Crappy Construction: The Four POs of the Housepocalypse

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Leviathan Song: Sep 8, 2010

Bad Munki posted:

And would also require a very non-level ceiling and floor and a rather acute angle between the walls in the one corner.

I think that's actually close to right. look at the zig zag pattern. It's perfectly level with the floor and shelf but way off on the ceiling. The ceiling slopes heavily down from the left to right of that picture. The light probably also messes with perspective a bit.

# ¿ Dec 4, 2014 14:04

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# ¿ May 2, 2024 20:14

Leviathan Song: Sep 8, 2010

Safety Dance posted:

I think it's a slop sink. A really fancy, nouveau-riche slop sink.

I was guessing dog washing sink. Aren't those trendy right now?

# ¿ Nov 19, 2015 20:08

Leviathan Song: Sep 8, 2010

Vulture Culture posted:

I'm not sure what this is linking to but no way is that the same property

Look at the bit of random stone fa�ade with wooden spokes on the neighbor's house. If that's not the exact same house it's definitely the same builder.

# ¿ Apr 12, 2016 13:30

Leviathan Song: Sep 8, 2010

When I look at that cottage I have to wonder who sees two converted porches and thinks that house is in good condition. I see converted spaces like that and run the hell away. I've never once seen a porch or garage converted to a room that was anything but a shoddy mess.

# ¿ Jun 20, 2016 14:09

Leviathan Song: Sep 8, 2010

Synthbuttrange posted:

That's just marble aggregate tile? Whats wrong about it?

I think that's terrazzo which is poured in place. How old is the chapel? Terrazzo is more likely the older it is.

# ¿ Jan 7, 2017 14:22

Leviathan Song: Sep 8, 2010

Jealous Cow posted:

Specifically, the GreatSchools ratings help pearl-clutching white people know where not to move without a realtor risking their poo poo through steering.

It's worth doing some research into the less obvious tactics that sprung up around/after redlining.

http://www.lajollalight.com/sdljl-a-specter-from-our-past-longtime-residents-will-2005apr07-story,amp.html?client=safari

Realtors would put a placard in the dash of their car as they pulled up with clients to let the seller know not to accept offers from them.

Think about this:

State passes a voucher system that favors private schools by taking more per student from the districts budget than the marginal cost of educating each student. GreatSchools then plainly shows the public schools with ratings of 1-2 and some private schools that participate as 8-10. They also show the distances to each. People with means move in to those districts and then pull money away from public schools to send their kids to private. This concentrates until the districts are barely operating or must send kids to other districts. This causes some degree of poor flight and devalues low-end properties. They then get snapped up and flipped to be sold to higher income people that can afford to send their kids to private school as well.

I've seen this pattern happen in a few places I've lived. It's hosed up and a quick way to gentrify lower-density suburbs, such as first-ring burbs just beyond urban centers.

I understand where your coming from but what is a good source of school ratings? A lot of people are justifiably concerned with living in good public school districts.

# ¿ Jan 17, 2017 18:19

Leviathan Song: Sep 8, 2010

My landlord at a previous house put down flimsy wood paneling as flooring in the unfinished attic and didn't mention that it was just cardboard and not actually wood flooring. I stepped right through the illusion of a floor the first time I went in there. You had to walk around in there in socks so that you could feel the joists through the paneling, since you couldn't see where they were.

# ¿ Feb 10, 2017 17:34

Leviathan Song: Sep 8, 2010

Naturally Selected posted:

I might be the crappy construction here, but can someone please explain to me the obsession with dual sinks? My friend recently replaced their cramped and annoying dual set for a single huge sink (fitting into the same space) and it's such an improvement it's unbelievable.

I can get it if the house is kept kosher or something, but that doesn't explain why 99% of the rest of the population does it.

We use one sink to hold dirty dishes until the dishwasher is finished running. Frequently you make a lot more than one load worth when cooking/serving dinner. The other sink is for vegetable washing, plate scraping, and hand washing. It's definitely a hold over from pre-dishwasher times but it's relatively handy.

# ¿ Feb 12, 2017 22:46

Leviathan Song: Sep 8, 2010

Phanatic posted:

And that's why you don't build in the easement.

It's just as likely they extended that completely outside their easement. It's not like utilities actually care about their customers.

# ¿ Dec 17, 2017 00:18

Leviathan Song: Sep 8, 2010

My Lovely Horse posted:

I can dig the effort that went into it and the precision, but all those edges are going to be permanently outlined in dust and crumbs within weeks.

I'm pretty sure that you could poor resin over that and make something both awesome and not a disgusting dirt farm. I'm pretty sure they won't.

# ¿ Jan 2, 2018 16:27

Leviathan Song: Sep 8, 2010

One Legged Ninja posted:

It isn't. It's pointed at the walls between the windows. Duh.

I'm thinking it's pointing at the tapestries that typically cover the windows. I feel like the owner is not a lover of natural light.

# ¿ Jan 11, 2018 21:12

Leviathan Song: Sep 8, 2010

That electrical box being no longer water proof isn't great but an extra fuse box right by the unit is pretty normal. It lets the guy doing maintenance verify that the system is not energized and that some idiot isn't going to flip the breaker out of line of sight. I think it's even required by code for residential installations.

# ¿ Jun 4, 2018 15:08

Leviathan Song: Sep 8, 2010

StormDrain posted:

Oh sure lady. I�m sure it was build out of 3x3 timbers for fun. They have a beam supporting the roof to a column on the corner with a full moment connection and just had those laying around to infill it.

I would have added some more cripple studs and a header to be on the safe side but she's probably not wrong. There's only a roof above it so depending on snow loading in the area, they may have just used those timbers because they were what was left at the end of the project. Old stuff got overbuilt all the time.

# ¿ Jul 19, 2018 17:13

Leviathan Song: Sep 8, 2010

cakesmith handyman posted:

I've no doubt there are some nice plans in there but holy poo poo they seem obsessed with the multiple different roof line thing, some also seem to have random roof tumors as well.

That's not mentioning the obsession with ill proportioned columns.

You just don't like craftsman style bungalows then. Those columns and rooflines are an intrinsic part of that style home. My whole neighborhood of craftsman style bungalows from the 20s is built like that.

# ¿ Jul 25, 2018 18:00

Leviathan Song: Sep 8, 2010

gvibes posted:

Are you pacific northwest somewhere? It seems to be the dominant style up there. Not near as common elsewhere. Mwworks, deforest, and whitman estes in seattle, for instance.

deforest is quite the name for anyone involved in homebuilding.

# ¿ Sep 5, 2018 18:25

Leviathan Song: Sep 8, 2010

Super 3 posted:

Where I work the SE/SA role is more about cobbling together existing products in the portfolio to meet the customer's needs. Taking the speed/size/requirements from them then translating it into the solution. If they need anything custom outside of that they leverage professional services.

As you mentioned there is a discrepancy, as a product owner I knew which ones were poo poo and which were good. Often I would just do it myself.

Back to I-beams: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mndPt8qV5wg

"do not drill through, or notch the flange" - let alone remove several feet of the flange. If only he had removed several more flanges and his second floor could've basically split along the created seam.

I'm really curious how this would've been fixed. I'm assuming they would've had to run new beams the entire length of the joists. Also his reply is super loving spergy, and yes while technically if he had hired someone to put in a sunken tub they would have also had to cut the I beams. They would've braced the entire thing before removing them.

I did learn one thing from the thread - I should go back and re-run the wiring instead of the junction box I put in when removing a half wall.

You wouldn't necessarily have to run the entire length of the joists with new ones. Depending on the layout of the floor below you'd probably be better off creating a new load bearing wall to transfer the load to the foundation. At that point you can sister in joists from load bearing wall to load bearing wall. That would at least contain the damage to a single room below.

# ¿ Dec 12, 2018 14:25

Leviathan Song: Sep 8, 2010

Super 3 posted:

I think there was a kitchen or some poo poo below it? I agree a wall where the flange was cut then new joists would be ideal. Maybe he put up a decorative load bearing column underneath.

Without the layout of the floor below it's impossible to say but two columns tying into an island might be one of the better solutions. A structural engineer might even be able to justify cutting off the joists at the cut points, installing two new header joists perpendicular to the cut planes along it tied into the adjoining joists and new short joists tied into those in between. That's why talking to a structural engineer is so important; he could probably come up with a situation specific solution that is a tenth the cost of replacing the entire run of the cut joists.

# ¿ Dec 12, 2018 15:25

Leviathan Song: Sep 8, 2010

immoral_ posted:

To me it's not the occasional drip from the shower or poor aim, it's the massive mess to clean up if the shower develops a leak, or the toilet backs up all over the place.

That's especially true when paired with that shower design that is going to leak like crazy.

Also kids. There's no way a carpeted bathroom works in a home with any kids in it.

# ¿ Dec 28, 2018 15:59

Leviathan Song: Sep 8, 2010

Baronjutter posted:

99% of the time insurance companies will do exactly what's in the policy without needing to twist their arm. Most people who bitch about getting "screwed over" by their insurer are people who didn't bother to read their policy and or were sold a policy by a lovely broker who didn't explain anything or ask the right questions.

It's so often a situation like:
"Uhg, we're apparently forced to get home insurance, what's the cheapest you got?"
"Well we've got our basic package for your area that covers X and Y but for only $200 more a year you get coverage for overland flooding, way higher per-category loss coverage, and an extra month for emergency relocation"
"$200?! Nah don't try to upsell me, give me the cheapest, we just need to be insured"

*entire basement is destroyed by overland flooding including the $80k fiber-art collection they had in storage*

"loving insurance company is screwing us over!! They used some made-up word to not cover our flood damage and said our policy only has up to 10k coverage for art collections and now we need to pay for a hotel god drat loving criminal insurance!!"

Bullshit. Complete bullshit. Try buying earthquake insurance in Oklahoma. Apparently it only covers natural earthquakes, not those caused by fracking. Have fun proving which earthquakes are natural though.
I told 2 insurance brokers I wanted uninsured motorist and medical bills on my motorcycle policy. "That's more expensive than comprehensive," they say. No poo poo. Comprehensive only covers the value of the bike. I want my bills paid if some dumbass runs me over. The insurance industry is crooks and liars.

# ¿ Jan 22, 2019 02:22

Leviathan Song: Sep 8, 2010

Burt Sexual posted:

Motorcycles sound statistically like a bad medical insurance risk.

Which is why the insurance is expensive but still worth it.

# ¿ Jan 22, 2019 03:06

Leviathan Song: Sep 8, 2010

StormDrain posted:

Also in Denver and I've been thinking lately. I get why the bungalows aren't popular. Small bedrooms with small closets, closed floor plans, smaller square footage, older homes that are expensive to heat and don't cool usually. Or maybe they're popular enough but there's more to be made on the cube houses.

But why aren't there any updated styles of bungalow being built? Same character of the neighborhood with modern styled floor plans, good insulation and windows? Bump the square footage obviously but keep the local look?

You seem to have a weird conception of craftsman bungalows. The only way that describes our 1920s craftsman is that the kitchen is closed off from the dining room by a wall. They tend to have a more open floor plan than other styles of the era because the living room and dining room are one space and the bedrooms open right into the common rooms. If the crawl space, attic and windows are properly maintained they're not any harder to heat or cool than average build quality modern housing. If anything being single story makes them easier to cool.

Like another poster said, there are companies that build craftsman bungalows. They're just more expensive to build than cookie cutter mcmansions.

# ¿ May 9, 2019 12:44

Leviathan Song: Sep 8, 2010

PureEvil6_13 posted:

Bricktending -

Watched some other crew build a 3 story full brick chimney with absolutely no wall ties.

Being told when I'm 4 stories up on wobbly scaffolding to carry bricks with the brick tong on the side where you would fall so when the bricks popped out of the tongs, like they always did, the weight releasing would naturally have you fall toward the wall instead of the ground.

I worked for two brothers. One day we got to tear down a wall because one of them measured the joints as B and the other measured them as D. So one corner post was marked with B and other with D. You wouldn't find out until you reach the top of the wall. There was the added bonus that we were using colored mortar too.

A fellow brick tender got pissed off at a cat that was wandering around the job site and he threw his hammer at it, it bounced up and hit one of the brothers' brand new truck. The ensuing curse out was legendary, and my co-worker said 'gently caress you guys!" and turned around to walk off. Trouble was, I drove him to the job site that day and he was easily 30 minutes from home by car. He stopped, looked at my car, turned and looked at us, one of my bosses yells out "Now what?" while laughing. The guy turned and loving walked home.

Did a full brick job for an engineer at Boeing. Super anal retentive guy, he would sweep the floor boards of the entire house every night. He made the guys who put his insulation in come back and redo it all because it wasn't pink. He then made them come back again and go over everywhere that insulation was sticking out of the side and stuff it in. He wanted absolutely no insulation showing. When we do porches, we fill them in with all the broken brick and detritus from the ground to help the owner save some money filling it in with sand. We fill in his porch as we always do one day, and when we come back the next, he had completely cleared it out by hand and even dug another inch down just to make sure. I remember once walking by that porch and throwing a cigarette butt in. He immediately jumps in and picks it up and throws it in his trash bucket. The guy was a real pain in the rear end.
The day comes that we have to acidize his house. Because of the type of brick he chose we had to make the mix a little stronger than usual (muriatic acid with water). We get to the side of his house where his driveway is near and we tell him that he needs to move his truck because if this mix gets on it he'll be able to hear it rust overnight. It was nice and windy that day blowing toward his truck. He ignores this advice and his truck got a real nice acid wash.

You sound like the kind of lazy rear end in a top hat whose work lasts for 5 years tops. No wonder he stopped listening to you. Put your trash in the dumpster, not someones house.

# ¿ Apr 13, 2020 00:52

Leviathan Song: Sep 8, 2010

PureEvil6_13 posted:

That's a pretty extreme assumption to come up with from me throwing a cigarette butt into an empty porch. I could have thrown out on the ground, or in his house, but if you're the kind of fancy lad that's going to walk all the way around the house to throw something like that in the dumpster, see how long you stay employed in construction.

Also, our work was considered some of the best around. We didn't cut corners or do lazy poo poo like cutting the face off of one brick and slapping it on the side of another for the corners when we capped a window well.

I'm curious, what's the most labor intensive job YOU'VE had?

Road construction doing concrete and asphalt. I'll never forget the time one of my rear end in a top hat coworkers threw his lunch trash in between the gravel and asphalt pour of a trail and we had to spend an entire day ripping out and redoing it. He thought he did really good work too.
Or how about the aircraft that had three enginges flame out because the fuelies didn't bother to clean out the tanks. They insisted they were great mechanics. Aerospace engineers hate that poo poo because we see it kill people all the time.

# ¿ Apr 13, 2020 13:09

Leviathan Song: Sep 8, 2010

Elviscat posted:

That's called spalling, and will 100% lead to the destruction of the concrete over time.

Speaking of: "nice high-rise bridge you built there to connect your large neighborhood to your downtown core. Be a shame if it failed after only 35 years"
https://www.google.com/amp/s/sccinsight.com/2020/03/28/what-happened-to-the-west-seattle-bridge/%3famp

I really feel like over the next few decades we're going to see some consequences from the boom of using post-tensioned concrete for every major civil engineering project, like it's one of those things that has amazing properties on paper as an engineered system, but if one small error is made in constructing it, it's doomed to fail. Like that horrible one-step insulation/stucco poo poo that got used on a bunch of timber framed houses, and just funneled water into the framing and rotted whole walls out.

They seem to be uses a lot in slab foundations with plumbing underneath. I honestly don't understand how you're supposed to replace the plumbing without razing the building.

# ¿ Aug 13, 2020 01:00

Leviathan Song: Sep 8, 2010

Elviscat posted:

I think a lot of it is that older homes that are still standing tend to be better built, as all the lovely ones got torn down or massively remodeled.

My 1911 house is not an example of this principle tho.

Someone in AI had an in-slab sewer connection leak, solution is to jackhammer around it, it's very expensive.

My kitchen is on a slab, at some point rather than trench it to run the sink drain, they piped it through the wall and into the gorge.

That's bad enough in a regular slab but can you even jackhammer a tension slab? Wouldn't you have to carefully avoid the cables?

# ¿ Aug 13, 2020 01:22

Leviathan Song: Sep 8, 2010

canyoneer posted:

If you've got a better way to divide a circular building into 16 equal spaces I'd like to hear it!

I can understand a centrally located wet wall for all rooms but then there's the sinks. Also, how do you get off the wheel?

# ¿ Sep 18, 2020 20:27

Leviathan Song: Sep 8, 2010

His Divine Shadow posted:

One thing I dislike about our hydronic floor heating is that it heats the inside of the drawers in the kitchen because the floor underneath them is heated and this rises up through the drawers when closed.

Figured this out because we had problems with onions and garlic spoiling quite fast. Onions would easily last weeks in the old place with radiators.

Gotta get me an earthen cellar....

Have you tried pulling out the bottom drawer and installing some insulation? There's usually a couple of inches down there and it'd be a pretty quick do it yourself project.

# ¿ Oct 13, 2020 16:54

Leviathan Song: Sep 8, 2010

FCKGW posted:

This has to be a kitchen remodel where they were too cheap/scared to rip up the floor and move the drain lines, right?

It looks like they wanted to add a dishwasher without sacrificing sink size or ripping out the built in stove. I think they took the old cabinet front and relocated at an angle to make a dishwasher sized hole, then put in a new countertop. Notice the countertop material changes at the dishwasher but all of the cabinets match.

# ¿ Dec 29, 2020 18:38

Leviathan Song: Sep 8, 2010

There are some places where a tub is required by code so watch out before removing them.

# ¿ Apr 2, 2021 16:52

Leviathan Song: Sep 8, 2010

zaepg posted:

Here's my large cracking wall in our apartment kitchen. I want to patch it up eventually. What exactly am I looking at? What's the point of this large sheet covering the plaster? I'm assuming it's plaster since this is an older house.

Here it is

Here you can see a zoom up

The board or whatever it is, is warped entirely.

It looks like drywall tape over drywall, not plaster. It also looks like a non-load bearing wall is now load bearing. That wall is probably carrying more weight than it should if it's bending like that.

# ¿ Aug 7, 2021 20:35

Leviathan Song: Sep 8, 2010

`Nemesis posted:

A place i moved out of in 2017 that had some wonk in it... built in the 1880s and had a full stone basement/foundation, in the heart of the city. the relatively new landlord was slowly putting money into the place and one thing they did that year was haul a few thousand pounds of loving coal out of the basement that had been there for god knows how long. when the gently caress did coal heating stop being normal?

I had neighbors with a coal furnace 25 years ago and it wasn't out of the ordinary then. Probably a lot more recently than you're thinking, at least in coal country. Here's some companies that still home deliver:

http://thecoalshop.com/coal-delivery/
http://www.thomasfeedmill.com/anthracite-and-bituminous-coal/

Leviathan Song fucked around with this message at 22:12 on Aug 8, 2021

# ¿ Aug 8, 2021 22:08

Leviathan Song: Sep 8, 2010

Thomamelas posted:

The curved shower rods are about creating a feeling of having more space.

Disagree completely. They are amazing for broad shouldered people. I can turn around comfortably in my shower without remodeling the entire bathroom.

# ¿ Oct 19, 2021 17:23

Leviathan Song: Sep 8, 2010

CarForumPoster posted:

You're right! Many people won't know what you know. If you know of unethical poo poo happening, report it! You'll get a new job. If you report some illegal poo poo, I will personally help you find a new job and a good, works-on-contingency plaintiffs attorney. (See my recent posts in the BFC resume thread for my qualifications.)

Some thoughts on the facts you posted:
-I am not an expert in how the VA is funded but I believe it is separate of medicare and medicaid, regardless see my previously posted link for an example of a VA fraud having nothing to do with medicare or medicaid.
-If you work inside the USG, that could complicate things but talk to an attorney specializing in qui tam suits before reporting. I mention a few firms below. They might tell you that you have to report internally first, or that you need a new job first but this can vary a lot.
-If you're talking about an unacknowledged program where you can't describe the fraud without revealing something above U//FOUO that's may be an issue but attorney-client privilege may protect you such that you can get a consultation with an FCA expert. If you want, PM me and we can chat in vague details and I can look into plaintiffs attorneys who have handled similar matters.

Here are some generic firms in the FCA arena:
Philips and Cohen are the big boys, with settlements against Pfizer over $2B.
The Employment Law Group hosts the Fed Bar Association's FCA panel for the past 2 or 3 years.
I have worked with Bracker and Marcus out of Atlanta and highly recommend them. Medicare/Medicaid is almost synonymous with qui tam, you'll want a firm experienced in handling non stark/AKS/medicare issues. They've successfully recolved some gov't contractor issues.

The revolving door is a real issue, and there is a 2 year requirement regarding it. However that law is sometimes skirted by the newly retired person acting as a consultant for a few years before getting a job. Those consulting relationships have been found improper at times, but the revolving door is still a thing to this day. I was once an engineer for two of the top 5 govt contractors and we definitely hired people at the director level out of the PMO/PMA to do business development, which kinda rubbed me wrong. I'm not familiar with that one explicitly though.

Ill say the thing the DoD has going for it to prevent fraud is the SBA and GSA acting as separate entities with separate laws. This prevents a lot of day to day fraud by the little guys because if a contractor is doing an 8(a) set-aside fraud for some government IT poo poo, the GSA has 400 other 8(a) contractors half of them selling the exact same thing. They don't give two fucks about lighting up a contractor over that poo poo and they have many times. Those cases get intervened far more often than your medicare kickback (Stark/AKS) cases. (Also they're factually much simpler, proving fraud is hard if someone isn't stupid enough to write down the details of the fraud...and if they are you have trouble proving intent aka "scienter")

In my experience, SBA set asides are a massive source of fraud. Most of the official small business are just subsidiaries of some massive conglomerate. We bid one small business set aside contract where all three companies that entered a bid were Honeywell subsidiaries obviously colluding on price. I don't know about GSA but SBA is a loving joke.

# ¿ Apr 2, 2022 22:48

Leviathan Song: Sep 8, 2010

CarForumPoster posted:

Why do you have to go through a specific pool of contractors first?

That's the point of a small business set aside. Only the pool of qualified small businesses are allowed to bid on the contract. Theoretically it gives small businesses a chance to compete with the larger corporations. Depending on the industry, it can be a very low number of small businesses or even just a couple of sham companies specifically set up to bring in small business set aside contracts.

# ¿ Apr 19, 2022 03:27

Leviathan Song: Sep 8, 2010

CarForumPoster posted:

OP mentioned Iowa. In Iowa there are 479 active construction (NAICS 26) contractors on SAM.gov. Prob most will be a small business. Further, of those, 140 self certify as a small disadvantaged business. (Prob 50% don't meet that definition but that's not the topic here.) I wouldnt call that a tiny pool of contractors. I suspect Zydeco will say they have a policy of asking for 8(a)/HUBZone/WOSB/EDWOSB first, but I am curious if he says theres some preapproved short list of unknown origin (maybe the list may be created via kickbacks?).

You can certainly find some areas where there are plenty of small business contractors but once you get into some of the military contracts the field of competition gets much smaller. The vast majority of acquisition money is in the DOD and only like 20% of that is MILCON. You can easily get in a situation where half a dozen groups can repair a given aircraft part but only 2 are eligible for the small business set aside.

# ¿ Apr 19, 2022 14:10

Leviathan Song: Sep 8, 2010

CarForumPoster posted:

Yea aircraft repair is a whole other deal.

OP specifically said that at the VA in Iowa he was required to use a small pool of general (construction) contractors before going to full and open competition (FAOC). If the pool of construction contractors that could meet small business set aside requirements are in the 100s, why a small pool? Is it because they have a policy of issuing RFQs to other set-aside having GCs, narrowing the pool? VA Whistleblower Dan Martin claims that he was pushed or coerced into using certain contractors that were on a list due to kickbacks. Hence wondering: why a small pool? I don't think anyone but -Zydeco- or another VA person dealing with contractors can answer that.

I work aircraft not hospitals but I would think that the number of general contractors for a VA hospital is going to get narrowed to people who can deal with stuff like oxygen systems, clean rooms, morgues, and electrical systems that are multiple redundant. Unless you're talking about a VA office building a lot of general contractors aren't up to the standards that the VA needs.

# ¿ Apr 19, 2022 15:32

Leviathan Song: Sep 8, 2010

Platystemon posted:

They had this theory in the nineteenth century.

I think the thought process is more analogous to the construction of reservoirs in Oklahoma which. The state has no meaningful natural lakes but has seen a significant increase in humidity since the constructions of a massive network of artificial reservoirs.

# ¿ Jul 27, 2022 04:07

Leviathan Song: Sep 8, 2010

binge crotching posted:

Hasn't it been since the 60s that grounds were required in the US? I'd be scared of what kind of wiring you're going to find if you pull those plates off.

A two prong outlet is a million times better than an ungrounded three prong. That's basically just a perfectly safe usb charging port.

# ¿ Aug 20, 2022 03:17

Leviathan Song: Sep 8, 2010

Jows posted:

Why is that?

Any two pronged cord that you plug in to isn't expecting and is perfectly safe without a ground connection. Lots of lamps and usb chargers work that way perfectly safely.

If someone throws a three prong outlet in to that outlet box and just doesn't connect the ground wire because there is no ground wire running to the outlet, then you can plug 3 prong cords in to it but the ground isn't actually functional. Appliances that need a ground wire to function properly or even safely can be plugged in to it and you can end up frying your electronics or even ending up with electronics where the case is hot and can electrocute you. Malfunctioning electronics that would trip a circuit breaker with a correctly grounded outlet can be deadly.

I'd prefer an outlet that I know is ungrounded and can't plug an appliance that should be grounded in to like that to one that pretends to be grounded by having the extra hole. That kind of dangerous outlet is super common in lovely renovations of old houses.

# ¿ Aug 20, 2022 04:17

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# ¿ May 2, 2024 20:14

Leviathan Song: Sep 8, 2010

Cat Hatter posted:

Technically those adapters are fine if the outlet itself is grounded and the metal ring on the adapter is placed under the screw that attaches the faceplate. Those are some big caveats, but it's what makes those adapters legal to sell in the way Linux ISOs make BitTorrent legal.

Still better to just get a GFCI outlet.

Anecdotes are not data but I've used torrents to download legal software a dozen times and never in my life seen those metal ring adapters used correctly. If there's a ground then a proper outlet, faceplate, and some wire nuts are in the same aisle and an extra dollar.

# ¿ Aug 21, 2022 02:12

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Hobbies, Crafts, & Houses > Crappy Construction: The Four POs of the Housepocalypse

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