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Architecture has the lowest pay vs schooling ratio of just about any professional career. It's all the work-reliability of being a self-employed artist and extremely little creative fun. If you work for a firm it's rarely long term, you get hired or fired month to month depending on if they need you for a project. If you're the senior partner or owner of a large firm you'll make some money, but only because you're paying all the architects below you like $25 an hour and everyone else even less, also you fire them all if you're having a slow month. Also tons of developers are utter poo poo and don't pay their architects. The last firm I worked at had about $90k outstanding from a few people who used shell companies that then went "bankrupt" if a project didn't move forward. The developer would then personally not lose anything, write off all the money he owned, then start a new company for his next project. Yet architects are so desperate for work there's no black-list for lovely clients. Baronjutter fucked around with this message at 19:17 on Mar 20, 2014 |
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Mar 20, 2014 19:13
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| # ¿ May 13, 2024 23:30 |
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I get badly hand-drawn plans of buildings and spaces all the time due to my job, but that is really something special.
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Apr 1, 2014 22:28
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People do dropped ceilings outside of office environments??
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Apr 6, 2014 08:02
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The bathroom fan in our building is so powerful that when it's on there is a whistle of air from under the door and anything on the floor will zip around in a little tornado. It's awesome.
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Apr 7, 2014 22:26
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I'm pretty sure my apartment hood doesn't vent outside unless there's something tiny behind it, but it seems to work pretty good for smells. It's just got a million filters inside and scoops everything up.
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Apr 8, 2014 17:01
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Just fill the door with oily rags and then do the same all around any cracks in the door frame. The oil makes the rags fit better.
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Apr 11, 2014 16:30
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I've been seeing a lot of single family houses going up with sprinklers lately. It's really not a bad idea. Just sprinkler everything. If you're paying at minimum 500k for a house what's a few thousand extra for sprinklers?
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Apr 14, 2014 19:23
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Housing would be so much cheaper without big-engineering in the way. Why can't I just make my house out of 2x4's and drywall? What the gently caress is a span table? Statism!!!!
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Apr 14, 2014 23:09
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Before I moved I measured everything top to bottom in the new place so I could plan out furniture and such. I often measure buildings for a living. I got almost every measurement off by a foot.
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Apr 15, 2014 21:30
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4 months to build a house??? That seems crazy, unless it's "dropping off a mobile home on a slab and hooking up utilities".
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Apr 25, 2014 17:36
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So it's like a company that has set designs they know how to build really quickly?? That's an interesting concept. I guess if you've been building the same house over and over and have all the supply chains and work-flow down pat you could maybe pull it off. Never seen anything like that before. It's called a template home?
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Apr 25, 2014 17:57
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Pretty much every house here is unique and designed by an architect and they're mostly pretty ok, yet still ugly cheap suburban looking poo poo gets built. I'm not even talking a matter of taste ugly, I mean objectively by every measure really badly designed ugly poo poo. It boggles my mind how someone can hire a trained architect, pay like 10k for the design, 500k for the land, and 400k for the construction, and out of all of that they decided "Huge cheap stucco box with off-the-shelf details inconsistently tacked to the outside in a horrible mix of eras and styles."
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Apr 25, 2014 18:56
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Yep, I know of a highly reputable condo builder that's been putting up highly reputable guaranteed poo poo in the region for a good 20 years and I think he's on his 5th company now. Those previous companies don't exist or went bankrupt and he of course was just an employee of the person-entity that was that development corporation. Throw up some condos or townhouses, make bank on pre-sales and promises, then cheaply finish the building and dissolve the company and start over. The only guarantee for a home is actual good construction, which you don't get from a house-mill. Get a good architect or designer, hire a recommended contractor, and build something that will actually last longer than the shell company that built it.
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Apr 27, 2014 03:58
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I've never seen anything like that, wow.
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Apr 27, 2014 23:50
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Just needs a 3rd bar for ground!
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Apr 28, 2014 01:04
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Why didn't you walk like everyone else? Holy poo poo I would not trust any of those idiots.
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May 1, 2014 16:05
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Floating bridge!
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May 1, 2014 22:34
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Also just to make things more safe they'd often do a primitive insulation attempt out of old newspapers or straw or other super fire-safe materials. Doing some reno's we pulled out bales and bales of awesome old turn of the century newspaper, blankets, basically like someone was told "go find anything soft and flammable!" to stuff in the walls. Fixing the problem generally means totally gutting the house down to the frame so that's pretty drat expensive so unless it's historic designated it's usually a tear-down. Baronjutter fucked around with this message at 20:50 on May 6, 2014 |
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May 6, 2014 20:46
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When I was a kid in the 80's every house had a big old steel barrel out behind the back lane. This wasn't in a rural area, or even suburban, this was right in the core of a major city. There was an undeveloped lot behind all the houses on our street and that's where we all had our barrels. People burned garden waste and sometimes garbage. It could get super nasty in terms of smoke depending on what people were burning. Also the barrels were just sitting against the edge of basically a dense over-grown urban forest. After the 3rd time the woods caught on fire the FD and city just took the barrels away and told the neighborhood to knock it off. When I was in Malaysia this was the norm for everything. You haven't lived until you smell tires, plastics, and human waste burning in a barrel or just a pile on the median.
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May 6, 2014 22:34
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Shouldn't your landlord be taking care of that??
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May 14, 2014 16:58
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I always thought condo = a unit you buy apartment = a unit you rent. How do you buy an apartment? Other than buying an apartment building.
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May 14, 2014 19:06
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Motronic posted:Apartments are typically owned/operated by a management company who, even if they sell individual units, do not allow self-management by the owners and residents. I wish this was the loving norm. I'll probably rent for the rest of my life because I want an objective professional managing the building, not a clique of building busy-bodies changing the rules and fees every year and basically being a vertical HOA with all the bullshit and drama that goes along with it. Hell I wish the city just owned a ton of apartment buildings and sold/rented them as needed while being in charge of the building rules and upkeep.
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May 14, 2014 19:51
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What's a condensation line? Like I can assume what it does by the name, it's taking moisture from somewhere and dumping it in the sink, but what's it for?
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May 15, 2014 02:19
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Parallel Paraplegic posted:When your AC chills air, a side effect is all the moisture condenses out of that air onto the cold AC bits like dew condensing in the morning. The AC needs to get rid of that somehow or it will just keep pooling up until it pours out all over your house. Normally this would be done by a pipe that goes outside or to a proper drain but this guy was in a hurry it seems. Thanks, I assumed it would be AC or humid-climate related. At least it's going into a sink and not a dustpan? \/ We don't know what the sink drains into! Baronjutter fucked around with this message at 03:03 on May 15, 2014 |
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May 15, 2014 02:57
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Rurutia posted:I do feel like the only way to not get hosed is to have a trustworthy family member/friend who is in the business. That's often the best way to get hosed, then have family drama.
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May 16, 2014 23:14
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Laminate soggy mold sandwich, nice. Man, prepping and leveling and putting in the underlay was about 75% of the work when I did a laminate floor once.
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May 28, 2014 06:41
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I'm replacing all my bulbs with LED's as they burn out, and I'm drat well taking them with me.
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May 28, 2014 20:05
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In quebec it's normal for the landlord to not provide a fridge or stove, so come moving time people have to scurry around moving their entire kitchens from place to place and if they don't fit, buy new ones.
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May 28, 2014 22:17
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Holms on Homes is the best construction based "reality" show. He goes in a fixes lovely renos and sometimes sort of goes after the people who did it. But the main thing is fixing the bad stuff not sensationalism or drama.
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May 30, 2014 21:15
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Also if you want to see the type of people who build poo poo like in this thread just youtube "Canada's Worst Handyman". It's like Canada's worst driver but every episode the group are given expert instruction on super super basic poo poo then have to do a simple task and it's absolutely amazing how even after being shown and tutored many gently caress it up or just get lazy/stubborn and do it their "better way". As the series goes on episode to episode they slowly "fix up" a house. It gets terrifying when they start dealing with electricity or plumbing.
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May 30, 2014 21:54
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A lot of people see "code" as like the maximum, the ridiculous gold plated standard the nanny state wants us to aspire to. But in reality it's the loving bare minimum for things not to fall down or catch on fire. If you can't afford to build to or above the code you shouldn't be building anything.
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May 30, 2014 22:21
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According to a geology teacher I had asbestos pretty much is a wonder material and only a certain form of the mineral carries a risk of cancer. If we could just use only the correct crystals it would once again be a safe wonder material. Basically there's a few types of asbestos and only 1 rarer type has crystals that are the right shape to gently caress up your lungs.
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Jun 3, 2014 18:24
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:People are willing to put up with an astonishing amount of crap if it means they can avoid doing things they think are stressful. This is the essence of procrastination. I'm always astonished by this. I can understand the lovely lazy heartless landlord but when people are too lazy to fix poo poo in their own homes that directly effect them? Not because they don't have the money or time but jsut out of sheer procrastination. I had a friend who's parents water tank leaked so they had to get rid of it. They had someone in to get rid of it but didn't bother getting a new one because they had "a friend" that had a spare tank and would "come over and help". Months and months went by when this house had no hot water. I noticed they started smelling worse. This was in the summer, but finally when things started to cool off they finally got a new tank installed but only after their kids started to pressure them every day. I think if it wasn't for their kids they would have just bathed less and less, perpetually putting it off until their friend with the spare tank showed up. And no they never went after that friend or told them beyond the moment their tank leaked because "he's giving us a free tank and installing it so we don't want to pressure him".
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Jun 9, 2014 18:01
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Wiring up grow ops is a huge side job for a lot of electricians around here. Most I've talked to have either done it or been asked to do it. Generally it's always just "hey can you wire up this container buried in the woods" or something like that. One guy told me of a dude who buried an old school bus near some power lines in the middle of nowhere. Paid a dude to dig the hole and another dude to wire it up, they all got paid big money to do it too. Another guy told me a story about a guy who worked at a big warehouse/industrial complex that was only half occupied and had an unfinished basement area. Ran power from a couple of the tenant spaces down into the abandoned basement and ran a grow op without any individual tenant noticing their power bills go up too significantly. Never actually got caught because they only found it all later when they went to finish the building/basement and found the remnants of the grow-op.
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Jun 17, 2014 17:22
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"My realtor also visits the house to see the problems for himself. At the time of purchase, he and the sellers had coached me into waiving the disclosures notice (which means I bought the house “as is”). I would later learn that this is one of many tactics used by predatory remodelers." I kinda lost a lot of my sympathy for the guy here, that's just loving stupid. He put this on him self. "Oh hey making the biggest financial purchase of my life? Yeah totally I'll sign any all my legal protections and all my options for recourse!" Baronjutter fucked around with this message at 17:48 on Jul 10, 2014 |
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Jul 10, 2014 17:43
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"The engineer also suggests that I hire a contractor to install external drain tile, rather than internal." Wait, how can a house even be built without surrounding drain tile? No wonder his poo poo is flooding.
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Jul 10, 2014 18:03
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Motronic posted:Most homes not built in the last three decades or so don't have weeping tile or any sort of drainage system unless they were custom builds by people who knew what they were doing or were built in a known wet area with lots of clay soil. I didn't know it wasn't widespread till more "recently". I grew up in a 1930's house, as were most of the houses in the area (ranged from 1900 to 1960) and they all had some sort of perimeter drain. I remember in the 80's we did a reno on the house and part of it was upgrading these ancient clay shell things all around the house with proper modern plastic pipes. The basement didn't have any channels but it had a few drains in some corners. Always stayed dry but one year it leaked a little, then more, then every year or two we'd get a nice little flood of up to a few mm of water. It was actually coming up and out of one of the drains so we just plugged it and problem solved. I did a lot of architecture/construction related stuff and never dug up around a house without finding some sort of primitive version of a perimeter drain, usually those half-pipe clay deals packed in some decently sized granular fill. Something like this:  With the bigger one fitting over top of the smaller one like a little roof. I actually had a hard time finding pictures and this seems to be a bloody museum piece! Most of the pictures I find of clay drain tiles are full pipes. I've certainly seen those but mostly it was the 2-piece half-pipe deals. Is that super rare/super old? I feel really bad for that dude, but mostly mad that the realestate system exists in such a way that people can so easy sucker the ignorant and foolish. I still think if you're spending so much money on anything you need to really research the topic, that's basic due diligence. Like I feel sorry for the dude in a youtube video who hurts him self doing something incredibly stupid, but he still did something incredibly stupid. But of course this guy didn't bungle into some 1900's dream house not realizing it needed extensive renovation, he was outright scammed by criminals. Dude is a loving idiot but the people who scammed him are criminal scum who need to be behind bars, or baring that, publicly shamed. I think legally he might have a leg to stand on. There's "buyer beware" and then there's selling something outright dangerous and purposefully sabotaged goods.
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Jul 10, 2014 20:31
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What era would those 2-tile systems have been installed?? My house was 30's, but those tiles somehow seem older. Or would that be the norm for a 1930's house? I guess back in the day when the person building the house was going to be living in it, they didn't need a code to do the right thing, it was in their self-interest to put in a perimeter drain. Then again counterpoint: goverhouse.
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Jul 10, 2014 21:09
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Some of the oldest houses in egland are cob buildings, so I guess build a cob hippy hovel? That or just actually follow or exceed building codes and then proper upkeep. Upkeep really is key. I've seen so many perfectly fine houses get demo'd because some old retired people ran out of money and decided to just stop any upkeep for 15 years as they wait to die. Or hoarders. Or "investment properties" owned by some out of town shithead who thinks its the tenants job to do upkeep and letting the house become condemned. It sadly happens in a lot of gorgeous heritage buildings. There comes a point where they just can't be saved, not because they were built poorly, but because they were abandoned. It's amazing how fast it can happen too. Something as simple as "What, 5,000 for a new roof? That's too expensive" very quickly leads to "What, 20,000 to fix this rot problem and fix the caved-in roof?!". Deferred maintenance is not a way to save money, if you can't afford upkeep of a house sell it because it's going to rapidly lose its value.
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Jul 11, 2014 21:44
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| # ¿ May 13, 2024 23:30 |
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Which is really sad because just minor poo poo like better insulation and seals pay for them selves within a few years, but builders never do it because it means their house will be 10k more than the competition's house. Basically people only care about the cost per square foot to buy the house and never factor upkeep or energy into it. People rather save 10k on purchase cost than 50k on reduced upkeep. People are short sighted and stupid and our market system is not designed to produce good houses it's designed to produce profit for the developer.
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Jul 12, 2014 00:09
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