Just venting....

[CountryBoy19]

AHHH.... why can't people just do things right the first time?

I swear my house was designed by retards, built by morons, wired by monkeys, and plumbed by apes...

My latest project of correcting retardedness (that is a word) has drawn out and I'm just plain tired of it.

We have 3 doors that exit onto the back deck, one of which is a double door. We've always had water intrusion under the back doors due to a couple problems. The largest is the deck. It was built TIGHT against the house and right up to the bottom of the door thresholds. This meant that when a storm comes and the wind is blowing it blows the water up against the house and the only place the water has to go is up under the doors. Also, the dryer vent, for some stupid reason, was vented under the deck at ground level. The deck is also right near ground level. This meant there was no way to clean/inspect the dryer vent termination. Also, the deck settled is several places due to lack on concrete on posts. The deck ripped off the house where it settled and pulled away from the house. So in my attempts to fix a multitude of problems I decides I'm going to tear the first several rows of board off the deck, drop it down a couple inches, reattach the parts the tore away, and then raise the parts that settled. At the same time I was going to "do something" with the retarded dryer venting problem. I discovered with the dryer vent they ran a 50 foot run of corrugated flex duct. This meant that the dryer couldn't push the air very well. That problem was correct, and the dryer vent was made accessible. Lowered the deck where it attaches to the house and raised the portions that need it. Did I mention the deck is 10' X 48'? It took a LOT of work to do this all by myself. I took an extra day off work and had a 5 day weekend and come tonight I'm ready to put it all back together. So I start putting it back together. Do you know how hard it is to put composite decking together with all those little plastic clips? It's a PITA... Got it all put back together with much help from my wonderful wife... and something wasn't quite right.

I'm not sure what happened, but somewhere along the lines, the boards got TIGHTER, and now can't get them all to sit back down tight. So I have to tear the top back off, rip one board, and put it all back together again... stupid retarded little plastic clips... AAAAAAHHHHH.... gonna have to take off work early tomorrow just to get it done before I run out of daylight...



I don't have time for this.... I have so much stuff to get done around the house before I leave the country for 6 months.... I'm down to just a couple more weeks to get all this crap done so my wife doesn't have to deal with it... If the retards would have just done things right the first time I wouldn't have to deal with it...

And the guy that built the decks on all the homes in the addition was bragging about how he built the decks... I sure wouldn't be proud of the stupidity involved in the building of the decks...

Sorry, just had to vent... let it all out....

 

[littletommy]

The decks on my house are GTG (I built them), they are like walking on a concrete slab, solid, sturdy, and done correctly. The plumbing is a frikken mess, and I've fixed some of it already, I know what you mean, and sympathize.

 

[GodFearinGunTotin]

I think the same people that built your house built mine....

 

[concrete dog]

My house must have been wired by the same retarded monkeys lol!

 

[x10]

hey the retard built my house also,
Electrical looks like a monkey did it.
basement door didn't even have a header.
Cheap windows

Hope I never run into the guy, the minimum I can do is cuss him out

 

[joslar15]

Sirry for your luck, there. I lived in Bedford many years ago and there are plenty of morons, monkeys and apes that lived there back then. I guess they've and went into trades.

 

[CountryBoy19]

I know one thing for sure... the next house will be built by ME, and anything above what I'm capable of doing will be subcontracted by ME, and it WILL BE DONE RIGHT before they get paid.

I will NOT buy another house unless it is an absolute screaming deal and can't be passed up.

To be fair, my current home was a "pretty good deal" so I expected a few things, but I've been busting my butt to get this place fixed up to "perfect". I don't even plan to stay here more than 5-10 years. I bought the place as an investment (when the market was down and 1st time buyers were getting the $8k credit) and a starter home to get me out of renting a crappy little apartment that I was stuck in. I've been here 2 years and still busting butt to fix all the issues that keep popping up...

 

[Mr Evilwrench]

Mine was all ok except the drywall was installed by vandals. I've been redoing that for coming on 20 years now. I've added quite a bit to the plumbing and electric, but what was here was fine. Put a deck on the front (the concrete had collapsed) and a really big one on the back (the old one was so unstable it was about to explode) but aside from the driveway, everything wrong with the place is my fault now.

 

[ralphb72]

Basement here was wired by retarded monkeys. One switch for the lights on the steps, landing, and all three rooms of the basement plus the storage area. Light switch at the BOTTOM of the steps.

Split it all out into separate switches including a three way switch for the steps. Found some interesting stuff. Overhead lighting to the "Finished" side of the basement from the fixture on the landing was hooked up with an extension cord through the ceiling. From the first fixture to the next was speaker wire. From the second fixture to the last was smaller speaker wire which was burnt about 2 inches back from the connection point.

Retarded monkeys!

 

[7th Stepper]

Hey CB19, I'd say that our house was built by the same morons, but we know who build ours, and the one identical to it in our subdivision. Ours is so badly mangled that I'm hiring a couple of guys who remodel houses for a living. EVERYTHING is wrong with our place, not the least of which is that all the duct work, runs UNDER the slab foundation, whereas the cold air return ducts are up by the ceiling! Not only do we get water that we have to periodically suck out with a ShopVac, we get bugs and critters! Ever seen a "Vole"? We have, it crawled out of the floor vent into the living room and we finally caught it in one of the spare bedrooms, before the dogs ate it. It's a cross between a mouse and a mole. (I think?) Seriously weird lookin critter!

The other house that is identical to ours has the SAME problems, and both houses fall apart within weeks of each other. If something goes wrong with theirs, ours follows suit. And vice versa! Even to the point where the slab and the wall in the garage have separated from each other, and now when it rains, the garage floods. Theirs too! The other couple are friends of ours, and we keep a tally of what's going/gone wrong, so we know what to expect to give out next!

The only identical problem that we haven't had, is that they had a grease fire in theirs and almost burnt it to the ground. They got theirs redone by their Ins Co, but were informed that the electrical wiring is STILL substandard, and short of rewiring the entire house, nothing can be done to fix it! And we KNOW who built both of them! His last name is Schumaker. Unfortunately we can't do a darned thing about it, because right after he finished building both places, he filed for a Chapter 7, and no one can touch him regarding the construction work.

He now owns South Street Smokehouse, (the restaurant with the big pink pig at the curb, and the pink hearse in the parking lot. You can't miss it!) It's at the corner of Sagamore Parkway (US52) and SR 26, (That side of 26 it's just called South Street.) and he used to serve pretty good food, but even that's gone down hill! HE EVEN TOTALLY RUINED A BLT! HE'S THAT BAD!!!!! Seems this moron can't do anything right! If you know of any good contractors who won't charge me an arm, leg, neck and torso, please let me know! We're coming into Winter now, so I know in a couple of months (if not sooner) it's going to start snowing in our living room! It blows into the top of the fireplace and just happily floats it's way down into the house. EVEN with the damper SHUT!!! The bigger the storm, the more we have in the living room! Oh, and the bricks on the hearth have lost their mortar so they're beginning to fall apart as well. AARRRGGGHHH!!!!!

As Bill always says....."If you don't have less on....you have..........!

 

[rdbs505]

I bet a lot of houses around up here in NWI are the same, seems like they throw up a subdivision in a month.

 

[CountryBoy19]

Unfortunately we can't do a darned thing about it, because right after he finished building both places, he filed for a Chapter 7,

Seems we're in the same boat.

The general contractor flopped when he tried to take on a big project and the market crashed.

You should see the house that he was building for himself in our addition... 9600 sf.... you think that might have played a role in why he flopped?

I'm not sure if I can even list the problems but I'll try...

Wiring: I'm sure others will have worse wiring problems than I did, but for a new (2005) construction, you would think that they could at least follow code? Nope, NONE of the ground wires to connected to switches or outlets, I had to connect all of them. Many 3 way switches were wired wrong so I had to re-wire them. Many switches were upside down. Entire garage circuit was connect on the circuit side of the GFCI outlet on the outside of the garage. So when the outlet tripped, or failed (as in my case) there was no power in the garage.

They installed an island but didn't put any wiring to it. That really limits the usability of an island. Luckily that one was pretty easy to fix.

Switches that go to no-where...

Structural issues:
They ran the dryer vent up the basement wall into the void between floor joists. They then CUT OUT the entire web section of the engineer floor joist to pass the vent into the void next to it and then run it out the back of the house. I'm pretty sure any cutout in the engineered joist over the 1 1/2" bore hole size for wiring is against code.

HVAC: Severely undersized and mislocated ducts. The worst one is the tiny 2X10 duct in the master bathroom. The master bathroom is 175 sf (long & narrow). To add to the problem of the small duct they put it right by the door, it should be at the opposite end of the bathroom, near the window and corner. Instead, in the winter the heat blows up out the duct and straight out the door.

No heat-pump on a large, modern home... I burn wood now.

The portion of the garage pad that sticks outside the door is not tapered, as a matter of fact, the garage floor is slightly tapered into the garage. So when it rains, the water runs down the garage door, under the seal, and into the garage.

Other retardedness:
The dryer vent that came out of the dryer bent 90 degrees, went 9 feet up the wall and bent 90 degrees, passed through a floor joist and bent 90 degrees, then went 43 feet to the outside, all in that corrugated aluminum flex-duct. Needless to say there was lots of lint buildup in that duct and you could barely feel air moving at the termination point. The termination was inaccessible up until I tore the deck off and correct both problems.

Light switches BEHIND the hinge side of doors, so you had to open the door, walk around it, then turn the lights on. I fixed that one by recutting the hinge relief etc and flipping the door to the other side, then filling in the old hinge relief.

The deck issues as I mentioned earlier.

I know I'm missing some but can't think of them all right now...

 

[snowman46919]

Monkeys roof they don't do wiring so I think I found your problem.

 

[GBuck]

All of this talk of monkeys is racist.

 

[2ADMNLOVER]

I could explain how the GC's (general contractors / builders) employ "less than fair market wage laborers" to their advantage and "slap" a house together in a month but why rehash that old argument .

I mean after all , the consumer gets the best prices right , so it's all good right ? .

Bottom line to the OP and everyone else in this boat , DON'T buy a house built after the 70 's .

Good 'ole American greed at work , gotta love it .

 

[ATOMonkey]

My house was built well, but the family that inhabited it for 30 years after initial construction practically ruined it.

 

[trillobite]

I bought a house made in the 1800s, and lucky me, it was rewired to bring it up to code.....which apparently means a new circuit box, and a few outlets changed to three-prong. Only one circuit wasn't knob & tube wiring, and a few were disconnected, laying in the attic....and still live! The gutters all fell off, I'm guessing the rotten face boards helped on that. There's four different kinds of plumbing installed, absolutely no insulation in any wall, and the furnace was a big space heater in the middle of the house, with a busted viewing glass.

But yeah, my Mom bought a 1980's built house, and practically rebuilt it. I'm really afraid to tell her that the whole house has sunk about 4 inches...maybe if it wasn't built on drained swampland....

 

[Indy_Guy_77]

My house was finished in the last 70's...

Before we had them replaced, the commode tank-lids (Still original!) still had their manufacture date on them. One of them was 11/19/77. That johnny was two whole days older than I am.

In general, the HOUSE itself is decent.

The deck was a home-build and, while decent, just wasn't constructed very well nor was it maintained very well for most of it's life. Could also very well be that improper lumber was used. Some of those boards are "delaminating" and splitering something fierce.

There'd also been a HUGE 2nd garage added onto the back of the house 3 owners ago, I think. Fantastically huge room... 3-car garage but only a 2-car-width door. (Previous owners have all been "car guys", imagine that.) Come to find out when I had an electrical-work estimate performed...the electrical that was run from the main CB into this new rear garage's CB is...interesting. My wife & have have grand dreams of making part of this other garage into living space. When that happens, the electrical will probably have to be totally re-done. Especially considering the easiest way to heat this zone will be via base-board heat. In the meantime, though, I've got one heck of a "shop".

Wong with the house, though: House originally had galvanized plumbing installed. Probably as a slight cost-savings measure over copper tubing? not sure... Anyhow, 30 years of use is a lot through galvanized tubing. We had INGO plumber Raoc and his dad out to re-plumb the house, upgrade I relocate the water softener, replace an exterior hose bib, and cut in a new washer supply/drain in the back garage (for a future move).

There'd also been a roof leak at some point - down the chimney. Did some ceiling damage above the master shower. Couple that with a POORLY sealed master shower stall = soft / rotting floor that needed replaced.

Money pit money pit...

*sigh*

I'm very very thankful that neither of us wanted to be in a vinyl village house, though. No way we wanted any part of the "build it as fast and as cheaply as you can" market.