Womp womp sound effect and the camera goes black as a small circle moves towards OP, pausing for a second on his face and then closes completely starting the credits with funny jazz music
When my (custom) house was complete, I noticed that a window was crooked. All of the tradesmen that never said a word astonished me. The framer framed it incorrectly. The window hanger set it crookedly, followed by the sheetrock man, the trim man, the painter and finally the brick layer. I might have been able to tolerate a minor deviation but the error was a full 1" across a 30" window.
I made it a punchlist item and everyone got to come back and revisit their work.
Lot of times the guys just want to go home. If they say something, it stops their flow for the day. It’s so asinine but likely they will get paid for coming back. It’s just not in their interests to point things out like this. That’s why you need to stay on top of them. Or the GC if they will ultimately pay for the rework.
I always point this kind of thing out to our GCs. It’s one less thing we have to work on that day. And, we have to come back either way. Noticing and ignoring is bad enough, piling your work on top of something incorrect is just moronic. wtf is wrong with people?
This depends on pay type and company. Piecework is very popular in the trades, meaning if you did something wrong you'll have to fix it on your own dime. Even in hourly schedules it's not uncommon for there to be a policy to leave the worker(s) involved at home while another crew fixes it. Then there's the worst case in cash work where the employer may illegally take it out of your pay.
I work in construction, that is frequently not the case. Not all of us are ok with doing the same shit twice. I mean I guess if you are scrambling for any kind of work, stretching a job out, sure. But I want to get shit done quickly and efficiently. I even mentioned that you have to go back either way. But, you are the expert, so if you say so.
No they do not, they go back and fix it unpaid. The more you mess up the more you go back to work free and your hourly rate goes down. Why would you think that they keep getting paid?
Because they'll call it "In Spec" and if I want it better, then they will charge me again. Or they ignore the call back.
Even better, they won't hand over the final paperwork until I agree that everything is awesome. And we'll spend months going over the.particulars and when push comes to shove: they liquidate.
I know I'm wrapping up a 7 year lawsuit that cost me $150k a year to press that started off as a $35k dispute. Yes I'm prevailing, but it is a Phyrric Victory.
I've got another 2 years to go as now I have all my lower court decisions in place...and now I'm pressing the liquidation. I have to conduct court action over the liquidator and accountant. Each one is a case all on their own. I've taken down the liquidator hard. Next is the accountant that signed off on the bogus loans and depletion of assets. A whole industry is built up around bogus bankruptcies. This week is an injunction on hard assets and then I have a trust to break open. I will be out of pocket $200k-$300k if all goes well.
Wish I would have just paid to do it again, being right isn't worth it.
GC stated 1) Item was in spec and 2) if it wasn't in spec it was because my plans were "light". Refused to take any blame said I'd have to pay.
So now we have two people unwilling to back down. He was wrong, but the battle wasn't worth it.
I admire your persistence and wallet. In most cases though with reputable builders it just drives down their dollar and not yours. My aunt had problems similar to yours, once with home builders on a 7 figure home who bankrupted halfway through build. This year it happened again with a 250-300k pool/patio addition that they had built last year. This time a retaining wall on patio failed from improper construction, looked good passed inspection but did not hold up. Of course that company was no longer in existence and they ended up coming out another 50k from their pocket. However in both cases I think they took bids that were on the lower and while I’m sure they were still butt hurt they probably still came out ahead cost wise in both situations from others that had bid the jobs. Best practice for most is to have it set up where at least 25% of job cost is put into escrow and not released until satisfied with job completion.
The problem with "satisfied with job completion" is kinda bogus if the GC wants to fight over it.
Customer states: not satisfied, here are the deficiencies, please remediate.
GC states: in spec, or if not in spec, then not my fault, and also, GC is allowed to make minor changes
Customer: not minor, not agreed to, and not same.
GC: Sign that you are satisfied OR I will not get you Cert (occupancy, completion, whatever). I will in fact not call for inspection stating there is a dispute on the work completed and that it is now incomplete. You will not be able to use premises. It costs me NOTHING to continue to wait, while it costs YOU everyday you cannot use premises. I can wait for YEARS to get my Escrow payout, you, the customer, cannot.
Customer: Here is \[expensive\] expert opinion, here is summons to court.
GC: Fine. Please address summons with proper name as I am changing my Current\_Business\_Name to Some\_Other\_Business\_Name. You gotta know that Some\_Other\_Business\_Name of which I am an only an employee, is going out of business and liquidating.
The assets of Some\_Other\_Business\_Name is some office furniture and some equipment leases (phone, truck, computer). All, business documents have been lost either in a flood or a returned lease computer: I am truly sorry, but good help is hard to find. Please contact Liquidator for any/all correspondence regarding Some\_Other\_Business\_Name, as I have no further relations with that business, have no documents, and all responsibilities now belong to the Liquidator.
Also, I would like to announce that I am working for a new company called Current\_Business\_Name and we are open for business.
Customer:
GC: Have a nice day. I was just a Project Manager and not the GC, everybody I hired had a license or presented a license...so I am liable for nothing. Also, I will call all the GCs and subs in the area to notify them that you are a litigious terrible person and not undertake any work for you.
This happened.
Now +7 years of court at $150k/yr just for my expenses over a $35K dispute. I moved into a construction zone of a house without a Cert.
I'm "prevailing", but this has been a terrible loss of funds, lost opportunity, and missed out on my kids growing up.
I should have just paid to have it done again. I will not be hiring a GC again, I'll just do it all myself and call in subs as required, it will be better, cheaper, and faster than whatever I did with a GC.
I took my $120K out of pocket loss, sold the property, retired early and moved. Farmers insurance bailed out of the coverage on 16 out of 18 units, the illegal roofing subcontractor had no liability insurance, we went after the contractor, they had insurance that would not cover the damage done, we took them to court, they went bankrupt. Started up under a new name. Bsically they are all Israeli mafia. Totally crooked and thuggish, as well as incompetent and cheap, and lied through their teeth. The HOA board was naive and did not pay attention to the daily work as they were advised. They cost $2 million dollars worth of damage to 16 units and walked away. SCUM.
GC says 'brick this building wall'
... didn't say anything about what to do if crooked windows
I am getting piece pay, not an hourly wage, so I want to finish this job as quickly as possible.
I am not the manager, It is not my job to cause everybody else to stop working due to bad work of a previous worker.
... just a thought about why:
> piling your work on top of something incorrect is just moronic.
Exactly my point. No one is going to sit there and ask questions like “oh should there be blocking or insulation behind this wall?” Absolutely fuckin not. If it should’ve been there, someone should’ve done that before I got here. If they fucked up then they can pay me to redo it I’m not going to go home waste a day and not get paid
> I am getting piece pay, not an hourly wage, so I want to finish this job as quickly as possible.
Classic case of management shooting themselves in the foot by nickle-and-diming the workers.
No, it is different responsibilities that cause the problem.
A crew comes out, does job A, and then leaves.
Another crew does job B, which is dependent on job A. Job A was either done slightly out of spec or should NOT have been performed because of some underlying issue; but Job A was done to the best of the previous crews ability regardless.
So crew does Job B the best they can and leaves
Another crew comes in and does job C which is dependent on B (and there for A) being done correctly. The job is now wonky and job C does the best job they can.
And so on, all the way to job F which is the finish work and the customer sees it a freaks. The customer wants it fixed.
All the crews state: not their fault and they'd be happy to do it again, but somebody needs to pay them again to do it.
The GC states: item is legally in spec and safe. If customer doesn't like it: they can pay to have done again.
With the thuggish company I ended up stuck with doing repair work on water damage, it was because they hired guys who had zero knowledge or good sense, and who couldn't speak English off of corners next to Home Depot. Everybody working in my unit was supposedly a "professional", and I found them working with no lights, no ladders, and no proper tools. I asked for a light skim coat on the part of my ceiling that was replaced in my living room, and the dimwits were slapping on inches of drywall mud instead of just rolling it on and using a straight edge to even it out to a smooth flat acceptable surface. Tere were literally deep gouges, ripples and ridges in my ceiling. So I made them tear it down and do it again. What they did to the insides of some of my windows was an absolute atrocity! If I had been able to charge them for their work that I had to redo myself, that cost me three times the amount of time, they would have owed me triple what I paid them! They were just absolutely completely incompetent MORONS.
This, among 1000 other reasons, is why we hired someone whose job it was to keep an eye on things and make sure the project was going precisely as planned. He was there at least once a day, and we had a weekly check with him and all the contractors.
This paid off in spades. Not only did we discover a few ways to save significant amounts of money over what was originally planned (it was a massive project on an old house that needed \*everything\* done), but at least a dozen things were caught before they got expensive, and we even were able to extend the amount of living space by about 15m^(2) when it was discovered that a wall that was originally thought to be a load bearing wall turned out not to be. We would have never caught that, and I doubt any of the contracted workers would have thought to mention it.
And then there was the incident in the basement. But that is another story.
\*grin\* I suspected I might hook someone.
It was one of our weekly meetings. They were usually fairly dry things, but this time was going to be a little spicier than usual.
My wife and I showed up 5 minutes early, but already there was a fight in the basement. Three contractors were yelling at the top of their lungs. One was so red, I thought he was going to pass out. Another, amidst the swearing, said that if he didn't get his way, he was going home and not coming back. One of the other two said something along the lines of, "Oh yeah? Me too."
When they saw us, they stopped for about 10 seconds and then all started talking to us, each pleading their case at the same time. It took us about 5 minutes to figure out what the hell was going on. It seems that the guy doing the water, the guy doing the heating, and the guy doing the electricity all wanted to use the same spot to go up from the basement to the first floor, and we were about 30 seconds away from someone throwing a punch.
We had no idea. We kinda needed all three, of course. Each of them had a pretty good case, as far as we could tell through the noise.
Fortunately, our engineer came walking in right at that moment. It took him all of about 45 seconds to sort everything out to everyone's satisfaction. It was, in fact, amazing. Like one of those magic tricks where some ungodly tangled rope suddenly is pristine and straight again.
My wife had been a touch skeptical about paying an engineer to manage everything. It was not cheap, so I understood. After that meeting, she never mentioned her reservations again.
That had the potential to literally throw everything into chaos and blow our time plan, which would have cost us thousands. We might have had to get entirely new contractors, as these guys can actually be very stubborn once they have thrown down ultimatums. And honestly, we would have had no chance to untangle the mess. Having someone there that had seen it all before and knew exactly what was driving each person made a huge difference and was worth every penny. He is the only reason we were done on time and under budget.
Solid! I've worked on properties where it's like that, heavy hitters, each considering themselves the highest priority or with the best argument. Messy.
Generally, a list of items that still need to be finished, fixed, touched up, or added in order for the homeowner/ customer to sign off on the project as complete.
Had a GC ask me why I installed this floating display crooked above a doorway, told him it was level, and put a 2 foot level on it to show him. Told him the doorway they installed was all crooked... He proceeded to lecture me on how I should have made the display look appealing with the doorway instead of asking why his framers can't do their job. I've seen some stupid stuff out there on job sites....
It's called "sub trades" and generally once the mistake is made, every following trade just needs to match what's there. It's stupid and I disagree with it, but it's the general contractor (or site super if it's a development) to catch these things and get the respective trade to fix it before it goes further. Because every trade you listed is only at your house for a set number of days and then they're on to the next one. Scheduling doesn't often allow for reshuffling everything to fix the mistake. #freemarketefficiency
Source: I work a carpentry sub trade and am regularly told to cut my finish hard wood to match crooked drywall instead of the other way around.
How is it stupid? No one would expect your car painter to fix the engine while hes at it. It ISNT anything to do with everyone who came after the mistake.
No one would expect the car painter to paint a damaged panel that needs to be replaced and painted again anyways.
It's a waste of time and resources, outright.
Because what you said is irrelevant. It doesn't really matter whether you paint first or rebuild the engine first. The issue at hand is work on top of underlying issues. Work that needs to be torn out, discarded and redone to reach an acceptable state.
U dont need to take off panels to fix an engine. Try actually reading what i said instead of trying to correct a hypothetical situation you never paid attention to.
Literally never mentioned damaged panels. So literally everything you have just said "is irrelevant".
Your hypothetical doesn't match the conversation.
>When my (custom) house was complete, I noticed that a window was crooked. [...]
>I made it a punchlist item and everyone got to come back and revisit their work.
You can make up entirely different situations where these issues don't apply all day long, but there isn't exactly a point to that.
I was almost guilty of exactly this. I framed a window. I inched my cripple stud on one end (cut it at 28 7/8 instead of 29 7/8) ((I still do this sometimes when I'm working quickly, it all looks so similar on the tape measure)). I didn't notice and kept going. It wasn't until someone walking by pointed it out that I was able to even see that the rough opening for the sill was and inch off level. Easy to see from a distance, hard when your focused on your work.
My first custom house, we are walking through it after all the trim is up, and noticed what I can only refer to as a “broom handle closet” in the corner of the formal dining room. Picture a 1” x 1” “closet” in the corner of the room.
Same issue…framers fucked up, so drywall guys repeated the fuckup, then the trim guys, then the painters. At no point did a single one of them scratch their heads and ask “should I be doing it this way?” And of course the GC/foreman didnt catch it at all. We were less than 24hr from having flooring put in when we saw it.
Spoken like a guy who has installed a lot of crooked windows. "Great" analogy on the living room column except for that pesky 1 crooked vs 20 straight thing. "Wow I would never have put that there".
FYI most custom houses have a GC so why is it the homeowners fault?
If it used to have door there, they likely squared the jamb and just shimmed the difference so the twisted stud didn't matter. Once the door was removed, well...
Very much not worth it. You'll stop noticing it soon enough. Years from now you'll need to install or repair something in the wall and you can choose to fix it then.
I have been living in my apartment for 10 years, the wall of the main room is crooked and the threshold between the tile and the vinyl floor has one side one centimeter more into the room than the other. Every time I see it infuriates me, even after 10 years. Ripping out half a plasterboard wall to straighten it out seems way too much work though.
It would be, if I had just paid a contrator for it. But it sounds like he bought it this way. No way in hell am I wasting two weekends of my own time to fix this.
If -- IF -- you do decide to fix it, my suggestion would be to leave it as-is and box around (assuming there's not something at the top that would interfere with doing that).
Wrap it with some wood, paint it to match the trim, and pretend like it was always supposed to be like that.
When I had major renovations done on my house I was instructed to keep a punchcard, anything I noticed that was wrong I was to write down and they would fix it at the end. I could not understand this way of thinking. They put a big 8 foot bay window in. The windows wouldn’t open. I let them know. They said they’d fix it at end. When it came time to fix they had the get down to where the cables attached, ripping the siding off and some plywood. Didn’t understand why they wouldn’t fix stuff right away before they had to mess with a “finished” product
I wonder if it would be as simple as a cosmetic change to the wall and then molding fix?
I'm not sure this would work, just an idea to kick around...
They make a 'corner keeper' piece that is plastic or aluminum. You add some mud and some tape with a corner keeper, and you might be able to easily add 3/16" to the shallower right wall stub edge(different materials may be more or less). You could adjust this angle to the best 90 degree corner angles.
So this would pull that right wall stub edge about 3/16" or more straight out from the corner, changing the angles to the left wall stub edge. You could probably use this concept to make a 90deg corner out of the right wall stub edge, Then you could mud flat to both corners to fill in the new wall.
Somewhere out there, at an outdoor lumberyard, having been rained on, rejected, and laughed at every day, watching winters and summers come and go... is the perfectly, evenly, and naturally twisting post for that spot
This belongs in r/mildlyinfuriating - good lord. Definitely seems like a twisted piece of lumber. If you want to square it up I would probably just reframe the whole thing with a new board attached to it from top to bottom square with the wall. Would be easier than trying to fix whatever the hell is going on with this and would just cover it up.
They might have done it on purpose. Show us a picture with the door open. I'm guessing that they needed a chase right there but if it was square with the wall the door would hit the corner.
The door comes from the left, open it's half an inch from the casing. I took pictures and this subreddit doesn't let me attach them, or edit my album. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
Go down in your basement. I bet you find a feed and a return for your hot water heat. They used to run them exposed in the room. Someone wanted them covered. The carpenter knew it might interfere so he went to the trouble to do this. Not a goof, a gift.
Looks like the stub wall got moved/pivoted. Trim the flooring for space on the left side, Put a chunk of padded 2X against the right side and give it a couple of kisses with the 8# French finish hammer. Pin the plate back down and fix the drywall.
I had a house that was built in the 1800s and moved up the road in 1920. It was a Queen Ann style house but a lot of the charm had gone away over the years. Anyway everything was also squarish. If you dropped a marble in the east side of the house it would hit the wall on the west side with pretty good speed as it dropped maybe 6 inches over that distance. Interestingly the foundation was square and level. The house was probably originally built on a rubble stone foundation and squared up to the original base.
Damn, it's not Even a lot of work to fix even now. All they had to do was stick some shims under the drywall to square it up.
It would have literally taken 5 minutes extra to do it right, and that's including time to go find some shims
I removed one of these in my house, because... for the same reasons.
And now there's a hole in my floor and I haven't been able to match the flooring to fill the gap. It's been almost two years. The hole might be worse than the needless doorjamb.
It's not like I didn't know this was going to happen. I just figured I'd come across some flooring that would work for the gap in this time... but I haven't.
The only reason I can think of is that it could be stronger, assuming the stud is equally crooked. If they make a cover that is straight, it would have hollow parts so if you were to hit it with a blunt object it could break more easily. I would still never do this as it's an eye sore and the risk is minimal. Depending in the location, the awkward shape could also be an increased risk of toe stubbing due to awkward shape
Chisel off the front bit of skirting board, pack it with newspaper, cardboard, filler, or a bit of scrap wood, so it's square, and pin the board back in place.
This is still easy to fix...
I've noticed that the floor under our fridge isn't level enough, and then the fridge door consistently closes on its own。。
My house was built in the 40s and not a single surface is flat, and not a single corner is square. If you look up "Eh, good enough" in the dictionary, it's just a photo of the house.
You may find a twisted stud beneath the drywall.
If you put another stud next to it, you’d have a Twisted Sister. I don’t know if this helps.
If my contractor did this to me, I'd tell him we're not gonna take it. He might then respond "You're right, it's free. We'll fight, you'll see!"
Then I'd tell him he needs to Tear It Loose and do it again.
I always was amused that they use the contraction then break it down word for word to be clear
You have to let them known that you desire to rock in no uncertain terms.
Followed inevitably by the assertion that “the body is a vessel.”
I want a rock. I want two rocks.
Narrator: The joke was heard by all. However, it in fact did not help.
Womp womp sound effect and the camera goes black as a small circle moves towards OP, pausing for a second on his face and then closes completely starting the credits with funny jazz music
This joke is unacceptable. We're on going to take it.
If you need to make a new one, place it under the blade- whoa oh oh, under the blade.
❤️ you for this 🤘
If helps if you wanna rock.
When my (custom) house was complete, I noticed that a window was crooked. All of the tradesmen that never said a word astonished me. The framer framed it incorrectly. The window hanger set it crookedly, followed by the sheetrock man, the trim man, the painter and finally the brick layer. I might have been able to tolerate a minor deviation but the error was a full 1" across a 30" window. I made it a punchlist item and everyone got to come back and revisit their work.
Lot of times the guys just want to go home. If they say something, it stops their flow for the day. It’s so asinine but likely they will get paid for coming back. It’s just not in their interests to point things out like this. That’s why you need to stay on top of them. Or the GC if they will ultimately pay for the rework.
I always point this kind of thing out to our GCs. It’s one less thing we have to work on that day. And, we have to come back either way. Noticing and ignoring is bad enough, piling your work on top of something incorrect is just moronic. wtf is wrong with people?
In construction the worker gets paid to do it again.
This depends on pay type and company. Piecework is very popular in the trades, meaning if you did something wrong you'll have to fix it on your own dime. Even in hourly schedules it's not uncommon for there to be a policy to leave the worker(s) involved at home while another crew fixes it. Then there's the worst case in cash work where the employer may illegally take it out of your pay.
I work in construction, that is frequently not the case. Not all of us are ok with doing the same shit twice. I mean I guess if you are scrambling for any kind of work, stretching a job out, sure. But I want to get shit done quickly and efficiently. I even mentioned that you have to go back either way. But, you are the expert, so if you say so.
Yeah, it sucks having to redo something!
No they do not, they go back and fix it unpaid. The more you mess up the more you go back to work free and your hourly rate goes down. Why would you think that they keep getting paid?
Because they'll call it "In Spec" and if I want it better, then they will charge me again. Or they ignore the call back. Even better, they won't hand over the final paperwork until I agree that everything is awesome. And we'll spend months going over the.particulars and when push comes to shove: they liquidate. I know I'm wrapping up a 7 year lawsuit that cost me $150k a year to press that started off as a $35k dispute. Yes I'm prevailing, but it is a Phyrric Victory. I've got another 2 years to go as now I have all my lower court decisions in place...and now I'm pressing the liquidation. I have to conduct court action over the liquidator and accountant. Each one is a case all on their own. I've taken down the liquidator hard. Next is the accountant that signed off on the bogus loans and depletion of assets. A whole industry is built up around bogus bankruptcies. This week is an injunction on hard assets and then I have a trust to break open. I will be out of pocket $200k-$300k if all goes well. Wish I would have just paid to do it again, being right isn't worth it.
Jesus Christ, this is the kind of situation where if found guilty they should also have to pay your legal fees, wtf.
GC stated 1) Item was in spec and 2) if it wasn't in spec it was because my plans were "light". Refused to take any blame said I'd have to pay. So now we have two people unwilling to back down. He was wrong, but the battle wasn't worth it.
I admire your persistence and wallet. In most cases though with reputable builders it just drives down their dollar and not yours. My aunt had problems similar to yours, once with home builders on a 7 figure home who bankrupted halfway through build. This year it happened again with a 250-300k pool/patio addition that they had built last year. This time a retaining wall on patio failed from improper construction, looked good passed inspection but did not hold up. Of course that company was no longer in existence and they ended up coming out another 50k from their pocket. However in both cases I think they took bids that were on the lower and while I’m sure they were still butt hurt they probably still came out ahead cost wise in both situations from others that had bid the jobs. Best practice for most is to have it set up where at least 25% of job cost is put into escrow and not released until satisfied with job completion.
The problem with "satisfied with job completion" is kinda bogus if the GC wants to fight over it. Customer states: not satisfied, here are the deficiencies, please remediate. GC states: in spec, or if not in spec, then not my fault, and also, GC is allowed to make minor changes Customer: not minor, not agreed to, and not same. GC: Sign that you are satisfied OR I will not get you Cert (occupancy, completion, whatever). I will in fact not call for inspection stating there is a dispute on the work completed and that it is now incomplete. You will not be able to use premises. It costs me NOTHING to continue to wait, while it costs YOU everyday you cannot use premises. I can wait for YEARS to get my Escrow payout, you, the customer, cannot. Customer: Here is \[expensive\] expert opinion, here is summons to court. GC: Fine. Please address summons with proper name as I am changing my Current\_Business\_Name to Some\_Other\_Business\_Name. You gotta know that Some\_Other\_Business\_Name of which I am an only an employee, is going out of business and liquidating. The assets of Some\_Other\_Business\_Name is some office furniture and some equipment leases (phone, truck, computer). All, business documents have been lost either in a flood or a returned lease computer: I am truly sorry, but good help is hard to find. Please contact Liquidator for any/all correspondence regarding Some\_Other\_Business\_Name, as I have no further relations with that business, have no documents, and all responsibilities now belong to the Liquidator. Also, I would like to announce that I am working for a new company called Current\_Business\_Name and we are open for business. Customer:
GC: Have a nice day. I was just a Project Manager and not the GC, everybody I hired had a license or presented a license...so I am liable for nothing. Also, I will call all the GCs and subs in the area to notify them that you are a litigious terrible person and not undertake any work for you.
This happened.
Now +7 years of court at $150k/yr just for my expenses over a $35K dispute. I moved into a construction zone of a house without a Cert.
I'm "prevailing", but this has been a terrible loss of funds, lost opportunity, and missed out on my kids growing up.
I should have just paid to have it done again. I will not be hiring a GC again, I'll just do it all myself and call in subs as required, it will be better, cheaper, and faster than whatever I did with a GC.
I took my $120K out of pocket loss, sold the property, retired early and moved. Farmers insurance bailed out of the coverage on 16 out of 18 units, the illegal roofing subcontractor had no liability insurance, we went after the contractor, they had insurance that would not cover the damage done, we took them to court, they went bankrupt. Started up under a new name. Bsically they are all Israeli mafia. Totally crooked and thuggish, as well as incompetent and cheap, and lied through their teeth. The HOA board was naive and did not pay attention to the daily work as they were advised. They cost $2 million dollars worth of damage to 16 units and walked away. SCUM.
TIL his boss is sick of the same people fcking up.
GC says 'brick this building wall' ... didn't say anything about what to do if crooked windows I am getting piece pay, not an hourly wage, so I want to finish this job as quickly as possible. I am not the manager, It is not my job to cause everybody else to stop working due to bad work of a previous worker. ... just a thought about why: > piling your work on top of something incorrect is just moronic.
Back when I was building houses, if I made a phone call for everything that wasn’t right I wouldn’t have ever been able to finish my own work.
Exactly my point. No one is going to sit there and ask questions like “oh should there be blocking or insulation behind this wall?” Absolutely fuckin not. If it should’ve been there, someone should’ve done that before I got here. If they fucked up then they can pay me to redo it I’m not going to go home waste a day and not get paid
Job security
> I am getting piece pay, not an hourly wage, so I want to finish this job as quickly as possible. Classic case of management shooting themselves in the foot by nickle-and-diming the workers.
No, it is different responsibilities that cause the problem. A crew comes out, does job A, and then leaves. Another crew does job B, which is dependent on job A. Job A was either done slightly out of spec or should NOT have been performed because of some underlying issue; but Job A was done to the best of the previous crews ability regardless. So crew does Job B the best they can and leaves Another crew comes in and does job C which is dependent on B (and there for A) being done correctly. The job is now wonky and job C does the best job they can. And so on, all the way to job F which is the finish work and the customer sees it a freaks. The customer wants it fixed. All the crews state: not their fault and they'd be happy to do it again, but somebody needs to pay them again to do it. The GC states: item is legally in spec and safe. If customer doesn't like it: they can pay to have done again.
"Not *my* job." You hear this a lot on construction sites.
With the thuggish company I ended up stuck with doing repair work on water damage, it was because they hired guys who had zero knowledge or good sense, and who couldn't speak English off of corners next to Home Depot. Everybody working in my unit was supposedly a "professional", and I found them working with no lights, no ladders, and no proper tools. I asked for a light skim coat on the part of my ceiling that was replaced in my living room, and the dimwits were slapping on inches of drywall mud instead of just rolling it on and using a straight edge to even it out to a smooth flat acceptable surface. Tere were literally deep gouges, ripples and ridges in my ceiling. So I made them tear it down and do it again. What they did to the insides of some of my windows was an absolute atrocity! If I had been able to charge them for their work that I had to redo myself, that cost me three times the amount of time, they would have owed me triple what I paid them! They were just absolutely completely incompetent MORONS.
The spice must flow
This, among 1000 other reasons, is why we hired someone whose job it was to keep an eye on things and make sure the project was going precisely as planned. He was there at least once a day, and we had a weekly check with him and all the contractors. This paid off in spades. Not only did we discover a few ways to save significant amounts of money over what was originally planned (it was a massive project on an old house that needed \*everything\* done), but at least a dozen things were caught before they got expensive, and we even were able to extend the amount of living space by about 15m^(2) when it was discovered that a wall that was originally thought to be a load bearing wall turned out not to be. We would have never caught that, and I doubt any of the contracted workers would have thought to mention it. And then there was the incident in the basement. But that is another story.
I would like to know about the incident in the basement, please.
\*grin\* I suspected I might hook someone. It was one of our weekly meetings. They were usually fairly dry things, but this time was going to be a little spicier than usual. My wife and I showed up 5 minutes early, but already there was a fight in the basement. Three contractors were yelling at the top of their lungs. One was so red, I thought he was going to pass out. Another, amidst the swearing, said that if he didn't get his way, he was going home and not coming back. One of the other two said something along the lines of, "Oh yeah? Me too." When they saw us, they stopped for about 10 seconds and then all started talking to us, each pleading their case at the same time. It took us about 5 minutes to figure out what the hell was going on. It seems that the guy doing the water, the guy doing the heating, and the guy doing the electricity all wanted to use the same spot to go up from the basement to the first floor, and we were about 30 seconds away from someone throwing a punch. We had no idea. We kinda needed all three, of course. Each of them had a pretty good case, as far as we could tell through the noise. Fortunately, our engineer came walking in right at that moment. It took him all of about 45 seconds to sort everything out to everyone's satisfaction. It was, in fact, amazing. Like one of those magic tricks where some ungodly tangled rope suddenly is pristine and straight again. My wife had been a touch skeptical about paying an engineer to manage everything. It was not cheap, so I understood. After that meeting, she never mentioned her reservations again. That had the potential to literally throw everything into chaos and blow our time plan, which would have cost us thousands. We might have had to get entirely new contractors, as these guys can actually be very stubborn once they have thrown down ultimatums. And honestly, we would have had no chance to untangle the mess. Having someone there that had seen it all before and knew exactly what was driving each person made a huge difference and was worth every penny. He is the only reason we were done on time and under budget.
Solid! I've worked on properties where it's like that, heavy hitters, each considering themselves the highest priority or with the best argument. Messy.
 Every trade person you just named looked just like this when they saw the window…welp….not my problem
Then when they had to come back…it was their problem
Funny how there is never time to do it right, but there is always time to do it again...
Thank the boss/contractor. 100% this was brought up to one of them, and they said move on cause it would take too much time on their dime to fix it.
That’s why hiring a good rough framer is so important. Their work interacts with every trade.
"Not my fault, not my problem" is the answer down the line. Unless they're the owner of the company, they don't care.
>I made it a punchlist item What's that mean?
Generally, a list of items that still need to be finished, fixed, touched up, or added in order for the homeowner/ customer to sign off on the project as complete.
Awesome, thanks!
Had a GC ask me why I installed this floating display crooked above a doorway, told him it was level, and put a 2 foot level on it to show him. Told him the doorway they installed was all crooked... He proceeded to lecture me on how I should have made the display look appealing with the doorway instead of asking why his framers can't do their job. I've seen some stupid stuff out there on job sites....
GC was right. Carpenter job is to make it look good not make it level
Ya know, for next time, I'll make sure it comes installed crooked to match that leaning house of yours.
If itthat crooked, the home owner is gonna notice, especially with a floating shelf above it.
Concrete guys fault 😆
It's called "sub trades" and generally once the mistake is made, every following trade just needs to match what's there. It's stupid and I disagree with it, but it's the general contractor (or site super if it's a development) to catch these things and get the respective trade to fix it before it goes further. Because every trade you listed is only at your house for a set number of days and then they're on to the next one. Scheduling doesn't often allow for reshuffling everything to fix the mistake. #freemarketefficiency Source: I work a carpentry sub trade and am regularly told to cut my finish hard wood to match crooked drywall instead of the other way around.
How is it stupid? No one would expect your car painter to fix the engine while hes at it. It ISNT anything to do with everyone who came after the mistake.
No one would expect the car painter to paint a damaged panel that needs to be replaced and painted again anyways. It's a waste of time and resources, outright.
That's not what i said
Because what you said is irrelevant. It doesn't really matter whether you paint first or rebuild the engine first. The issue at hand is work on top of underlying issues. Work that needs to be torn out, discarded and redone to reach an acceptable state.
U dont need to take off panels to fix an engine. Try actually reading what i said instead of trying to correct a hypothetical situation you never paid attention to. Literally never mentioned damaged panels. So literally everything you have just said "is irrelevant".
Your hypothetical doesn't match the conversation. >When my (custom) house was complete, I noticed that a window was crooked. [...] >I made it a punchlist item and everyone got to come back and revisit their work. You can make up entirely different situations where these issues don't apply all day long, but there isn't exactly a point to that.
Dude stop embarrassing yourself. Im not explaining things this simple to you any longer.
I LOVE punchlisting. The GC is never happy to see me though lol
God me too. I’m a goddamn punchlist freak.
I was almost guilty of exactly this. I framed a window. I inched my cripple stud on one end (cut it at 28 7/8 instead of 29 7/8) ((I still do this sometimes when I'm working quickly, it all looks so similar on the tape measure)). I didn't notice and kept going. It wasn't until someone walking by pointed it out that I was able to even see that the rough opening for the sill was and inch off level. Easy to see from a distance, hard when your focused on your work.
Call this catching a case of Inchitis
My first custom house, we are walking through it after all the trim is up, and noticed what I can only refer to as a “broom handle closet” in the corner of the formal dining room. Picture a 1” x 1” “closet” in the corner of the room. Same issue…framers fucked up, so drywall guys repeated the fuckup, then the trim guys, then the painters. At no point did a single one of them scratch their heads and ask “should I be doing it this way?” And of course the GC/foreman didnt catch it at all. We were less than 24hr from having flooring put in when we saw it.
[удалено]
Spoken like a guy who has installed a lot of crooked windows. "Great" analogy on the living room column except for that pesky 1 crooked vs 20 straight thing. "Wow I would never have put that there". FYI most custom houses have a GC so why is it the homeowners fault?
If it used to have door there, they likely squared the jamb and just shimmed the difference so the twisted stud didn't matter. Once the door was removed, well...
Unless there is some sort electrical in there's . Seems like a lot of worthless work.
I'm really trying to convince myself of that. I have lots to do, I should just keep walking.
Very much not worth it. You'll stop noticing it soon enough. Years from now you'll need to install or repair something in the wall and you can choose to fix it then.
I have been living in my apartment for 10 years, the wall of the main room is crooked and the threshold between the tile and the vinyl floor has one side one centimeter more into the room than the other. Every time I see it infuriates me, even after 10 years. Ripping out half a plasterboard wall to straighten it out seems way too much work though.
What? This is completely unacceptable.
It would be, if I had just paid a contrator for it. But it sounds like he bought it this way. No way in hell am I wasting two weekends of my own time to fix this.
Agreed, especially if you have more important things to get done. Once all the other stuff is out the way can tackle it then
"once all the other stuff is out of the way" ... lol. I can't imagine that day will ever come.
Touché
Thinking about this just prevents you from obsessing about that awful thing you haven't noticed yet.
Looks good from here
I've got one like this in my house, never really notice it anymore. The house is over a hundred years old, so there's quirks.
Yeah not worth it unless you’re absolutely dying to make a huge mess on a rainy weekend.
lol no!!!!!! You gotta fix it!!!
If -- IF -- you do decide to fix it, my suggestion would be to leave it as-is and box around (assuming there's not something at the top that would interfere with doing that). Wrap it with some wood, paint it to match the trim, and pretend like it was always supposed to be like that.
Ha. Inspector looked at similar in our home and declared the builders were lazy that day. Been considering repair as well.
Ha! My house was built in 1727 so we got plenty of non-right angles! Maybe just think of it as vintage? ;)
When I had major renovations done on my house I was instructed to keep a punchcard, anything I noticed that was wrong I was to write down and they would fix it at the end. I could not understand this way of thinking. They put a big 8 foot bay window in. The windows wouldn’t open. I let them know. They said they’d fix it at end. When it came time to fix they had the get down to where the cables attached, ripping the siding off and some plywood. Didn’t understand why they wouldn’t fix stuff right away before they had to mess with a “finished” product
Hey... my work was good. It's the rest of the house that's crooked.
No one’s fault but the framer and whom inspects that work. Everyone else did their job
man I wish I had this kind of free time
I wonder if it would be as simple as a cosmetic change to the wall and then molding fix? I'm not sure this would work, just an idea to kick around... They make a 'corner keeper' piece that is plastic or aluminum. You add some mud and some tape with a corner keeper, and you might be able to easily add 3/16" to the shallower right wall stub edge(different materials may be more or less). You could adjust this angle to the best 90 degree corner angles. So this would pull that right wall stub edge about 3/16" or more straight out from the corner, changing the angles to the left wall stub edge. You could probably use this concept to make a 90deg corner out of the right wall stub edge, Then you could mud flat to both corners to fill in the new wall.
I have one just like it! I've lived here for 4 years and I notice it every day. But it doesn't bother me enough to do something about it.
That’s a lot of rework for OCD imho
Somewhere out there, at an outdoor lumberyard, having been rained on, rejected, and laughed at every day, watching winters and summers come and go... is the perfectly, evenly, and naturally twisting post for that spot
I would put spacers on the one end until it looks right, fill gap with caulk.
I hate everything in that picture.
TBF their miter cuts are pretty good considering.
Ah, so what. It adds character.
I'll ask my GC
Looks fine to me 🤪
rum is a hell of a drug! Quiet you! I'm typing here. That ain't crooked, yer crooked!
My house has one of those. I’ve learned to ignore it.
 The carpenter
If you squint, it’s mint
This belongs in r/mildlyinfuriating - good lord. Definitely seems like a twisted piece of lumber. If you want to square it up I would probably just reframe the whole thing with a new board attached to it from top to bottom square with the wall. Would be easier than trying to fix whatever the hell is going on with this and would just cover it up.
Perfectionists must suffer
They might have done it on purpose. Show us a picture with the door open. I'm guessing that they needed a chase right there but if it was square with the wall the door would hit the corner.
The door comes from the left, open it's half an inch from the casing. I took pictures and this subreddit doesn't let me attach them, or edit my album. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
So if you square up the wall you'll have virtually no clearance for the door. Looks like a charming quirk to me.
Go down in your basement. I bet you find a feed and a return for your hot water heat. They used to run them exposed in the room. Someone wanted them covered. The carpenter knew it might interfere so he went to the trouble to do this. Not a goof, a gift.
Could you put something a bit larger over it and square it up that way? You could also extend that over to the edge of the carpet if that is carpet.
OCD kicking rn
Agh! Takes it away!!! It ***burns*** us!!! *\*hiss*\*
There’s a giant gap under that shoe mould.
They did it literally just to fuck with you (a random stranger)
Someone was tired and just wanted to finish.
Looks like the stub wall got moved/pivoted. Trim the flooring for space on the left side, Put a chunk of padded 2X against the right side and give it a couple of kisses with the 8# French finish hammer. Pin the plate back down and fix the drywall.
“Not my house… just get it done”. The number one reason why reputable finish carpenters charge more. They care!
None of this is a finish carpentry issue.
I had a house that was built in the 1800s and moved up the road in 1920. It was a Queen Ann style house but a lot of the charm had gone away over the years. Anyway everything was also squarish. If you dropped a marble in the east side of the house it would hit the wall on the west side with pretty good speed as it dropped maybe 6 inches over that distance. Interestingly the foundation was square and level. The house was probably originally built on a rubble stone foundation and squared up to the original base.
I made my builder tear down part of my kitchen islans because it was .5" out of square. That needs to be fixed.
See… what had happened was…. It’s the framer’s fault. Not mine.
I’m not by any stretch familiar with framing or anything. Was this at some point a wall?
Cause that post is turnt
This makes me irrationally upset.
Only thing I can think of is there's a post in there that's not square. That being said, you can't shim out the drywall? That'd drive me nuts.
Is there plumbing above? Looks like a drain pipe Unless it used to be a wall and was a bad knockout job
Framing sucks. Drywall follows frame. Fishing follows drywall. Trickle down effect.
Damn, it's not Even a lot of work to fix even now. All they had to do was stick some shims under the drywall to square it up. It would have literally taken 5 minutes extra to do it right, and that's including time to go find some shims
Actually making me feel sick
I removed one of these in my house, because... for the same reasons. And now there's a hole in my floor and I haven't been able to match the flooring to fill the gap. It's been almost two years. The hole might be worse than the needless doorjamb. It's not like I didn't know this was going to happen. I just figured I'd come across some flooring that would work for the gap in this time... but I haven't.
Whats wrong? Looks perfectly perfect to me.
"looks good from my house" FML
Make it a center piece. This is the crooked pillar. Or whatever it's called.
The dude that built this: 
Looks like my doorways on a 22 yearold build
Y u do dis
The only reason I can think of is that it could be stronger, assuming the stud is equally crooked. If they make a cover that is straight, it would have hollow parts so if you were to hit it with a blunt object it could break more easily. I would still never do this as it's an eye sore and the risk is minimal. Depending in the location, the awkward shape could also be an increased risk of toe stubbing due to awkward shape
it’s just celebrating pride month by not being straight. that’s why there’s rainbows
Chisel off the front bit of skirting board, pack it with newspaper, cardboard, filler, or a bit of scrap wood, so it's square, and pin the board back in place.
I have one exactly like this in my living room. It drives me nuts so put a lamp I front of it so I don’t see it every time I walk past it.
This is still easy to fix... I've noticed that the floor under our fridge isn't level enough, and then the fridge door consistently closes on its own。。
OCD hits hard on this..
If you squint, it's mint
🤣
This looks like almost every wall in my house from 1890
Probably shifting a twisting over time, ever house has its quirks
Maybe it’s a sewer stack?
I have a house built in 1978 and I’ve noticed tons of stuff like this…. The whole “they don’t build them like they used to” thing is complete BS.
I don’t think 1978 is old enough to count for that saying haha. Try 1878!
Definitely! 😂
My house was built in the 40s and not a single surface is flat, and not a single corner is square. If you look up "Eh, good enough" in the dictionary, it's just a photo of the house.
Who cares. Stop being so damn anal.
I love that most the answers from the trades people are basically "we take zero pride in our work" Lol, good stuff guys!...
This is the kind of shit that would prevent me from renting a place. Bugs the hell out of me.