As a remodeler/builder only doing it for a short time now (5 years), I’ve seen a few things that other builders have done in the past when we open up a house that raises an eyebrow or more — but you folks with much more experience than I–what are some things you’ve seen that stick out as the worst framing/roofing/carpentry you’ve seen. I put in carpentry, but so much of it now is done by homeowners that well, I could write a book just on what we’ve seen.
But anyway, I’ll offer up these as what stick out in my mind:
House built in 1975, hip roof – hip and jack rafters toe nailed, one 8d nail on each side.
Garage build (we were asked to come and make repairs by the G.C.) –
– gable walls a full three inches difference from one to the other
– Adventek subfloor sheathing on roof, roof sheathing on floor and wall sheathing stuck in wherever they ran out of either? (could tell as one could see the labels – ‘subfloor’ screaming out from above or notice differences in elevation
– window openings so out of square that there were diagonal gaps all around between the window and the R.O.
Garage build – mansard – no knee wall, ceiling joists or collar ties so gable portion of roof was bowing out over mansard sides
Remodel on a 1900’s gambrel – (we saw it after said contractor was fired and were asked to estimate fixing it) contractor removed ceiling joists and all lateral bracing, not one door R.O. had any logical size to fit a door and apparently some had just skipped the old jack/stud routine for lack of space.
Any one have any?
Replies
usually , it's a flashing issue
where they turn flashing into funnels..
as far as framing goes.. i'd have to vote for the A-frame that was framed with 2x4 rafters 24" oc.. and 1/4 paneling as the sheathing so it would have a finished ceiling
hah, hah, hah... i still get a laugh out of that one..
it was built for an IRS agent
That dwelling was a taxing situation!
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I got you beat.
Spec house. Bank had taken it back after two years on the market by builder.
It had started as a Cape with a couple front doghouse dormers and a rear shed dormer.The front was finished exterior while the rear didn't even have windows in it. Front dormers had backazzwards flashings like Mike mentioned. Chimny with NO flashings.Shed roof - span about 22 feet with 2x8 at 16" OC except that they were spliced at one third down from ridge. It was a large blanket toss trampoline kind of thing. The style required a structural ridge beam, but it only had a one by ridge board and it was spliced to beat the band. I don't think there was any place more thana ten foot length of it. They recognized there was a weak spot at those splices so there were legs going down to ceiling joists - the same 2x4 ones.They had tried back bracing it to ceiling joists, except these were only 2x4 at 18' span, so that framing was sagging a good inch and a half.in loadbearing walls - no effort to have door jack studs over blocking in floor, so in one spot the ply subfloor had a 3/4"sag in 12" All subfloor was 3/4" square edge with no blocking under, nailed only at 12" oc and no glue.That was good - made it easier to take up!Stairs - I refused to walk up them with anybody else standing on them and then I hung onto wall framing.Was anything plumb you ask?
Well, they had to get one thing right.But with a foundation about 35 x 38, they were off on one wall by four inches.most headers were undersized, as was beam in crawlspace under floor.That reminds me, the 'dining room' space was a large one - 18' span IIRC, so they were hanging solid beams in it to 'support' the joists for the second floor.
Problem is - they supported them wioth a 2x4 laid flat like blocking between studs in the end walls - so there were four 16d nails holding up each end of a beam that weighed 200# and the loads from above it....again - demo was easy.There was a sliding door that wouldn't.A garage slab that couldn't.and a property line that shouldn't...We tore down to top plate, removed interior walls, changed a couple opennings and beefed up headers, then rebuilt second floor, garage and roof.Wish I ha pictures. It was a job to write a book about "How not to build a house"
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the A-frame that was framed with 2x4 rafters 24" oc.. and 1/4 paneling as the sheathing so it would have a finished ceiling
hah, hah, hah... i still get a laugh out of that one..
it was built for an IRS agent
So what is more funny, the way it was framed or that it was built for an IRS agent?
I wonder where IRS agents go to commiserate about certain kinds of taxpayers orstrange deductions claimed. Do they have a web forum called Wackytaxy?
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
I wonder where IRS agents go to commiserate about certain kinds of taxpayers or strange deductions claimed. Do they have a web forum called Wackytaxy?
Yes, but it is not a forum, it is a bricks and mortor bar.
An IRS agent? In that case it was way overbuilt!
the A-frame that was framed
Maybe it's just me, but every time I see an A-frame, I'm immedieately suspect about the engineering. Maybe I've seen one too many built "out in the country" without any adult supervision.
My 'fave' was the two story just up the road a piece. The "raf-oists" were spliced-together 2x6, three of them, plate to ridge. The second floor was 2x6, apparently because they had them already. Neat the way they used them 20' long to make the second floor deck, too.
Blew over not too long ago in a good storm, long ways.Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)
I have two..
One was a house that was built out of reclaimed lumber from a base support structure for a large diameter tank . Every stud had a large arc cut out of it so they nailed two studs together and made one stud with a giant "cats eye" in the middle of it running from 4" above the bottom to within 4" of the top. Owner had bragged for weeks about how they didn't build em like they used to .. until we opened the walls and he saw that . Shut up right quick he did. (It did make the plumbing and wiring easy though ;-) )
The other was finding a 6 x 6 post supporting a beam in a crawl space with 3- 30 penny spikes driven into the end grain as legs for the post to stand on . Looked like somebody cut something a bit short and invented the post stretcher.
Around here, a lot of entry level homes built in the late 40s or early 50s were sheathed with 5/16" ply ( yeah, I typed it right). The ones I've seen were cape-style homes.
You could see where every rafter and stud is. I've completely re-sheathed, sided, and roofed 3 of them ( about 25 years ago) , replacing all the windows on one.
From what I understand, when plywood first came out, there weren't any building codes covering it. So some builders would cut corners, and use the cheapest stuff. ( some things never change)
5/16" ply is what they sheathed the roof of my house with. Somebody got the bright idea to put a heavier architectural shingle on about 15 years ago and it only lasted about 11 years because of the fluxuation of the sheathing. Too bad, they were good shingles. 4 years ago I built an addition onto the house and in doing I ripped the entire roof off, sheathing and all, re-framed where needed and resheathed with 5 ply half. Actually the worse building I ever came across was one that was overbuilt. It was up in the woods and a real Rube Goldburg affair. He was a regular Harvey Homeowner this guy and I kid you not when I tell you that this guy would put up 2 1/4 clam casing and wack in two #10 finish nails by hand EVERY FOUR TO SIX INCHES!! The people wanted the stuff removed and I couldn't even pry it out a little to slip a sawzall blade in back. It was like that through the whole house and a real nightmare.
Yeah, the ones that overbuild can do as much damage as those who underbuild.
I've seen framing jobs where there been so many toe nails in a stud, that there's barely room left for the wood.
Worst I've seen would have tobe in my own house.
Bought my house knowing it had alum wires. When DW wanted a gas stove, after the gas was plumbed in, due to the old stove being hard wired, I decided to condem the old wire right from the breaker box.
In the breaker box was aluminium wire. At the old stove was copper. So I'm thinking "cool dodged the bullet on that one as someone has spliced the wire some where. Then DW goes to do a set of dishes in the dish washer and it ain't working anymore.
Yup spliced off the stove wire.
A half dozen years back a fellow on a nice corner lot directly next to a fairly busy street decided to build a 40' long wrap around covered deck. The problem was he didn't own a square, level or anything carpentry related other than a hand saw and maybe a hammer. Even worse was a total lack of building knowledge.
He built the covered deck without a level or square section anywhere, but not by design or good judgement.
It stood for most of the summer before being red tagged. Apparently the inspector assigned to the mess was a good sport and walk the home owner through how to rebuild it to meet basic code, but it definitely had to be completely torn down.
Beer was created so carpenters wouldn't rule the world.
One of the houses I did some work on a while back (luckily-or maybe not- I wasn't in on it from the beginning) was built with no studs, no headers, no foundation, nothing. Just 1x material, straight on to the ground. In the crawlspace, the only way you could get around was underneath the doors, where there was no 1x. Astoundingly, the HO didn't bulldoze it and start over (which, in my mind, probably would have been cheaper).I'm still a fan of a guy putting in a guard rail, with no spindles/balusters (is there a difference?), 4x4 posts, all nailed in 10' above the ground with a Paslode finish nailer. There were no lags or through bolts. I know I've found more and probably worse than those, but that's what pops up for me now.Oh, just heard from my buddy last night of a carpenter guy laying hardwood, troweling Henry's Roof Patch down, then the floor, then nailed down. There was patch all over the house. That's one of those things that makes the veins pop out of your temples.
You guys are getting my memory going.The first addition I ever did as a contraator was on a small house - simple thing about 20'wide and 40' deep with a 12/12 over single story. I was adding to that 20' with a side 14' for master bedrm and bath.When I openned up the joining wall, taking plank sheathing off I sawquite an awe inspiring pattern. First, there was no length of oneby sheathing longer than about six feet.
The, the studs were all - every single one - stacked scraps, some as short as 12" but most 18" to 30".
This was the load bearing wall under the rafters too!As I worked on it, I learned from the family who had previously owned it what its history was. Had originally been built by a sawmill worker over near the mill itself and he got off cuts and scraps for free. Built in his evening hours. Then moved it to the town lot and lived there all his life.
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That house in Tennessee I worked on was like that, all the window openings were pieced and parted together. Not one 2x4 longer than 18". Headers included. The jacks were all pieced in and they took the time to scarf joint them. It was a common theme throughout the house.
I have seen alot of bad ones, my cousins house in Tennessee is close to the top of the list. Rafters that were two 8' 2x4's overlapped a foot in the middle and had two nails in them. The roof had a 3" sag in the middle of a 30' run.
A few years back an old friend called, he fired his framer and wanted me to take a look at finishing the job. It only took a few minutes there to realize why. None of the bottom plates were nailed to the floor, the beam in the basement was cut short of the beam pockets and left that way, roof was leaking, step flashing was all run before the shingles not in between them.
Framer quit on another job, 3500 sq ft house. He had most of the trusses set and started sheathing them, he left out roughly 30% of the trusses. I couldn't immediatley see why until I saw the prints. He set all of them on the house backwards. All of the trusses had to be pulled off and a new set made because he cut alot of them to fit. This one is in court now.
I went and looked at a fire job last night, the chimney had caught fire. I looked at the chimney and the flue tiles were cracked, the problem was I could see the flue tiles from the inside of the house. The block was laid with huge gaps 3" in some areas. THe brick veneer of the chimney looked great, but looks are deceiving. THe firemen told the HO it's the worst chimney they had ever seen. I got to get some pictures of this one.
I have seen some stuff.
I went to look at my good buddies girlfriends new place. She bought it to flip it. Not to bad a little hoaky reno here and there. Then I looked at the sunroom on the back It was built on an existing deck. Instead of ripping out the railings they built walls on top of them with pieced together lumber didn't put sheathing on it just went over the whole mess with vinyl siding, and wack load of caulking. Inside cheesy 1/8' panel board. Carpet with no underpad over outdoor carpet right on top of the deck.
Did an addition in the fall 1 1/2 story house ripped off existing roof and built pretty much the same thing in its place plus a dormer window on the front aan addition off the back. Guys were ripping the old roof off 3 layers of shingles on 2x4 rafters spanning 25' with 1' overlaps in the middle. Second floor deckwas 2x8 spanning 16' feet 1' overlaps in the middle of some of those too. Good thing we don't build em' like we used to.
I spent some time replacing rotted wood in a subdivision that was only about 6 years old. Solidly half ot the houses in the subdivision had the problem. All the ones I looked at had the same list of problems with the roofs:
1 no flashing anywhere
2 no felt or other barrier -- the shingles were nailed directly to the OSB
3 the roof sheathing did not extend all the way to the subfascia - leaving a 3 or 4 inch gap that the shingles had to bridge.
4 sporadic use of starter-strip shingles -- which means that those shingles that were bridging a gap in the sheathing had gaps in them.
And those are just the glaring problems. There were also exposed nailheads in the roofing, improperly overlapped ridgecap shingles, and course spacing beyond the max for shingles.
Unless you're the lead dog, the view just never changes.
My brother-in-laws garage has an attic above. 2x6 joists span the opposite way of the rafters (no collar ties) and the ridge had settled a good deal. These rafters span over a center "girder" which spans 12' from exterior wall to lally column to exterior wall. That girder is a single 2x6......layed flat, not vertical. The paint has been holding this garage together since the 50s.
We had an engineer call us one day to look at a house. I wasn't the one who actually looked at it, but I heard the story first hand when the guy got back. A single woman hires the cheapest guy she could get to build her a house. He ordered wood webbed floor trusses for the floor, but decided to stick frame the roof. Trouble is, there weren't any bearing walls anywherre that he could use to support the stick framing. So the guy just uses various interior bearing walls to support the roof. Supposedly when the kitchen was installed, the floor trusses had already sagged so much that they had to shim some of the cabinets almost 2". The owner moved in and began to notice problems with doors not closing, etc. The builder came back and stuck some jack posts in the basement. And he cranked 'em down until the slab cracked. Eventually the woman realized she'd been had, and went to a lawyer. But the GC had no assets and no insurance, so she was basically screwed. She hired the engineer to see what had to be done to fix all the problems. Last I heard, his recomendation was to bulldoze it and start over.
Forecast for tonight: Dark.
went to look at a place 3 years ago and owner aske what he should do with it and i told him to spend 2 cents and burn it he said no way it just needed a little work
first the roof 900 sq ft needed 6 sheets plywood plus various bracing or insurance was cancelled
then new front door 1400 cdn for door after removing one you could see through the cracks
next fix the ceiling as some dork had built part of this house as a addition and cut out the end wall and supported the old rafters on 2 2/4 s set on the flat with only a post in the middle ,about a 10' span
then there was a new set of basement stairs to replace the owner built set that had the treads hanging on nails , the last two were completely missing so he had a step stool there to take up the slack
new furnace & air plus concrete pool 120 k cdn so far now wants 1200 ft addition
A custom builder friend of mine had all 42 of the fixed glass vinyl windows installed in a home......inside out. He found the mistake after stucco. The cornice man could not be found. My framer fixed the problem. $8,650.00 incluidng redo of stucco.
He deserved the problem as he is somewhat of an absent builder related to jobsite presence, but has learned his lesson.
The day before closing on a $2.5 million dollar house, we were all busting to get everything ready for the final walkthrough. The flooring guys just finished their last coat on the floors in the living room area and the cleaning crew was on the upper two floors. The soon to be owner stopped in, impressed with the activity going on. His mood changed considerably when he looked into the living room and saw water dripping from the ceiling onto the freshly finished floor. Somewhere, a drain line had not been connected and all the wastewater dumped by the cleaning crew was poring through the now saturated ceiling.Closing was delayed.
A local pool company put in 2 pools, within a two month period, with the front side of the pool to the rear.
Negotations with one Homeowner resulted in a gift of a $50,000.00 landscape and backyard improvement package to leave the pool as is. I don't know about end results of the other.
Seems they would have a better quality assurance system after a $50,000.00 hickey.
A carpenter friend acting as a vinyl flooring installer installed tempered masonite underlayment over the sub-floor prior to vinyl. I lived near the project and visited him on the site. I noticed he was installing the masonite and nailing at 12" to 16" O.C.
I told him that our installers nailed the masonite at 4" O.C. over the sub-floor. He thought what he was doing would work.
The next evening, after he had installed the vinyl, he told me I was right. The HO called and said the floor was bubbling up. I went over to the site with him and the masonite was bubbled up with 6" of height between the widely spaced nails.
I am not sure what he did to fix the problem.
On another project, a construction company install non-underlayment rated 1/4" plywood over a sub-floor prior to vinyl. The lady of the house, a large professional lady who wore high heels poked holes through the vinyl at the voids in the sub-par underlayment.
I was asked to furnish several of our carpenters to redo the underlayment, which (OH MY!) was nailed correctly at 4" O.C. with.....................ringshank nails.
My house was generally built very well, with the exception of one moronic mistake. I have a kind of three-bay pier & beam foundation. There's a foundation wall all the way around the perimeter of the house and 2 more down the middle, to carry some of the load. Well, there's an opening in the interior walls so that all parts of the crawlspace and be accessed. In constructing the house, some genius nailed two joist hangers over the opening 2" lower than the reast of the joists. Result? Weird & dramatic low spot with no cracking on 1st floor, yet perfectly level second floor because apparently the mistake was corrected at that point. Anyhow, it's definitely odd!
I was surveying once and ran across a house that was built on 8' Poles. The poles were sitting on 12x12 conc. paving pads. They didn't penetrate the gound at all.
Now the floor of the house was toenailed to the top of the poles. So that the only thing that was keeping this house upright was the 1x6 angle braces that were about 5' long.
The carport was constructed with 2x4 rafters about 14' long. And instead of using a single 2x4, they had two 8' 2x4 that were overlapping one another.
Unfortunately, that house burnned down after about a year, so I guess that same guy that framed it also did the wiring.
I wish that it would have made it until Katrina came.
Well, as I read everyone's posts, I remember also a call we had to see a cottage a guy wanted to put a basement under. It was his summer place he explained and everyone was converting theirs to year round, he'd like to as well.We went to the place and found an assemblage of small cabins built in th early thirties, pine tongue and groove board sided boxes. We looked underneath and the 'crawl space' was open from outside. The cabin walls were apparently built on 6 x 6 timbers, laid out in squares for each room, with the ends butted to each other and resting on an appropriately placed stack of rocks. The 'sill' was then run along the top of these timbers and the floor joists run across the length of the cabin (about 20' wide). Only the weight of the structure itself kept the rocks in place where they were. Once I went inside after, I could perceive through walking along the floor, where the timber ends met over a rock and of course, being rocks, not one was exactly the same elevation as the other.Anyway, this guy was a bit miffed that we told him we had no interest in digging underneath that structure to make him a cellar. During our discussion he even produced his neighbor who proudly showed us an approximately 2' x 4' trench he had dug under his cabin with the same intention. We told him, "You have your man right there!" and left.Even if we lifted the structure, it would have fallen to pieces we tried to explain to him, but no doing. We also explained that digging deep in the earth with a structure over presented its own share of hazards, but last I knew, he was still looking for an idiot.
Ah, memories!
My first house was a former summer cabin in the CA redwoods. Built in the teens, but at least they had real pier blocks under the thing, and a properly built floor. It got interesting with the walls - full dimension 1x redwood nailed to the rim joists, with a 2x4 ringing the top of the walls to support the roof framing. Not a single stud to be found.
My favorite Tennessee hillbilly story is the place with the outhouse stradling the creek. Well, they upgraded, built a new block house with indoor plumbing, and ran the drain pipe to the creek. Sigh...
Watch it now, the log half of my house has been sitting on rock piers since before the Civil War...LOL Still relatively OK.
Fingers crossed for saftey.
Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
The secret to a long life is knowing when its time to go. M. Shocked
I was surveying once and ran across a house that was built on 8' Poles.
Wow, that's pretty unusual. Most of the Poles I've met top out around 6'2!
(ducks/runs)
Jason
Fixed a house that was jacked up by a house jacking hack,,,wrong house,34,000.00 1982 dollars to fix.
Friend's wife was arrested recently; police found Polish remover in the bathroom....Ducks/runs
Ya'll want to seethe worst there ever was. Look at each and every house in rural Missouri. No code enforcement, no contractor licensing, no permits required. It is pretty much, "I'll build it however I want to". Of course since I make my living repairing houses in rural Missouri, I am in heaven!Do everything you do to the very best of your ability, or don't bother doing it at all.
My house. The previous HO hired a jack of all trades to replace and add new windows, put in a new kitchen and "change some rooms". He used a chain saw to open the wall to put in the new windows and change out the old ones, forget headers and proper studding ...a few really long screws and wedges (I can't call them shims) did the job... oh and the insulation in the up to 6" gaps between the window and the nearest stud,, sheet rock on the inside and aluminum on the outside took care of that. A mulled series of windows in the LR (101"x48") were held in with 2 screws. Every room in the house had these thick curtains on each window. I would sit in the living room and with the windows closed, watch the curtains blow in the breeze.
In the kitchen when I ripped out that room, there were 47, yes 47, junction boxes of various shapes and sizes buried in the wall. I can't tell you how many hundreds of feet of wire I had to pull. He "eliminated" a kitchen wall fan by covering it over with wall board, and left it exposed on the exterior. Some of the upper boxes were hung into wallboard just using various anchors. He had some of those upper boxes supported using the counters and 2x4 decorated as mug holders.He saw wall he didn't like ...just move it or better yet eliminate it all together. Made no difference if it was a support wall. There was as much as 3 inches in sag in some rooms. The guy proudly put his signature on everything he did, it was every where in the house. Not to mention tools that the guy had closed in in the wall, a hammer and chisel here, a wrench there, it was Christmas with every wall we opened, oh, and beer cans and bottles and 2 or 3 empty bottles of gin too..Beefeater, at least they didn't drink cheap.Is there any wonder why this house sat on the market for 2 years in a hot real estate market and why I got it for substantially less than every house in the neighborhood? But boy did I have fun ripping it up putting it back together!