like £600 for me. But then someone bought the downstairs flat and discovered that when the previous owner took out a stud wall and put in a beam, he didn't bother with building control and supported the beam on two bits of 2x4 bolted together. The load on the beam goes all the way up to the roof and we're not sure what it sits on under the 'column' either. Nice. And today I unscrewed the thermostat to replace it and found two unmarked exposed wires behind the mounting plate. No idea if they're live so for now i wrote 'what the gently caress' on the wall and put the plate back. Could be worse though, a friend lives in the US and bought a house and thought it was odd that every light fitting was above a wall socket, can you guess why?
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Feb 6, 2016 18:36
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Yeah every light fitting was wired into the socket below it apparently christ knows how this didn't result in a continuous tripping of the breaker. Oh apart from one which was embedded in a mantlepiece and the electrician was completely unable to trace and seems to be on an unknown circuit, my guess is that that one is wired to the other side of the breaker or something equally horrid. As for my thermostat, pretty sure there must have been a mains wired one at some point and then someone (probably a plumber) replaced it with the wireless one and just screwed it over the old wires. Not even electrical tape to cover the contacts. I'll sort that out properly later.
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Feb 6, 2016 20:52
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I should clarify this by saying that I'm in the UK where it is 100% uncommon to share lights and sockets on a circuit, to the point where I think it's probably a code violation as it were. The circuit for lights is on a lower amperage fuse whereas the 'ring main' would be a 13 amp for sockets, possibly with one circuit per floor and a separate one again for ovens etc. Even my goddamn doorbell is on its own breaker which might explain why it's so goddamn loud. Wooden columns are also not allowed under building control regs in the UK. I actually asked a structural engineer friend about this and he said that although it was probably strong enough, no one would be able to prove it so replace it with steel. Apparently being unable to prove that wooden beamed houses actually should stay up is quite common. This is also probably to prevent builders from using any old wood to hold up a beam. In this case, they just hid it behind plasterboard.
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Feb 7, 2016 02:03
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Motronic posted:Good plan. What have you done with all of the old poo poo that is held up by wood? No argument there. In fact if you build something that isn't up to building control but nobody finds out for something like 6 years it gets some sort of assumed consent, if it hasn't fallen down that is.
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Feb 7, 2016 10:44
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I was woken up by the sound of running water thanks to a blown water connector in a bathroom which nicely wrecked the ceiling below, went through the kitchen underneath and down into the separate flat below, seriously wrecking their poo poo. Turns out the one old connector that hadn't just been replaced had failed which is wonderful, though I guess better now than a month later when there's a new floor down. Damage isn't too bad considering as the water kind of drained straight through but one thing is odd: the RCD tripped as the water must have grounded out between the lights it was joyfully pouring through and the earth wire on the old copper pipes and this shut down everything except for one of the lighting circuits. Shouldn't everything be 'behind' the RCD or are lights treated as unearthed so just rely on a fuse? Edit: yeah this is it, no requirement to put lights on the rcd because they aren't earthed but the second set of lights that were just installed are on a new panel that must be on the rcd. So that means that the switch to the lights the water was flowing through must have been hot. I'd have expected the whole panel to trip if the RCD goes though! Powerful Two-Hander fucked around with this message at 14:06 on Nov 10, 2016 |
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Nov 10, 2016 13:08
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Nitrox posted:Also notice the dent in the wall, about the size of a fist. And bifold door, instead of a regular door. Christ and here's me paying a structural engineer to sign off on calculations to show that i can get rid of a stud wall supporting a ceiling, get rid of the ceiling itself and replace with one hung from the joists above. I should have just pinned a plank over it instead! That said I think I'd be better off just putting double doors into the wall, double heading the studs over the doorway and bracing with a diagonal to support the ceiling joists but apparently nobody will sign off on that.
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Dec 2, 2016 01:14
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Well that certainly puts the subsidence problem I had in perspective. That turned out to be building on sand (over clay) and the back of the building having literally no foundation. Two courses of bricks in the ground and that was it, thanks Victorian builders! Fortunately the main building was stable so it was just the back half moving away and a company called Uretek basically pumped resin into the ground to bind and stabilise it and act like a slab. Apparently they can actually lift the building up by using different mixes of resin that expand slightly. Ended up being 3 years of bullshit with the insurers to plan a single day's work.
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Feb 2, 2017 13:37
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Darchangel posted:I was going to have Uretek stabilize the foundation on my house (I have piers around the perimeter, but the middle was sinking, too. I had an interior wall about an inch off the floor.) but it turned out that my drain plumbing was cracked along the top - cast iron pipe - and while it didn't affect operation much, the urethane foam that they use would creep into the sewer pipe when it expanded. I couldn't afford new sewer pipe AND foundation jacking, so, whelp, neither happened. Floor came back up when the ground moistened up again, actually. Yay, Texas clay. Yeah that is one possible problem, it can infiltrate pipes or floor cavities so they had to lift the entire floor on the ground floor to make sure it didn't seep in. That wasn't my floor though so I gave zero fucks.
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Feb 3, 2017 17:18
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Things like this make me question why I'm spending so long trying to prove to building control that putting a double door into a stud wall won't destabilise the entire building. Also it might be my eyes or the picture but is the building bulging out above the stone? That floating lawn chair or whatever it is is pretty cool though.
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Feb 8, 2017 10:39
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ManlyWeevil posted:Onto some crappy construction: Oh my god did they not add any additional noggins between the joists before putting that much dead load onto the floor? I guess the deathtrap wet marble floor will probably kill them first but gently caress. Also I suspect that fitting wet wall board is not as effective if you cut it all into pieces to maximise the number of joints and then don't tape them....
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Feb 8, 2017 12:25
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NancyPants posted:There you go, friend. Check out this guy who doesn't know how to use the seashells in the bathroom properly.
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Feb 21, 2017 01:02
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RE: that 'modular brick house' or whatever you call it, that is basically a Bayko Light construction kit made of wood. I only ever saw parts of an old set at my grandparents when I was small as it was made years ago, but I think that used rods to pin small blocks together in a sort of frame. Picture showing what I mean on the wiki page for it: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayko . It's a horrifically slow way of making a building by the looks of things, but not all of it is perhaps as bad as that guy makes out. For a start it's in France so you can forget about 'where am I going to run my HVAC and massive oil burning furnace', and while it's not shown, if the insulation is treated and packed in tightly then it's not a specific fire hazard. Recycled newspaper mulch is used as insulation these days and they pump it in to remove voids and prevent airflow through which means it can't combust like raw dust/loose mulch. Obviously it's going to burn but it's not as bad as it looks at first glance. Edit: it's probably not mentioned because it makes your 'eco home' sound less impressive when you admit you doused half of it in fire retardant. It's also bullshit that that much sawdust came from offcuts unless they were throwing away 4 times more wood then they needed per piece cut. Powerful Two-Hander fucked around with this message at 16:26 on Mar 2, 2017 |
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Mar 2, 2017 16:21
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cephalopods posted:what an arty urinal I went to a bar years ago with a friend and the sink was literally a urinal trough with taps above it, I realised this just in time but my friend didn't when he went later and pissed in the sink. We were both drunk and it turned out the only reason people went to that bar was to buy drugs so I guess toilets weren't high on their agenda. Powerful Two-Hander fucked around with this message at 01:28 on Mar 12, 2017 |
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Mar 12, 2017 01:22
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Budgie posted:Pretty sure cooking where you poop was one of those things we learned not to do a long time ago. There are preserved Roman kitchens in Pompeii that have toilets in them because that's what the Romans did. One had the Evil Eye drawn on the wall next to it with 'shitter beware' in latin next to it. Unsurprisingly the exhibit said that food poisoning was rife. Well anyway those are my bathroom stories, beware fellow shitters!
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Mar 12, 2017 01:28
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Facebook Aunt posted:The best thing to do with an old church is a gay bar. Every time the churchy people go by they shake their heads disapprovingly. Fixed that for you. Call it 'The Priest's Hole'.
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Mar 14, 2017 14:18
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I'm the dismounted boobs on the floor at the back. Edit: or possibly dungeons and dragons style boob PPE
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Mar 26, 2017 12:27
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Bad Munki posted:I must have dodged a bullet then, because I didn't do an ounce of snake-related research when buying my house but I've only seen like one in the yard since I've been here. Another innocent player rolls the dice in Snakes and Property Ladders...
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May 3, 2017 00:30
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Has that place been sealed in tupperware since 1975 or something? It looks immaculate (on my phone anway). Insane, but immaculate.
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May 9, 2017 00:08
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SoundMonkey posted:so i just went and checked something on a hunch... apparently the home inspector, when noting the GFCI outlets in the bathroom and kitchen with the GFCI Protected stickers on them (they're just normal outlets), failed to notice the panel does not contain any GFCI breakers The domestic electrical equivalent of those 'magic stickers' that improve the sound quality from you $10000 stereo. Nobody has died therefore you cannot prove that it doesn't work and 'testing' it cheating.
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May 10, 2017 10:53
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They guy replastering my kitchen ceiling just tripped the RCD so I guess we'll have some fun figuring out what caused that when the electrician comes round to re-fit the lights. Hasn't tripped again after resetting so it *probably* isn't a nail through a wire but if it wasn't that then who knows! Edit: they even re-routed the wires so that they were actually run through the joists rather then hanging off the bottom of them specifically to avoid this sort of thing so gently caress knows what they did. Hopefully just jiggled the copper pipes running under the floor above and upset the RCD somehow.... Edit 2: turned out he left his radio out in the rain or something then let it dry out and it was probably shorting when he knocked it! Powerful Two-Hander fucked around with this message at 18:31 on May 31, 2017 |
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May 31, 2017 12:15
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Hmm so my RCD is still tripping at random intervals - once last night at who knows what time, once when I got home but before I'd actually turned anything on, then fine for ages with a load of stuff switched on (washing machine, tv, lights, oven) but then tripped when a single table lamp was switched on on the kitchen circuit...but then fine once reset and the same lamp was switched. Would a random trip out be caused by having a circuit linked to an earth on the RCD but a neutral that isn't? I'm wondering if when the electrician rewired for the lights that will go into the new ceiling (replacing the old wires which were a mess) he linked them to an earth on a different circuit that is tied to the RCD. I know that the lights in there were not on the RCD before because a couple of the other lighting circuits aren't either and if they're on a neutral that's not on the RCD but their earth now is it could cause an imbalance whenever anything else on the RCD switches. Does that make any sense? Everything on RCD trips says "it's a faulty appliance or socket, turn them off one by one" which is why we figured it was the plasterer's radio, but there's no pattern at all with this so far. I really don't want them to have to pull down an entire brand new plastered ceiling to re-do the wires :-(
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Jun 1, 2017 22:07
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canyoneer posted:As a contrast to the bourgie crackhouse renovators, here's a rando dude on Reddit who saved a bunch of money by doing his homework and getting a second opinion. I had a subsidence problem that was missed by the surveyor because the owner had gone to the effort of stripping back and re-plastering to hide the visible cracks and the line of the crack was such that you couldn't see it anywhere else up until it started moving again. Eventually turned into a ~10mm crack right through the building which fortunately was covered on insurance. Root cause: literally no foundation on the back addition which was sitting on two courses of bricks on sandy ground.
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Jun 2, 2017 00:25
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You should check if the sprinkler line is actually plumbed in and isn't just fed by a hose from a tap with a sign saying 'in event of fire, turn vigorously' stuck to it. Edit: this gives me a great idea: why get expensive sprinklers when you can duct tape a lawn sprinkler to the ceiling and run a hose to it? It even rotates to give better coverage!
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Jun 13, 2017 13:13
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Ferremit posted:Speaking of Apartment buildings... I wonder if that tower fire in london is another case of cheap chinese non fireproof cladding strikes again like it did in Melbourne a few years back... I thought exactly this. Also apparently a former housing minister decided that there shouldn't be a law requiring that blocks be built with sprinklers or have them retrofitted because "the cost will deter people from building new houses".
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Jun 14, 2017 18:45
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Platystemon posted:I’m not impressed unless they have enough rusting iron to denude the room of oxygen and kill visitors. That is an interesting read with what is surely a good thread title candidate: quote:How do you avoid being a victim of the Rusty Assassin?
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Jun 23, 2017 22:44
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cakesmith handyman posted:Finally my bifurcated penis disability is being catered for. I think that's technically called a hemipenis.
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Jul 15, 2017 09:28
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kid sinister posted:loving HVAC guys... I'm the noggins made of chipboard and tacked onto a bit of strip wood.
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Aug 5, 2017 18:20
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Youth Decay posted:If the cheapest house shape to build is a square, I hate to think how much this one cost: This looks like when you take your CAD model and bend it round a bit. Which I guess is like a digital Gehry or something.
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Aug 12, 2017 09:22
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Platystemon posted:
I am cornholio, I need teepee for my tax loophole.
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Sep 20, 2017 09:49
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Magic Hate Ball posted:Assuming that's two hand held sprayers and at least three body sprayers, that's seven water sources pummeling your wealthy, nude body from all angles. I think this arrangement is called the "Trump Special".
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Oct 21, 2017 17:22
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Midnight Voyager posted:http://www.plymouthherald.co.uk/whats-on/food-drink/rumpus-cosy-closed-because-sewage-702707 I will bet you this is either nappies or tampons being flushed and blocking a single waste that the whole building runs into or something along those lines. Plus obviously incompetent work by whoever was "fixing" the problem there because jfc who tries to resolve a blockage on that scale by just blasting the pipes?
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Nov 2, 2017 00:15
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GotLag posted:You wouldn't expect to see roundhead nuts on a cavalier Excellent.
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Jun 19, 2018 00:59
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I actually looked at a house with a crawlspace the other day which is a rarity in the UK, it was technically a two thirds height basement or something that existed due to the place being on a hill but thanks to this thread I immediately spotted that a) there was clearly something making a nest there and b) the owner was venting their tumble dryer into it by dumping the outlet down a hole in the floor above. I suspect the fluff from b) may have led to a) . The rest of the place needed what could be optimistically described as a redecoration that I strongly suspect would have uncovered some horrors.
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Sep 4, 2018 18:40
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Jaded Burnout posted:When I did the original viewing of my house I said “nothing some redecoration won’t fix”. I’ve spent £152,000 on it so far. Yeah I just read your entire thread end to end and it only reinforced my initial feelings regarding "just needs some redecoration". See also the place with what looked like an exposed brickwork "feature wall" but on closer inspection turned out to just be that the plaster had been stripped (you could see the old tape at the top edge) , at my guess because of a leak in the flashing on the roof above. The estate agent actually asked me if I was a surveyor or something, nope, just a terrible nerd.
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Sep 4, 2018 19:06
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Guy Axlerod posted:The City Courthouse in Buffalo: Megacity 1 Hall of justice looking austere.
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Sep 15, 2018 01:19
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Dirt Road Junglist posted:My ex had 23 acres in upstate New York. He had a pond stocked with fish (the previous owner had been a competitive fisherman), an orchard with enough apple trees to brew a significant amount of cider every year, more assorted fruit trees, grape vines, and room for a garden plot. He let locals hunt on his land as long as they gave him part of the processed meat. I don't know the sq ft on the house, but it was big enough that his then-wife had a jewelry studio and he had a music studio, and people would come up to stay and work on music with him for weeks on end. Your ex sounds pretty cool tbh.
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Oct 22, 2018 11:59
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Facebook Aunt posted:I bet females love it. 
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Oct 23, 2018 23:00
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That's a nice looking suicide booth he's built I'd be proud of that myself.
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Oct 28, 2018 00:10
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B-Nasty posted:This recent article about Toll Brothers and their shoddy faux stucco/EIFS is a good example of the horrors caused by bad waterproofing: http://www.philly.com/real-estate/housing/water-damage-home-construction-defects-rotting-toll-cutler-stucco-20181115.html This article is insane, they might as well have just used tissue paper for those places.
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Jan 29, 2019 02:01
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