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Nitrox posted:What's a decorator? This is one of those 'if you have to ask you can't afford it' type things I think.
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Apr 12, 2024 14:05
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Decorator crabs put little ornaments on their shells
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Apr 12, 2024 15:24
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The Dave posted:Actually yes. Turned out our kitchen was really just mostly a porch decades ago and the foundation for the exterior walls were unmortored cinder blocks sitting on some loose shallow concrete and dirt. So no proper support and some unforeseen plumping issues had also rotted the poo poo out of the sill plate. On top of that the exterior walls were framed with 2x4s so we had to pay to support the existing second floor, excavate out, put up a new block foundation and pour a pad plus the time and costs to have that plan drawn up and approved by the township. Thoughts and prayers for your lack of a foundation and your unexpected turn towards obesity.
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Apr 12, 2024 15:41
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In the book Fandorin - Special Assignments, one story is about a Jack the Ripper type serial killer who calls themselves The Decorator. Makes you think
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Apr 12, 2024 15:57
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HelloIAmYourHeart posted:Gas station bathrooms in southern Missouri and northern Arkansas, ft tool socks and hi viz reflective shoes. wiegieman posted:But this is art. Yeah, I'm giving those a pass. Something had to be done, and that's functional and not awful. The Dave posted:Actually yes. Turned out our kitchen was really just mostly a porch decades ago and the foundation for the exterior walls were unmortored cinder blocks sitting on some loose shallow concrete and dirt. So no proper support and some unforeseen plumping issues had also rotted the poo poo out of the sill plate. On top of that the exterior walls were framed with 2x4s so we had to pay to support the existing second floor, excavate out, put up a new block foundation and pour a pad plus the time and costs to have that plan drawn up and approved by the township. This is the kind of poo poo that makes me hesitate to start any home project.
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Apr 12, 2024 17:23
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I mean, an unexpected 60k price tag is nothing to sneeze at, but the alternative was waiting until the old kitchen developed serious structural problems and then doing basically the same thing but more dangerous and expensive. Better to get it out of the way when one has the resources to get it done right. Assuming the contractors don’t just run away.
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Apr 12, 2024 17:26
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The Dave posted:Actually yes. Turned out our kitchen was really just mostly a porch decades ago and the foundation for the exterior walls were unmortored cinder blocks sitting on some loose shallow concrete and dirt. So no proper support and some unforeseen plumping issues had also rotted the poo poo out of the sill plate. On top of that the exterior walls were framed with 2x4s so we had to pay to support the existing second floor, excavate out, put up a new block foundation and pour a pad plus the time and costs to have that plan drawn up and approved by the township. I had an insured report a claim for 'water damage' to their kitchen. first: Backstory: S Phila rowhomes. Many of the older rowhomes did not have indoor plumbing/bathrooms, but had outhouses in the back yard, which was large enough to move it around at least 4-spots so that when the pit filled with waste, it was covered over with dirt, a new pit dug, and the outhouse moved there. Rotation every few years ensues. The kitchen was in the rear-most room of the home. When indoor plumbing was brought to these older neighborhoods, it left a nice large back yard, and over the next 50-years, it was very popular to build an addition (some times a 2-story) off the rear of the home, extending or demolishing the existing rear porch - and the kitchen was shifted there; the old kitchen spot was now the dining room. Since there was no code or oversight, the floor framing was typically laid right on the dirt, and a perimeter 'masonry' foundation was laid, some times it was dry brick; sometimes they were mortared, but none had footings - the brick was laid right into the dirt. Thoughtful builders laid the framing on a couple layers of brick, so they'd be off the dirt a few inches (this is my niece's house). ANYWAY I get to the house, and where there used to be a post-war kitchen, it's a dirt pit, with the wall framing exposed. everything else from half-way down the drywall walls was gone. They were angling to claim that a plumbing leak somehow rotted out the entire floor framing system in a week or two. Sorry, no. The worst part (which I assume was where the OP found themselves) was after the floor rot was found, it had to go - and code requires at least a 24" crawlspace. Problem is these rear additions never had footings, so the walls (and the second-floor bedroom structure push-out above it  has to be shored up & supported away from the kitchen footprint so they can dig down at least 3' below grade to lay one.Sorry, dude. PainterofCrap fucked around with this message at 17:32 on Apr 12, 2024 |
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Apr 12, 2024 17:30
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I was hoping to hear about footings of poo poo.
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Apr 12, 2024 17:35
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PainterofCrap posted:I had an insured report a claim for 'water damage' to their kitchen. They sure don't build 'em like they used to. wesleywillis posted:I was hoping to hear about footings of poo poo. Same
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Apr 12, 2024 18:03
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wesleywillis posted:I was hoping to hear about footings of poo poo. I'm extremely disappointed.
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Apr 12, 2024 18:10
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PainterofCrap posted:I had an insured report a claim for 'water damage' to their kitchen. Woof yeah that is roughly how my house was put together. First section, closest to road, old simple two floor box built in the 1790s, then more tacked onto in the 1800s, then finally this kitchen that was a conversion of part of the porch and thrown on dirt. We don't have those crawl space requirements. I don't know if that's just because of Delco or because we're pouring a pad as well to support the floor.
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Apr 12, 2024 18:30
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It's not just rowhomes. My neighbor out here in Lower Merion went to redo their kitchen and found out that the back 10 feet or so of their house was an addition that was built on pretty much nothing. Their kitchen reno went up a for tens of thousands of dollars because they were required to shore everything up before they could continue. When I redid my kitchen I was very concerned about what we'd find when we took the walls down but thankfully there was nothing waiting behind the lathe.
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Apr 12, 2024 18:47
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The Dave posted:Woof yeah that is roughly how my house was put together. First section, closest to road, old simple two floor box built in the 1790s, then more tacked onto in the 1800s, then finally this kitchen that was a conversion of part of the porch and thrown on dirt. What are they giving you? It's a real bitch to try & deal with electric, plumbing & HVAC when you can't get in there. Then you have to tear up the floor or go full Slenderman. Hopefully 18"?
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Apr 13, 2024 01:04
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We just did some moderate work in the bathroom (replace the tile and shower system, patch a big hole in the wall) and that stayed on budget but the tile guy took about 3x as long to complete it. It turned out the existing walls were just built on top of the older (still tiled) walls, so demo took significantly longer and also because this rear end in a top hat was only working like 3 hours a day and just randomly took a couple days off without telling us. Also he put the tiles on one wall like 6° off level and it looked loving insane so he had to redo that.
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Apr 13, 2024 02:28
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Yeah redoing a bathroom just cost like 1500 over because it took two more days for the strip out (subfloor was glued and screwed) which was a bit borderline justifiable, I got them to build in a cupboard which needed so extra hardware but mainly its because the tiling took an extra 1-2 days. The tiler was a machine. He'd turn up at 9 and just go up and tile non-stop except for a lunch break. It took him 6 straight days (walls and floor and some hosed up angles). Anyway, the crappy construction was that the PO had got idiots to retile the floor and in the process they hosed up the sealing around the slot drain in the wet room shower floor and the entire subfloor around it was mouldy. Also the shower drain was half full of tile adhesive and they'd also blocked the entire sink waste pipe with grout. Also here's a plumbing tip: if you fitted a massive slot train with two waste flows, make sure they're actually fitted such that water reliably fills both traps and drains properly else you'll get flies in it. e: if you use an electric toothbrush you can get cabinets with a built in charging base, absolute game changer.
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Apr 13, 2024 10:33
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Powerful Two-Hander posted:e: if you use an electric toothbrush you can get cabinets with a built in charging base, absolute game changer. Only if said charging base is a separate replaceable non-proprietary component, otherwise gently caress that noise. Though I guess the failure state is "go back to a charger on the counter" so meh.
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Apr 13, 2024 16:08
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Nuevo posted:Only if said charging base is a separate replaceable non-proprietary component, otherwise gently caress that noise. Could be worse, a few years back I saw a house that had these things all the gently caress over the place because I guess seeing empty outlets is for poors or something:  Because if there's one thing I want, it's an outlet that has new and exciting ways to break, probably involving fiddly latches made of cheap plastic and crappy springs. About half of them were USB-A, for charging your devices. I think about that sometimes as I plug in yet another USB-C wall wart.
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Apr 14, 2024 13:25
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That's the Legrand adorne collection which are cool as hell imho. Comes in a bunch of custom colors, screwless face plates, and there's neat poo poo like touchless switches, etc etc. I considered putting them in everywhere but they were just too spendy for me.
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Apr 14, 2024 13:37
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If you find a good contractor, even if it’s through a GC, put them in your phone and don’t lose them. It may not be for you right now but when a neighbor or friend asks you can send them the contacts. Also, if you find a good one, ask them about other subs they trust. They probably have a list a mile long of ones they don’t trust, but they’ve worked behind or ahead of good ones and you can build a good network of contractors that do outstanding work with just some conversation and a case of beer.
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Apr 14, 2024 13:38
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Sirotan posted:That's the Legrand adorne collection which are cool as hell imho. Comes in a bunch of custom colors, screwless face plates, and there's neat poo poo like touchless switches, etc etc. I considered putting them in everywhere but they were just too spendy for me. I like how every other outlet of theirs mushes all the receptacles into each other so that you will never be able to use more than one at a time, in order to give your face plate more Blank Space™. That's design babey! A Wizard of Goatse fucked around with this message at 14:18 on Apr 14, 2024 |
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Apr 14, 2024 14:16
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Cyrano4747 posted:Could be worse, a few years back I saw a house that had these things all the gently caress over the place because I guess seeing empty outlets is for poors or something: These are $60USD each 😮😮😮😮
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Apr 14, 2024 14:36
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Sirotan posted:That's the Legrand adorne collection which are cool as hell imho. Comes in a bunch of custom colors, screwless face plates, and there's neat poo poo like touchless switches, etc etc. I considered putting them in everywhere but they were just too spendy for me. Capacitive switches should be default everywhere. I love them so much. Just wave your hand in front of the switch and on/off it goes. Or run conductive tape along the inside of a doorframe or under the paint on a wall and just tap them to turn things on or off, or change a fan speed. e: found this video from about 10 years ago that goes into what they can do. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVM1aHs-JTQ&t=41s
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Apr 14, 2024 14:37
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A Wizard of Goatse posted:I like how every other outlet of theirs mushes all the receptacles into each other so that you will never be able to use more than one at a time, in order to give your face plate more Blank Space™. That's design babey! Depends on what you're trying to plug in really. They'd probably be better with chargers that stick out the side than a power strip that also tries to solve the wall wart problem by putting all it's outlets sideways. The real crappy construction is anything that plugs directly into the outlet without a cord.
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Apr 14, 2024 16:31
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Finally at the end of this thread so an update on this mess:Desert Bus posted:This is the neighbor's wonky railings: I annoyed the HOA, the property mgmt company, the contractor, as many of the neighbors as I could, and the foreman. They ended up having to pretty much halfway disassemble all the balconies and rebuild them. And then they had to go back and fix them more. I managed to get MOST of the issues resolved with mine but I don't know how well the neighbors who didn't raise a fuss came out. The first time it rained screw heads started to stick up from the deck surface, now there's a couple dozen just waiting to cut into an unwary bare foot. Some of the split wood they left is getting more split over time as well. The side railings are somehow more wobbly and less safe than the old falling apart ones. The finials they chose are 5bux each on Amazon, solar powered with a super cheap rechargeable battery. They have 3 glaringly bright white LEDs on each side with no diffusion. There is also no way to turn them off. I unscrewed them and wrapped the batteries in plastic and then put them back on. I don't want terrible always-on lights out there. They claim these were examined by the county and by someone from the HOA and approved of, but my guess is that they glanced at one from the ground and called them good. I annoyed the foreman so much telling him he needed to fix poo poo over and over that the last time I went out to check out their progress he came up to me and started yelling about how I needed to stop questioning their work blah blah blah and what do I know about woodworking etc. He was really dumb so I kept managing to repeat back what he said in ways that made it sound like he agreed with my viewpoint which made him even more mad. The entire time I kept slowly getting closer and closer to him just to see how he'd respond to that too. I managed to get way way up in his personal space and he's yelling at me and i'm calmly loving with him back. Eventually we got to about 6-8" nose to nose. This entire time slowly altering my stance so I can take a punch or avoid a nutshot and getting my hands up in a decent guard position. I had a cig in one and a drink in the other so it looked normal. He's standing there legs spread, arms down, could be pushed over with a finger and he let me inside his guard? He finally notices what i've done, gets a lot quieter and says "You wanna back off if you don't want this to go bad." There was no reality in which it would have been worse for me than him but still bad for both of us if he chose. So I stood there and stared at him for what felt like an eternity, laughed right in his face, turned around and walked away. gently caress if I was gonna back off. 100% expected to get punched in the back of the head. Did not. Oh I also asked him what the scam was since they were wasting so much time, effort, and wood instead of doing it more correctly. That made him VERY angry. I suspect they were installing bad wood just so they would have to uninstall it and could write it off as waste which they could then personally take home. But yeah I almost got the foreman to physically attack me which was far funnier than it sounds.
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Apr 14, 2024 17:23
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Fight the man
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Apr 14, 2024 17:29
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At least all the screw heads sticking up provide me with an excuse to no longer shovel the snow off it. Rules say "shovel if you can" and now I can't. Oh well.
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Apr 14, 2024 17:32
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wesleywillis posted:I was hoping to hear about footings of poo poo. Chekov’s toilet pit was a red herring.
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Apr 14, 2024 17:41
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Desert Bus posted:"You wanna back off if you don't want this to go bad." "What are you gonna do, build my deck again?"
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Apr 14, 2024 19:28
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This is the same contractor who did my bathroom remodel a few years ago. They did a really good job with that. However, they only cashed the check for the 50% upfront and never cashed the final check for the remaining 50% so I saved a LOT of money. They probably have their deck builders doing the accounting too.
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Apr 14, 2024 19:39
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Desert Bus posted:I annoyed the foreman so much telling him he needed to fix poo poo over and over that the last time I went out to check out their progress he came up to me and started yelling about how I needed to stop questioning their work blah blah blah and what do I know about woodworking etc. He was really dumb so I kept managing to repeat back what he said in ways that made it sound like he agreed with my viewpoint which made him even more mad. The entire time I kept slowly getting closer and closer to him just to see how he'd respond to that too. I managed to get way way up in his personal space and he's yelling at me and i'm calmly loving with him back. Eventually we got to about 6-8" nose to nose. This entire time slowly altering my stance so I can take a punch or avoid a nutshot and getting my hands up in a decent guard position. I had a cig in one and a drink in the other so it looked normal. He's standing there legs spread, arms down, could be pushed over with a finger and he let me inside his guard? He finally notices what i've done, gets a lot quieter and says "You wanna back off if you don't want this to go bad." There was no reality in which it would have been worse for me than him but still bad for both of us if he chose. So I stood there and stared at him for what felt like an eternity, laughed right in his face, turned around and walked away. gently caress if I was gonna back off. 100% expected to get punched in the back of the head. Did not. What, you didn't kiss him to assert dominance?
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Apr 14, 2024 20:09
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We've pulled everything particularly complicated or important this guy did out of the house now, and probably all the pictures of that need to wait until they're done being courtroom exhibits; but I keep finding little gifts our old GC left behind, such as the time he attempted to install a door: He also managed to break a completely unrelated door on the other end of the house in the process, somehow A Wizard of Goatse fucked around with this message at 21:28 on Apr 14, 2024 |
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Apr 14, 2024 21:04
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gnomewife posted:What, you didn't kiss him to assert dominance? Honestly I worried he was mad enough that he might to try and escalate it to the HOA or the cops or something to make my life difficult. My plan for that was literally "What? No. We were flirting. I was really confused when he didn't ask me out. Can you get him my number? He's pretty cute and I dig his intensity."
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Apr 14, 2024 21:29
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A Wizard of Goatse posted:We've pulled everything particularly complicated or important this guy did out of the house now, and probably all the pictures of that need to wait until they're done being courtroom exhibits; but I keep finding little gifts our old GC left behind, such as the time he attempted to install a door: Wait did they dumb poo poo install the door both backwards and upside down? Am I seeing that right?
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Apr 14, 2024 21:59
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A Wizard of Goatse posted:I like how every other outlet of theirs mushes all the receptacles into each other so that you will never be able to use more than one at a time, in order to give your face plate more Blank Space™. That's design babey! quote:adorne® with Microban With the additional punchline of seeing this almost immediately after clicking through: quote:*No antimicrobial efficacy claims are being made or are valid with respect to products sold in Canada. I think I'll stick to washing my hands sometimes instead of insanely trying to microbe proof my entire home.
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Apr 14, 2024 22:17
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Just lol if you aren't turning all your lights on by licking the switches
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Apr 14, 2024 23:08
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Cyrano4747 posted:Wait did they dumb poo poo install the door both backwards and upside down? Am I seeing that right? The door's right side up he just installed hardware and whatever other random garbage was lying around apparently at random, possibly using a sledgehammer, i guess on the theory that statistically some of it will line up with something (it doesn't). And (not pictured) wandered around the house attempting to trial-and-error install the door to random double door frames etc. until he stumbled across the one it fits and was placed next to and my wife was pointing to Haifisch posted:My favorite is this poo poo: That part sorta tracks, with the tamper proofing and stuff these seem primarily intended for commercial/office settings where using the whole front of the jbox conflicts with the minimalist open concept and the shitfingered employees can fight it out over who gets to plug in a computer with a grounded wire today A Wizard of Goatse fucked around with this message at 00:24 on Apr 15, 2024 |
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Apr 15, 2024 00:01
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The Dave posted:Actually yes. Turned out our kitchen was really just mostly a porch decades ago and the foundation for the exterior walls were unmortored cinder blocks sitting on some loose shallow concrete and dirt. So no proper support and some unforeseen plumping issues had also rotted the poo poo out of the sill plate. On top of that the exterior walls were framed with 2x4s so we had to pay to support the existing second floor, excavate out, put up a new block foundation and pour a pad plus the time and costs to have that plan drawn up and approved by the township. There's "You never know the scope of a project until you open the walls" and then there's that 
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Apr 15, 2024 04:22
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A friend of mine is doing some serious renovation to his house. R&R'ing his detached garage, deck, whole yard, part of his house, and replacing it with an addon, new deck, and a detached 2 story 2-unit ADU w/ garage. Through this process there has been a lot of back and forth with an architect, various types of engineers, the city, you can imagine. They broke ground a couple weeks ago. The stamped and approved plans call for 18" of excavation for various elements of the build, including the foundation for the ADU. These pictures are some random ones he had without identifying stuff in them, so the angles change. Before:  After, full grown adult for scale:   At a point very early in the process the initial plans called for 4 feet of excavation. Further evaluation by various engineers reduced this down to 18" - same thing all his neighbors have had to do for their additions. Someone, somewhere, handed the wrong set of plans to the excavation crew. Thankfully not my friend. The best part is that the dirt they dug out was too wet to put back because of all the torrential (for California) rain we've been getting. They had to truck off the wet dirt and truck in dry clean fill to put it all back, 6" at a time. Apparently the ground feels weirdly solid there now, and the compactor was shaking dishes several home down the road for several days straight. 
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Apr 15, 2024 04:45
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Haifisch posted:My favorite is this poo poo: Just make your whole house out of brass. Easy peasy.
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Apr 15, 2024 06:08
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Surely it would have been easier to just pour a slab, though I guess a lot more expensive. e: a lot more. And slower for drying time.
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Apr 15, 2024 12:51
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