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Just out of curiosity, then, do you have any recommendations for how to find a good company, or is it automatically a crapshoot?
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Jan 21, 2013 03:20
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Oh man, I should dig out my pictures from when I was home shopping this spring. One house in particular was insaaaaaane. It was roughly 60 years old and I think had a new "addition" put on every 5 years. A few things: -Back yard was falling into the river -Soil problems led to an above ground septic tank in the basement, only access to the basement was right through the maze of the house -Master bedroom had a private bath and shower...and by that I mean there was a shower door on one wall of the bedroom with a few ceramic tiles in front of it. Behind that door was a shower. -Master bedroom closet had a knee-height window in the back of the closet looking into the garage -Laundry room, which was directly off the kitchen, with roughly 6" of clearance around the appliances and a semi-boarded window looking into the entryway. I think they literally built this part of the house around those two machines. -Master bedroom had sliding glass door onto one of the two (three? I don't even know) sun rooms. There was the floor of the room, a 6" drop to the door track, and then an immediate 18" drop to the floor of the sunroom. -Basement stairs started about a half-step too low at the top The list goes on for days, really, but those were a few of the highlights. We had a good laugh that day. e: Couldn't help it, here we go. Sorry so many of these are blurry, the house was incredibly poorly lit. Raised dining area. Who needs railings, anyhow? Those steps are over-size, too, each is probably a good 2" taller than it should be.  Master bedroom shower, and toilet/sink room just a little further down the wall. The toilet/sink room was also 6" lower than the bedroom it served. Sliding glass door to a sunroom.  My sister digging the classy lighting.  Looking back into the master bedroom from the sunroom. Sister provided for scale. This looks safe!   The view from the back of that master bedroom closet, into the garage.  Yay basement septic! The whole basement reeked as soon as we opened the door at the top of the stairs.  Seriously, though, gently caress railings. <  > The "laundry room" was covered in old patchwork carpet. That lightbulb on the stand was the only source of light.  The window in the laundry room (which is off the kitchen) looking towards the entryway/front door.  Backsplash, bitches!   Hey lets just randomly throw up some wainscoting, eh? Looks classy this way, with our random windows that are too loving high and small anyhow. This is the view when you turn 180 from that awesome gold backsplash and blue counter.  Not pictured: the randomly black marble/gold fixture main level bathroom, the super lovely hung ceiling in the upstairs with office-style recessed lighting, the multiple stagnant mosquito pools in the back yard...I can't even IMAGINE what I would have found had I actually started looking deeper for code violations like wiring and plumbing and such. I probably would have gone catatonic just to protect myself from the insanity that would have been induced. Not to mention that even the floor plan itself was a hazard. Fire fighters would be at a complete loss during an emergency. Multiple times our little three-person group got separated and could not find each other even with copious Marco-Polo-ing. In fact, I'm not fully convinced the house was entirely euclidean. Anyhow, this house was an incredible example of when people should NOT be trusted to perform home improvement, and is largely responsible for my intense desire to research and meet code when performing any work at all on my own house. Bad Munki fucked around with this message at 04:47 on Mar 6, 2013 |
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Mar 6, 2013 04:25
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Delta-Wye posted:I don't care what you say, that shower is cool and the backsplash is banging.
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Mar 6, 2013 19:45
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Well then, you unstylish assholes, have a poorly lit bathroom in gold trim and black marble, and an upstairs bedroom's awesome ceiling/lighting!  Anyhow, looking at that first picture, it appears I was wrong: the laundry room window actually looks into the bathroom from above the tub.
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Mar 6, 2013 20:33
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I just have one last picture of the disaster that I met in March: the aerial view. Organic! 
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Mar 7, 2013 18:14
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Seriously, that seems like the kind of thing you should report.
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Apr 2, 2013 00:21
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Good god I want to see that thing again next spring.
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Apr 3, 2013 01:52
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Darchangel posted:Agreed. And the fact that he could apparently afford all that lumber, but not a freaking saw or tape measure. Pfft, as if he needs either of those.
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Apr 4, 2013 21:08
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Cakefool posted:How do you turn the light off?
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Apr 28, 2013 22:55
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DNova posted:
Haha, wow. "gently caress you." - The Management
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Apr 29, 2013 19:22
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Slanderer posted:If you just wanted to clean dishes, however, you could dispense with the pressurization, which would make it a good deal safer. *realdolls okay
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May 3, 2013 19:33
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Vindolanda posted:I've noticed, at least in Britain, a pattern that might indicate one insane former owner for all houses. I think it's due to a combination of thinking DIY is a good thing to do, while being totally inept at it. As an example, the former owners of mine put in reasonably tasteful chandeliers in every room, without realising that you can change the height of them. A room with a 10 foot high ceiling might have a 6 foot long chandelier. Yep, four feet of clearance, and the apparently saw nothing wrong with that. Holy crap, that cracks me up. Do you have pictures? 
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Jun 7, 2013 21:47
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Shifty Pony posted:No, I need the dual gas lines on my regulator so I can serve different beer styles. Oh yeah it is worth mentioning that I already have a kegerator and homebrew. The bar will be functional. So put the CO2 bottle in the closet, and put your regulator at the bar? Either way you get the CO2 bottle out of the area, which is nice.
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Jun 9, 2013 18:04
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Oh, true, that's a good point.
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Jun 9, 2013 18:40
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kid sinister posted:That's where I recognized those valves from! The old ones for chemistry class Bunsen burners. Meth lab spotted.
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Jun 10, 2013 20:25
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Crappy construction tales, indeed.
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Jun 20, 2013 15:24
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It sounds like you're really taking the right approach, though, and that's great: go in hot, guns blazing. I think most people tend to say, "Well, it's standing now, it must be fine!" or "No, we'll just fix this one thing, leave everything else alone," even if they've been explicitly told (by, say, a home inspector) that something is horribly wrong. It may cost you some money, but hey, money is transient anyhow. You'll be so happy once it's all done.
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Jun 23, 2013 19:36
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There are some floor squeak kits where you basically drive a special screw in, and the head breaks off below the board, fixing the floor to the joist underneath without leaving (much) of a visible mark. I can't remember what they're called, and I've never used them or seen them used, but the ads claim they work. Of course, that's for addressing spots, as opposed to, say, an entire floor. And yeah, I definitely approve of the unabashed scorched earth policy you seem to be employing.
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Jun 23, 2013 19:48
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nmfree posted:I've only ever seen those used in areas that have carpeting because the (essentially) headless screws secure the subfloor more securely to the joists. While I can't think of any reason why those couldn't be used over a large area, I also don't see how those could be used with hardwood. The ad I saw showed them driving them into hardwood. It DID leave a mark, but since the hole only had to be big enough for the screw itself to go through and not the head, it was a lot smaller, and once the head broke off, the hole closed up (a little) behind the screw. Not perfect, of course.
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Jun 23, 2013 23:22
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Wild EEPROM posted:They also decided that they liked colorful houses, so on the third floor, one room had purple walls and baby-puke green ceilings, and the other room had orange walls and red ceiling. Stop, you're giving me deja vu.  (I did not buy the house. The amazing paint job was only a minor influence.)
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Jun 27, 2013 21:18
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Oh god, that straight-on view of the stairs is the most wonderful thing. 
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Jun 28, 2013 20:09
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My understanding is that converting the neutral to hot to make a 240 line is entirely normal, as sometimes running new wires isn't really an option. You just have to clearly mark the neutral as being hot anywhere it's accessible. That in itself is fine. However, the ground being used as the neutral? I'm not sure I understand. Was it a 3-wire 240, or 4-wire? If it's a 3-wire, there is no neutral, it's just one phase, the other, and the ground. In the 4-wire setup, it's one phase, the other, a neutral, and a ground (so you can get both 240 and 120 out of the same outlet, so that appliances don't have to have a built-in transformer for the lower voltage stuff.) If it was the latter but sneakily without a ground connection, I wonder what grounds in the house went hot when the compressor was on. All kinds of fun places to get shocked!
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Jun 30, 2013 02:45
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I don't understand why he didn't just run the pvc straight up to the funnel. In any event, it's wonderful. 
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Jul 24, 2013 16:24
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Ahahahaha, I do now. Wunderbar!
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Jul 24, 2013 16:44
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That well is both awesome and frightening. Also, what's going on in those last few pictures? Is it some sort of basement cistern, or what the hell?
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Jul 25, 2013 03:16
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Nah, just hang some unprotected lamps in there and throw some floating pool toys in, call it an indoor pool. I just raised the value of your house by like $50k.
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Jul 25, 2013 03:36
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That was precisely the case I was referencing, I just didn't have the pics handy.  
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Jul 25, 2013 04:03
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My house was built in 2007, the lot was crested to drain away from the house, and the basement floor is only 4' underground, and I have a sump. It only ever runs during a really heavy rainstorm, but it does occasionally click on. The soil drainage around here is poo poo in general, though, so there you go.
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Jul 25, 2013 20:29
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I think every houseboat I've ever seen was a multiple-decade-long DIY project so probably none. Because there are no houseboat repair types, it's all the owners DIYing it harder and harder and harder and until it sinks or burns or both.
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Jul 26, 2013 17:24
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Motronic posted:their meager qualifications. Here's the list: 1) "Is willing to make an attempt." 2)
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Aug 7, 2013 02:10
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Oh man, I bet her toilets were always nice and warm, though! What a brilliant idea.
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Aug 7, 2013 14:21
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Sudden Infant Def Syndrome posted:At first I thought it was a brilliant idea. Two seconds later I realized that it would only be warm after flushing. Just need to crap more often, like every half hour.
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Aug 7, 2013 16:17
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I think you forgot the dickish air quotes around "contractor" 
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Sep 11, 2013 20:29
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"Light fixture full of dangerous wildlife."
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Sep 24, 2013 18:31
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Could have been worse, could have been full of water buffalo.
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Sep 27, 2013 01:08
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Blistex posted:The previous owner was obviously very paranoid about flooding, but had all the sump pumps set up to only prevent water from flooding over, but not to keep it from soaking up through the concrete floor. Previous owner was probably paranoid because precisely because of the pump situation. Lots of people don't realize that concrete isn't waterproof, they probably assumed the floor was wet all the time because water was sneaking out of the sump, so they kept putting more in trying to combat it without ever understanding the root cause. Baronjutter posted:How does stuff like this get missed in the inspection?? (Not saying they're all bad, but far too many are.)
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Oct 1, 2013 16:45
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Possibly. There's also the wiring thread and the plumbing thread, though, so if your questions fall under either of those categories, that's the place to be.
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Oct 1, 2013 17:25
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PopeCrunch posted:Less a construction tale and more another True Tale Of Home Inspections, but the other day I inspected a house that made my skin crawl. As I was approaching, I thought 'huh green roof, that's odd'. Nope. It was moss. The entire loving thing. I had to scrape an inch-thick chunk off just to verify that yes, there are shingles under there (albeit with almost 100% granular loss). Can you even rescue the roof at that point? What are the chances you can scrape off all the shingles, bleach-bomb the decking, and replace with something sensible for a loving RAINFOREST (Juneau, AK) like standing-seam steel without the decking just rotting out anyway? Hey whatup southeast! I was born and raised in Sitka.  As for mossy SE AK roofs, man, what a hassle. Rip the whole drat thing and replace it with metal.
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Oct 1, 2013 21:44
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PopeCrunch posted:Nice! I get sent to Sitka every so often, it's gorgeous there. How many people in a year get murdered by traffic going to the cathedral in the middle of the street? quote:And yeah I'm sort of surprised whenever I see a regular shingled roof out here. Even a good third of the trailers in the nearby park have dropped the coin to get metal roofs, considering our main hobby is rain you'd figure that would be a no-brainer. I think the deciding factor is actually landscaping. Just a little bit of foliage near or against a house around there has a HUUUUUGE impact. It doesn't take a lot of trimming to keep things in order, but if you don't, you'll have a moss and algae fest in a year.
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Oct 1, 2013 23:01
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| # ¿ Apr 28, 2024 21:03 |
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I remember seeing that video a while ago, it's awesome. The guy isn't laying blocks so much as zen.
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Nov 3, 2013 18:41
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