I told my father when I was 40, that he could have saved me an awful lot of anxiety in my youth if he had just told me that, to be successful in life, you don’t need to be stellar; All you have to do is be COMPETENT. Because it’s just THAT rare that it will always be worth money.
Quite good point and it's true. I am always telling myself, that I am waay below capabilities of some of my coworkers. I sometimes wonder why they don't fire me. I guess I am okay enough. In previous job, I was quite good, but due to health issues wasn't able to maintain normal 9 to 5 work schedule. When I decided to leave that job, they offered me money to stay, even though I wasn't physically able to. It's quite weird world, but perhaps everybody has issues and in general people accept somebody not being perfect.
@@IlusysSystems You may have been able to successfully complete "jobs" to a standard that many of the more able bodied could not attain. Therefore even with less production whatever you made didn't come back to be fixed???
@@psyience3213 I’ve been self employed for 40 years. It’s much better to be able to build your own reputation than have yours limited by the poor decisions of an employer. The only downside with being self employed is the boss can be a real slave driver, and he makes you sleep with him.
This happened when we were building a restaurant. It was on a beach so the entire wall facing the beach was glass. It was a 2 story building. The ground floor glass wall had steel 1.5" x 5" box tube with 1/2" wall supporting the floor above at the windlow sill. There were about 8 of these along the glass wall. Im mechanical plumbing/gas fitiing/refrig. At a site meeting I brought up my concern that the posts were insufficient to support the floor above. I was told to stay in my lane and concern myself with my part of the contract. I said I wanted it noted in the minutes. They begrudgingly put my concern in the minutes. I was the site foreman for the mechanical. About 3 days later they had 4 welders onsite welding on 1" plates to the sides of the posts. I found that interesting. I asked the welder foreman what was up as they were doing work onsite but had finished this area months ago. He said they recieved a work order to add these additions and that it is needed to be done immediately. Turns out they had miscalculated the lateral sheer load calculation when designing the loads. It was obvious to me. This is how accidents happen. No one is perfect. But if you see something weird, say something. I was still in the bad books with the site super as he had missed it and it made him look bad. Thats how people die. By not speaking up.
You did the absolute right thing my man. Any builder or supervisor worth their salt would appreciate some outside counsel and it may very well be that somebody in that meeting took it upon themselves to take a second look based on your observation, brought the engineer out, and got s*** fixed. Well done homie.
Lost a job to an out of town contractor. Turned out that the contract was for less than my material costs. Wonder where the fly-by-nighters bought their materials. (Three guesses and the first two don't count).
I was raised on a farm, at 8 years old my brother and I laid the wood in a jig and nailed them up to make rafters for a pole barn for cattle, we did ALL our own building, as an adult on exwifes family farm, we did all our own building, tool shed, garage, foundations for grain bins, I’ve remodeled two houses, and it’s basically learn as you go, making sure you do your own work properly, it’s pays off in the long run.
Same, but then that means buying one already built which will still have same issues just hidden where I wont see. I would build myself but states want licenses, permits, etc.. for you to do things on your own property. I can't wait until we have to ask our government for permission to spend our own money.
@scriptles If you buy a house that's 100 years old, at least you know that it has stood all that time. Ah But then something could have been rotten and worn out though.
@@FreedomTalkMedia That would be up to me to have inspected prior to buying. Things that are much easier to spot then a small 5 square inch area hidden behind things you cant see that cause a whole building to collapse. If you watched the video.. was a headache for them.. I was not wrong here. Also, rotting is a thing.. on those wood houses.. I live in a brick house and brick doesn't rot. But I mean fair point at least.
I was a framer for years. watching this video is like a nightmare that would have woken me up in a cold sweat. Cannot believe this thing actually exists
I have a 32-inch doorway with a 2x8 header (it's in a load-bearing wall) leading into the mechanical room in my basement. It looks more soundly built than the wall of windows in this "luxury" home!
I am a custom homebuilder, and I wanted to share a slightly different perspective. It’s amazing how many clients we do consultations with only to lose the project to a builder with little experience and bad reputation because people are cheap and want more house than they can afford. We’ve seen countless projects where we get called back in after the “budget” builder realizes he’s over his head. All these issues are fixable but it’s insane how many people fall for the slick tongued sales pitch of the Dunning Kruger Contractor that’s just as delusional as the homeowners. We’ve had five callbacks this year from Customer who hired the cheaper builder. Then they end up spending more than the original budget trying to get it back on the rails.
I'm not in the contractor business (I do mechanical design and manufacture in medical, aerospace, etc.), but to me these look like cheap materials, let alone the poor workmanship in their application. Do you have an opinion on the bowed studs, the OSB siding, the uneven gaps I noted in stud placement, etc.? It just seems so shoddy for such a large and (presumably) expensive house.
My wife’s a civil engineer and is held to a standard, when she does the design work for a project, of being +/- 10 (MAYBE 15) percent of final cost when she’s estimating. As homeowners, we worked with an architect last year who underestimated the project by close to 60% of what we were clear our budget was on a project we had estimated at close to $1m, which caused us to fire their design and building team and start over, losing $80k in design fees we’d paid out of pocket. It’s astounding how many architects and builders are bad at the estimation and communication part of their jobs.
@@karlkatzke this is 100% true! We are almost exclusively design build but virtually all projects we bid that were designed by architects are shocked at actual construction costs. In many cases it purposeful because the same architects do it over and over using outdated sq foot budgets.
@@davidg3944 it looks like they hired a track home framer to frame a moderately complicated home. Bowed studs happen as lumber dries in my hot humid climate in Florida. We dry in the house and run dehumidifiers to bring these issues forward before mechanicals and insulation. We always string the walls and ceilings and make adjustments by straightening, replacing and furring framing. We use Zip Systems for wall sheathing and roof decks. I don’t like house wrap and prefer fluid applied membranes for high risk areas and window pans.
Boss wants things done fast for the cheapest amount possible, so they can move onto the next job sooner to repeat the process. People can blame illegals, but until we actually discuss going after companies that run operations like this freely, it will continue. If not an illegal, it’s just going to be your local crackhead.
Anchor bolts were missing washers. The purpose of adding washers is for extra hold down strength and prevent the nut on the bolt from 'sinking' into the sill plate. As you can see in the video, many of those anchor bolt nuts were driven down below the top of the sill plate which also weakens their holding strength. A washer would've corrected that. It's the small things that contractors generally overlook that would make all the difference!
Yeah the washers are kind of the point of the whole thing. In one odd case I've even seen those bolts AND washers get ripped through the bottom plate. I worked at a bird rescue place and we had a big aviary get knocked over by the wind. It was a 10x40' building, about 15' walls, open frame with wire mesh. The rainwater apparently degraded the bottom plate enough that a wind storm was able to rip those bolts through through the wood - they were all still in the concrete with their washers on and the building was on it's side. Those were the standard washers that come with the wedge anchors. Maybe the big 3" square bearing plates that they're apparently requiring now might have prevented that.
More than likely, according to the intended build, this is in California, where, earthquake prevention is the reason for the torsion plates. I'm surprised the inspector didn't point out those missing washers. 😏
@@BENTandTWISTED I'm from California, now living in Texas. I do believe Corey was inspecting a Texas home as he's reference a few Texas cities at times where he's currently inspecting. However, you are correct with the seismic considerations of building a house to withstand that. In Texas, there are winds to be considered. Many may not realize that absent of one stress will always present another. Texas winds can be pretty fierce, especially during severe weather events. Wind stresses on a house not built to withstand those will result in a failure of that structure.
@@timestealr2967 interesting! Thanks for the info! I'm in Indiana, rebar isn't even used in footers for crawlspace built homes! It is used in slab built homes though.
Seeing those big tempered glass panes brought back a memory for me. I worked at Scripps networks in the early 2000's. At the time they had HGTV, DIY, Food Network, Travel Channel and GAC. I worked in Network Operations where we literally put those networks on the air. 24-7, 365 days a year. They had built us a brand new control room the year before. The center piece of the design were 2 boxes featuring tempered glass walls, where the monitoring and control of On-Air actually occurred. I was there one weekend working in an area near one of those boxes when I heard, what sounded like, a small muffled explosion. One of the corner pieces of glass had indeed exploded. The top 1/3 of the pane was missing and the rest was spider webbed. It was determined the building settled during the year post construction and put pressure on that pane until it was overloaded and it failed. So if that type of failure can occur in a commercially built building with steel framing etc.... I hate to think what would happen to all those windows in the house that you showed in this video with its substandard wood framing...
We don't live in a perfect world. Make provisions for that. Expect rare failures as the norm. It's all good. We're men not mice. No one wants to be held to a standard of absolute perfection.
This reminds me of a situation my sister and her husband ended up in. They bought a lot, bought blueprints and hired a contractor to build their house. Four months later they took a trip to see how it was coming along. The house was a CBS house and they were getting ready to put the roof trusses on. But my brother-in-law noticed that the walls didn’t look right. They looked like they were leaning out. The guy on site assured him they were fine. But later that day, after the worker left, he bought a level and went back. Not only were the walls leaning, but my sister went to move a left over block that was lying on the ground and it broke! My BIL then picked up a small rock and was able to easily knock a hole in one of the blocks in the wall. They took pictures and showed it to the builder’s representative (the builder had left town) and told him they would get a lawyer if he didn’t fix it. As it turned out, the builder was just hiring the lowest bidders for each phase of his builds. The Mason who got the contract was then subcontracting it again. The guy who actually did the work wasn’t licensed himself and was using the wrong kind of blocks. I didn’t even know there were different kinds of cinder blocks myself. Live and learn.
Man I would not have the nerves to be out of town while I had any builders doing anything for me. I would be looking everything over each night. Can't trust anyone with something you need to live in. Gotta check yourself.
Specialist contractors subbing out their own job is a big red flag, my dad did a big rebuild about a year ago and was not onsite enough for the first part. The roofer and his team of 4 fucked the dog so hard they ended up months behind schedule, until he finally subbed out to another team of just 2 guys then stopped showing up entirely. I was onsite a couple weeks after that and the new guys had already made a bunch of progress, but they pulled me aside to say they hadn't declared their hours because so much of the work they were doing was redoing what the first guy had done, and it wasn't right to let him continue to take our money and keep a cut. So that guy was fired right smartly after that, we worked something out with the new contractors, and spent a lot more time onsite after that. But jeez, you know you're a shyster when...
I saw one of those UA-cam shorts once, where a guy would take a cement block and toss it. It would explode upon impact with the ground. Then it cut to another clip, where a guy dumped a load of similar looking blocks out of a dump truck. Each one of them hit the ground perfectly fine. The blocks looked approximately identical but they were clearly structurally very different.
I bought an older home last year which was gut-job renovated 5 years ago and I'm finding little things here and there that the previous owners obviously did not catch during the process. One medium-ish thing was caught by the inspector during the buying process. Thank God the bones of the house are extremely solid from when it was built in the 1950s. A previous house I owned, which was built in the 90's had a strange rattling noise when the air conditioner came on upstairs. I opened up an air vent and there was a beer can in there. What kind of jerk does that? And while replacing light fixtures I found the builder didn't always put in electrical boxes. The wire was poking through the sheetrock and they just screwed the fixture into the sheetrock. Can you even imagine that level of work?
I live in a house that was a DYI built by a cheap, clueless guy. Everything is just done the cheapest, laziest way possible. My neighbor told me later that watching the process terrified him. The house is still standing and the structure seems ok but I just prepare myself anytime anything is installed or repaired. The first thing the person says us " wow... that's weird." Every single time.
Competence is underrated. I bought a house when I lived in UK, from a widow, whose hubbie’s, “brother was an electrician.” Oh. My. God. I hadn’t been in 48h before I replaced all 34 halogen bulbs because they’d melted the caps and wires, and kept tripping the lights. An external floodlight was full of water, kept tripping power, too: and the switched fused spur feeding it had been wired as a junction block so it was permanently live regardless of the apparent switch position (and therefore unfused, too?). The kitchen ring wasn’t, because one end was dangling loose (and live) inside the distribution board. They’d wired a double gang socket outlet in the meter cupboard using a lone length of 2.5mm twin and earth but must have overloaded it at some point because there was a consistent black trace all the way along the cable on the live conductor side. Not on the return - maybe they grounded it by mistake at some point? Those are just the highlights. I fixed everything I came across but I wasn’t ever brave enough to have it inspected…
@goatgirl5968 I’m in a similar situation. I’m the 4th owner of the house I’m living in. I’ve been here for 4 years now. All of my neighbors have lived in this development since it was built in the early 80’s. Anytime my neighbors see me working on something, one or more will stop by to tell me stories of what the 2nd and 3rd owners did to the house/property. It’s kind of humorous at times when more than one comes over at the same time. That’s when the good stories come out.
Same here man, my parents bought the house from a flipper and I'm surprised the house hasn't burnt down with all the horrible electrical problems. Not to mention any flood damage from the plumbing issues in the attic. Surprised some of the dry wall is still on the ceiling and walls, I see nails coming out all around the house, yeah they used nails not even the strong nails either. The back deck wasn't even made to support more than 5 lbs probably so we had to fix it ourselves and fix it right, that wasn't any fun.
@@arguedscarab7985 The cheap ass that flipped my house did such a bad job on the electrical, even the local fire department is familiar with it. Ive replaced most of everything he did. The plumbing was worse. He didnt even weld pvc correctly or pay for valves to turn off sections of the house. Ive had pipes burst just because of a bad weld. Fun times.
yeah like the tv dinner tray and beer can i found under my floorboards on top of the insulation. and the fact that my walls dont have any sheeting just vinyl sidling, foam board insulation, studs 2ft apart, and drywall. classic hold my beer im too drunk to build a real house type of builders worked on it.
The sad fact is they're not even bothering to make an effort at hiding things anymore. They just slap things up, throw in a few nails and expect the client and inspector to be fine with it. It's disgusting.
We did an addition five years ago in the Northeast. My wife grilled the bidders (the three top names in town). I am still in awe at the quality of the work. They had their own in-house framing crew and they had a roster of subs three deep. I came by one night and there was a retired guy from Maine putting in the landing … he said “Yeah, I’ll always help (the contractor) out if he’s stuck. IE, on-time, on-budget, good work
I'm in manufacturing. If I did work this shoddy, I'd not be in manufacturing for very long. That's a teardown and start over in my book, with a competent crew and architect.
@@creamwobbly Not true. Inspectors NEVER hold builders to account because nearly ALL inspectors are the DREGS of the industry who did not WANT to work and instead "work" a desk. I know several of said inspectors who all FAILED at being electricians or framers. They do not know $hit. And that which they do know they REFUSE to inspect. They have to actually show up to the jobsite, but inspect it? Oh hell no they do not. UNLESS you are an independent non union guy, then occasionally they inspect for real. Or they write up the jobsite to be fixed, assuming they inspect at all so they can say they "found" something and then sign off pretending the problem was actually fixed so they NEVER have to come back to the jobsite but can "LOG OUT" later(couple days later) and pretend they are "checking" on the "fix" while they are ACTUALLY at the Doughnut shop for 2 hours or getting a haricut.
I read complaints about picky inspectors, and that "I should be able to build what I want on my own property", but if this house is finished this way, soon there will be water leaks everywhere, cracks in walls as things settle, and in a windstorm parts of the place will become unstable. The faults may be covered up, but they will make themselves known. This house will have a short life. A thorough inspection by a qualified person is well worth the money!
I had friends that asked me about doinga renovation with no permits. I refused. Later they called me in desperation because they were hiring idiots who left them so they could attend summer music festivals. I asked if they had a permit. No. I refused
@@morninboy What about the client who says Oh I'm going to live here for 5 years then build another house.. (?) Let the next guy worry about that.. I feel sorry for whoever has to remove that HVAC unit from the attic...only a small access in a little closet..
@@michaeldowson6988 As long as it isn't a danger to others, I thing one should be able to build whater one wants. But the inspector is hired for onself to make shure the thing won't come down on oneself.
Love that you are just highlighting things that you want an engineer to look at - I've seen a bunch of 'inspectors' on youtube that are making engineering judgements on the fly and saying the builder was wrong.
Good for you for honoring their request to hold off on publishing the video. Some folks feel like their ownership of a camera gives them the right to put the entire world online.
Mostly, it does. Camera-person owns the copyright, unless there are other agreements in place. Invasion of privacy (pix of non-celebrities), trade secrets, trespass, etc might be the only thing to prevent that. Likely, this guy is taking video as work for hire / documentation for his clients, if he's smart - has agreement he can use his work product to advertise his services/make advertising revenue from. Smart to ask client for permission, so he keeps getting hired.
There are hints in the "doesn't want brackets in the living space" that somebody wanted that all glass minimal uprights look and somebody else didn't tell them they couldn't have it. I've encountered this in other areas of construction; "I don't care, I know what I want, just make it work". They can always find someone who will do it, and it's no surprise that the rest of the job might then be less than perfect.
This is a prime example of why municipalities need to employ, competent and accountable building inspectors. We have all heard the age old debate, people should be allowed to build the way they want on their own property. This is exactly why municipal Code Enforcement is so critical. A lot of these deficiencies will be covered up and hard to see. This becomes an issue when the homeowner decides to sell. People will argue. It’s up to the new buyer to get a home inspection, but a lot of these deficiencies will be impossible to locate without tearing the structure apart. This is why it is so important for municipalities to require thorough inspections throughout the construction process.
Hurricane Andrew went through south Florida a few decades back. Houses started coming apart (some houses had essentially been stapled together). I asked a friend who worked down there at the time about the building codes and she replied the codes were generally ok. They just weren't enforced. Folks down there were enraged about it and Florida cracked down. Now I see they have a problem with some of the older condos. But I would suspect I could find similar problems throughout the country.
I've had to fix hundreds of structural deficiencies in homes that were inspected by municipal inspectors through out the build. It is important to be educated about basic building principles and hire a competent private inspector to visit through the build.
I don't think the guy here wanted the builders to build how they want though. Codes are BS IMO. sure let's have inspectors to document what is built and do structural analysis. But don't tell me, that I need to have light switch at certain height, otherwise my permit is void. Writing from EU, just so you know. PS: I have well water now. I have done tests, there are some unspecified bacteria. I do sanitize the well, but not as much as you should, so there is still some bacteria there. But let me tell you, my shit was never so good in quality! I had some issues while I drank municipal water. Makes you think :D They are probably making the frogs gay as well:D PPS: yes, I am a bit drunk
@@pwhsbuild I agree with what you said, it is a good idea to hire an independent inspector if there is any question on the competency of your contractor or his crew. I also agree about the municipal inspectors. I do, however, feel it is very important to have municipal inspections throughout the building process, so they can catch stuff before it is covered up. Not so much of an issue protecting the homeowner having the work done, though that is important also. to me, it’s an issue of the unsuspecting future buyer, and the ability for a third-party inspector to find everything hidden at that point. And you are 100% correct there are a lot of municipal inspectors that are overworked or just don’t have the knowledge they need. I see this a lot in my industry as an excavation contractor. Most municipal inspectors have no clue what to look for. Some may be great at building construction inspection, but when it comes to foundations and earthwork, they just don’t know what they’re looking at. It is understandable, as I wouldn’t know what to look for inspecting framing, etc.. we have had these issues in my municipality. We have problems, retaining, and inspector. We only have one and he is overworked. He typically puts in a 15 hour day at an annual salary of just over $40,000. Fortunately he is very competent so he puts in the long hours to make sure the projects are inspected properly. Unfortunately, I don’t know how long he will last, he is fairly new. we have went through several recently after our long term inspector retired.
Their best move was discovering you when they did! Best of luck to them. You learn so much having a house built that you wish you'd known beforehand. We actually booted our contractor that was cutting corners and chewing up our money after each inspection forced him re-do foundation, framing, roof framing, so often that the city dragged the architect out to the site and forced him to redo plans just to solve problems created by the contractor not following the approved plans. This continued through the whole process including half-a&&ed work on the drywall, ceilings, flooring and molding work, turned out he was hiring subs that were hiring unlicensed subs. even 10 years later we're still dealing with those cut-corners & shaking our heads.
As an Architect (in Europe) I'm always amazed at the flimsyness of Balloonframe buildings, with very little margin in resilience, for a loosely dimensioned "design-on site" aproach. I guess good building practices and regulations mitigate most of the possible issues, but watching this video really lowered my expectation about contractors "expertise". That porch alone with a half capriate without any support in the middle or tensioning rod, with the very long main truss prone to bow outward...😬
Balloon framing two storey high is not allowed in Canada anymore probably not in the US either. If it's one and half stories high with lots of glass it has to be a moment frame especially windows close to corners. Windows can only be a certain percentage of a wall area in earthquake and wind areas.
@@jorglange2666 thats not true, ballon framing is actually preferred because it eliminates hinge issues. It just requires engineering, but many municipalities are requiring engineering now.
@@h2s-i9o There has been no balloon framing in over 50 years here in the PNW, it's all platform framing. I have only seen balloon framing in old houses when long lumber was available usually company towns and the houses were not well built, no headers, random layout, no plywood just shiplap wall and floor sheathing. I have some balloon framed walls in my own house to gain headroom upstairs in the roof. House is not inspected, it would have been an engineer but it's remote location with no building permit required.
@@jorglange2666 im sorry youre just wrong there are plenty of new ballon framed homes with fire blocking and second story floor assemblies ledgered into the feaming in the pnw. Ive worked on the late 1800 early 1900 ballon framed homes and reason why they were not built like that anymore was the let in ledger lackof fire blocking and sheet goods for prescriptive bracing. Many also were built on redwood tree foundations.
Back in the 90's, I worked for a company that all we did was go around fixing existing home's f**kups. Really bad ones! Our boss/owner would have the current copy of every building code applicable for the area under his arm in order to make the best estimate possible. We would lose more than 50% of our bids because 1.Customer wanted it fixed right away, or at least by next week (impossible.) 2. The cost to do the work correctly was astronomical (more often than not!) or 3. "How much to just make it look good"? In other words customer wanted out from under this place BADLY, and wanted to pass the misery on to the next sucker while paying as little as possible for the band-aids (Was not going to happen with our company. We had integrity! Like Holmes says "Do it once, do it eight!")
I'm always telling the family, maintenance is cheaper and faster than fixing. Do it right, maintain it, and all is good. Not just houses but in all aspects from cooking to computers, to cars, heck even the 'toys'.
reminds me of 'theater construction' like SEA huts. Bolts are not available so just use more nails.. Unfortunately many builders are lazy and will do the same even though they're easily available. Will last for a while until it doesn't..
They are some architect companies that offer "owner representation" services that will over sees the construction of custom homes from start to finish.
If I ever build a home again, I will be camped out at the site to observe EVERYTHING. Luckly I know enough about all aspects of building to know when something is not right. That said, the shottyness of the build in this video is simply mind blowing. You couldn't give me that home for free.
You missed the biggest issue with that chimney. They forgot the cricket water's just going to run up against the back of the chimney and right down into the house
I have been a union Carpenter for many years, went to school for three months, then served as apprentice for four years. I was trained to do the job I was paid to do. Like plumbers, other trades should be licensed. Some think being able to frame a wall and pound nails makes you a Carpenter. The truth is it is a trade with many skills that must be known. FIRST knowing how to read a blueprint with full understanding. If you can't do that, you can't do the job right. It is clear whoever framed that house never had any real training. I could only imagine those pocket doors in about three years LOL.
If you're in a union, instead of working in the real world, you only THINK you know what you're doing. If you were actually a skilled, productive worker, you'd be making WAY more money out in the real world. Unions are where the dregs go to hide out lest their lack of skill and productivity get discovered and they either get paid the low wage they deserve or just get outright fired for lying about their skill.
@@7779-c3m So true. Reminded me of a guy on a job I was running. He seriously came up to me and said no matter how many times I cut this its still too short 🙂 Aluminum framing. The stop to hold the glass in. He messed up an entire wall. A commercial project. I sent him home and asked the boss to send him to a different job.
@user-lk7zr5hm9y True, I was showing people how to read a ruler in college.. I guess a 16th of a inch did not make sense.. And that was in 1983...my God I can only imagine what its like now..
I don’t do this type of work. But as a site contractor I often get called to fix issues typically at around the 10 to 12 year post new construction. It is around this time improper excavation work starts to become apparent. Nine times out of 10 the site work was performed by the general contractor, or homeowner. Unfortunately A lot of people, including builders think of the site work process is just digging and moving dirt. Digging foundations with teeth, over digging sewer, pipe and backfilling under the over, digs, etc. these things and many others always come back years later as the ground settles. Maybe I’m biased because of my business but as far as I’m concerned what people do in my industry is the most critical part of the construction process. If the work we do isn’t correct, it doesn’t matter how well built the structure is on top.
@@markh.6687 no doubt there are many of them in my industry as well. I think a lot of times what happens is you have good equipment operators that go into business but they don’t have the actual engineering background. It’s not as critical on commercial jobs because there are engineered site plans to follow. and frequent municipal inspections. When you get into the residential excavation on many types of projects there are no permits required so there is no professional engineering done hence no inspections. The contractor may be very proficient at moving material and getting things to grade, but they don’t have the knowledge to design the project properly. In many cases, it is not nefarious. They think they are doing the right thing, but they aren’t. I do feel bad for the customers, but it does keep myself and a half dozen more quality local excavators busy redoing others work. It is pretty common in my area as we have poor ground conditions. A large lake, shallow, groundwater table, clay and silty soils, and lots of ledge rock. The homes surrounding our lake are on top of each other so what you do as far as grading on one lot will affect 20 other people. It is easy to create problems if you are not on top of your game.
Does your code allow under slab injection.... holes drilled and solid foam injected, computer controlled....to level up the house and fill any voids? It is expensive but beats tearing a concrete slab apart... and it works wonders in concrete floored warehouses to level out tilting floor areas........
Site work. We had a depression in our driveway. Was time to replace the driveway, a little early because no maintenance had been done for about 16 years. Anyway, take off the old asphalt, the depression was in the ground. The builder used a huge boulder as fill. It settled and sucked down the soil and driveway. Nice. And this was supposedly a 'high end home' when it was built. One of many shortcuts that the builder took found on the property. Luckily, none were major problems.
From a Brit who has only ever built with bricks and mortar, this is very interesting. Entirely different skill-set and vastly different load bearing issues in particular.
Sorry to see that yes call the lawyer the structure engineer and start over. That roof I have never seen it in my life as a carpenter and I have pretty much done everything. That picture alone will settle the lawsuit. Where are the washers for the a.b.’s and nobody uses nails in the hd’s anymore. There is so much to list that I saw in the video to even start.
This approaches tear down and start over by 4:30 The new builder is not going to want to take on the liability of the shoddy work by the original builder.
I totally agree, everything was done wrong. The roof will always leak, the walls are wrong, the rafters are wrong, this thing is a disaster top to bottom.
I’ve done a lot of teardown work in my main job, and it’s caused me to do that as a last resort in other areas now too. This isn’t a tear down necessarily, but it needs a double handful of modifications that the owners might not be happy with in order to not rot and leak. Austin, Texas is a humid climate with a lot of rotting and water issues on all planes of a structure.
Reminds me of a commercial OSS system i just inspected. Contractor made unapproved changes to the design and then backfilled things to try and hide it. Gave them a choice, dig it up and fix it or, the system will never be permitted and the violation letter will be sent to the local prosecutor for legal action. OSS contrator and general contractor together.
Absolutely, because chances are you would have attention to the details and care about the quality if you were building this yourself for yourself or your loved ones... these building firms do not give a toss, they throw it up asap and get paid. Then if there's a problem they disappear into the woodwork and the business get dissolved
As an electrical contractor doing commercial and industrial projects for 30 years with 25 of those years as an architectural and electrical engineer also, the past 10+ years has made me question how so many people get a contractors license. Not just builders, all trades! Good, "professional" contractors are out there, but few and far between.
Holy contractor nightmare. It's like someone hired guys from the Home Depot parking lot, gave them a set of plans and dropped them off to work unsupervised. These "framers" clearly had no experience. You can find excellent contractors that do framing but you have to pay them what they're worth and allow them to do their job the right way (which costs money).
Looks like my house. We had new windows and Hardy board siding put on about four years ago. We did the windows at the same time so they could be fully and properly installed under the siding. Then we had a bad hailstorm and there was roof damage, so insurance paid to have the full roof replaced. We had it done and it looked good. Then it rained. We’ve never had roof leaks in the 26 years we’d lived here, but we had them now. Both leaks were where a sloped roof meets a vertical wall upstairs (we have a cathedral ceiling in our living room and upstairs rooms over the kitchen/bathroom/bedroom downstairs. The leaks were in the ceiling where the cathedral ceiling meets an upstairs bedroom wall. The leaks were BAD, too. Water pouring in like from a faucet. We had a third-party inspector come take a look. There was no flashing along any of the places where the roof meets vertical walls…or around the chimney. The roof people claimed it wasn’t their fault because…well, they just said it wasn’t their fault. The inspector wrote a letter explaining the problem and saying that it WAS the roofers’ responsibility to install flashing. We passed that on to our attorney. We’re threatening a lawsuit if the roofers don’t come fix the roof. They came out and did something, but the next time it rained, we still had leaks. Guess it’ll be lawsuit time. Why are so many companies not doing the work right nowadays? Why won’t they stand behind the quality of their work and fix it if there’s a problem?
If the roofing company is hired by the insurance company, then they are either the lowest bid or someone in the roofing company know some management people in the insurance company. If you hire the guys yourself, then it is likely the insurance company gives an unrealistic quote and they will be losing money for doing the job properly. As far as "standing behind the quality of their works", it doesn't matter. Company affiliated with the insurance company will still get jobs. Company that doesn't will simply move on. Most people don't know inspector is a thing. Even if they did, they likely don't have enough disposable income to hire one. And who's to say they are not in cahoots with the roofing guys. Lastly most people placed negative trust in the court system, because it is a court system not a justice system.
Companies and people don't stand by the quality of their work or fix it if it's wrong, simply because they don't have to. That is the beauty of capitalism, and giving up government regulations to allow the private sector to control things. If they can get away with it, they absolutely will, and if it will make them more money they will do it every single time. It makes them more money to do it wrong and get paid again to fix it. If they get sued and lose they can dissolve their LLC and not have to pay anything. Even if there is a good inspector the companies will blackball them and blacklist them and do everything they can to ruin that inspector's reputation and stop them from doing their job (just look at Cy, it's only a matter of time before someone decides to just straight up end his life or career for doing his job correctly) and if a customer complains online they will just do everything to make the customer look bad and like it was somehow their fault and turn people against them, up to suing them, and people will still side with the companies or contractors. You have to realize this. The government hasn't made it too hard to make a profit by being bad. In fact, right now they can make so much more of a profit by doing a bad job that anyone who is doing a good job will just not be able to compete. If they can get away with it, they will. The only thing that would ever possibly stop them is that if they do even one house wrong they would lose their right to do business, and that will never happen.
When I'm going to hire out a job I do homework first. Research to find reasonable cost, how the job should be done, what are special requirements, e.g. flashing at seams on a roof. Then I'm a bit of a pain, always walking around checking out things as the job progresses and asking questions when I don't understand something. I'm not a jerk about it but I do this for 2 reasons. I want to make sure they know I'm watching and I want to learn from those who really know what they are doing.
It is because they hire Americans instead of immigrants. Americans can't do a job right, they are too lazy and take too many shortcuts so they can get back to drinking beer and watching TV. All they are good at it seems many times.
"Why are so many companies not doing the work right nowadays?" One word, MONEY. The person at the top is trying to make as much MONEY as they can, as fast as they can.
our 1978 house never disaapointsnin finding corners cut etc when doing projects. our 1995 house was, cheaply built, shortcuts takren owned a 1942 house. rock solid and quality all around sad to see the state of constrcution
The best house I bought out of three was 1947, extremely solid; it was my first. The next was 1979 and a bit flimsy. The current one was custom built and haven't discovered the shortcomings yet; I think I may not want to know. Used to be everyone valued quality and pride of workmanship. Now that's all gone and it's all about ripping off everyone for the greatest profit possible, even in health care. Nothing is quality anymore.
@@darknes7800 I disagree.. skilled carpenters are not longer building houses, it's mostly men on drugs and illegals that can barely speak English, both of which have no clue what they are doing!!
Guy I knew bought a house. Years later he went to have new windows installed. Installers found some of the old windows weren't even nailed at the flanges properly. Thinks they were rushed to get them out of taxable material inventory, then forgotten about before house was sided. I bought a house built in '41...I have REAL 2 x 4's, not the new stuff that's allowed by code and the industry. Unfortunately it also lacks any insulation between the layers of brick that are structural, not ornamental, and the house isn't worth enough to have foam blown in the gap between layers of brick.
I used to hear tradesmen say, "You can't see the mistakes at 55 mph in the rearview mirror." Many would just do anything it took to meet a deadline for a draw on the job, leaving the contractor to cleanup their mess. It puts the contractor in a tough spot because a lot of times these subcontractors have families and their employees have families and they will go without unless they get their draw, but some subcontractors once they are paid will ghost the contractor. My family owned a construction company for seventy years.
This is why we NEED harsh regulation and licensing requirements for home builders... this is a nationwide problem, where builders just don't care about anything, so the regulations have to be Federal not state by state.
The true fact that should scare the shit out of everyone, this shit is more common in a lot of builders. You can go into any tract house and find serious mistakes.
I just finished an owner builder 3100sqf home. If I wouldn’t be a fairly experienced DIY and spent tons of time onsite it would end up a disaster and eventually in court. I spent countless of hours fixing shoddy work from different subs before drywall went up.
A friend hired a builder whose sole job it was to fully frame up the house. My friend welded up the steel 15 metre ridge I beam with the legs going down in each corner of the main room of the house.... the footings for the beam legs were cubic metre solid concrete founds that were reinforced and monolithic poured along with the reinforced concrete floor and foundation footings.... Every night he and his wife worked putting in the extra dwangs etc. that they wanted to reinforce the 6x2 timber studs in the exterior walls... The whole house was sheathed in PT plywood..... so if the bricks of the exterior decorative cladding fell off the house remained totally watertight. It all rode out a 6.8 earthquake with 12 metres of ceiling drywall seam cracking... requiring a rake, stop, and repaint ... as the only damage.
Casey, this is the first of your videos I've seen, and it was informative and terrific. And, of course, a little bit frightening, too. Caveat emptor, indeed. Well done!
Where I live in Fl and Caribbean I have block and concrete homes. The carib home doesn't have any plaster board or interior wood framing.or wood flooring. Solid built.
Hey Corey, one factor here with those picture windows is that if they're not sufficiently supported with deflecting load bearings, over time and due to load bearing stresses, the glass will fracture, crack and even shatter. Where beam support is lacking due to large windows, the contractor needs to 'beef up' the load bearing in order to offset that future disaster. Great work, sir!
I’m betting someone (the client) changed the size of the windows without consulting with the architect making it impossible to frame those walls correctly. I hope the builder got written change orders for all the things the client changed from the approved plans!
@@STEVE-lk2ft Well, not only that, the GC abandoned the job, so whomever is hired to complete it will have to correct all the errors with this build. That can add thousands of dollars to the overall contract cost! This is why if you're going to do a 'custom home' build get a very reliable and bonded GC!
@@timestealr2967 my experience as a home builder for 40 years makes me think me the client made changes and is totally responsible. The roof and the walls with the windows could not have been on the approved plans. Someone made changes as the home was being framed and I can’t understand why the contractor would make those changes.
Love this. Walking around and critiquing a worksites. What's great is, before the mistakes get sealed in, you took a look. Be interesting to see how you fix it. What can't be fixed? When I was a teenager, back around 1970, my dad had a job that included some concrete work. I don't even remember at the moment the details of that job. I'll never forget that Pete Argenta and his cousin Julio were working with us that day. Pete was a concrete wizard. So we sit down for lunch, take out our sandwiches and Pete suddenly says, "Com'on, com'on we don't have much time!" Okay..... we get in the truck Julio and me in the back, Pete drives about a quarter of a mile to a new neighborhood under construction. Parks like he's an EMT, we rush around the framed out house to the back. We then spent probably less than half an hour, rushing house to house. "Oh my God! Look at this! The load was about to go off, so they just added a bunch of water..... " Next place, "They skimmed this too much! that surface is going to start flaking off after a couple of winters" I learned a lot about concrete in that half hour. Never forgot Pete. The last time I saw him, we went over to his new house. He was laying the cinder blocks for his basement wall. He was apologizing for not knowing what he was doing. "I've never laid block before." Looked great. And the oversized vent for the washing machine hook up? Air is 800 time less dense than water, so you don't need a vent that big. And it's not in the code, but if you really needed that sized vent, but didn't want to compromise those studs? Physics, but maybe not the building code says, just constrict it with a smaller pipe size at each stud. And here's a tip. If you'd like to be remembered, be a bit over the top. Another character was Old Man Joe. He was a carpenter, always said things like, "Do that, do that, do that." and when it got done? "Dey you iz." When my dad got a sporty British sports car cap, Pete smashed an over ripe cantaloupe on it, of course while my dad was wearing it. I don't think my dad wore that cap for more than a week, the cantaloupe ended it, and made it immortal.
If you're going to go to the expense of building something like this I don't understand why more people don't suck it up and put some steel beams and supports instead of all these toothpicks.
They are gonna hafta add some steel in to deal with these without starting over. Imagine this contractor"s cavalier disregard for plans on a steel job. I cant, im too amateur. Scary.
A friend hired a builder whose sole job it was to fully frame up the house. My friend welded up the steel 15 metre ridge I beam with the legs going down in each corner of the main room of the house.... the footings for the beam legs were cubic metre solid concrete founds that were reinforced and monolithic poured along with the reinforced concrete floor and foundation footings.... Every night he and his wife worked putting in the extra dwangs etc. that they wanted to reinforce the 6x2 timber studs in the exterior walls... The whole house was sheathed in PT plywood..... so if the bricks of the exterior decorative cladding fell off the house remained totally watertight. It all rode out a 6.8 earthquake with 12 metres of ceiling drywall seam cracking... requiring a rake, stop, and repaint ... as the only damage.
With all that glass, it's a shame to have posts/studs in the corners. If steel was used, those corners could be cantalievered they could have glass-glass in the corners. The difference is amazing.
@@stringlarson1247 I'm a welder and I second that opinion! These big atrium like spaces are the perfect spot for quality precision steelwork, super strong, light in appearance, can be painted any way you like, just use the timber for accent, not load bearing.
The worst would be the clause they all try to insert which says the contract is null and void if the owner or any other person (other than local council inspector) enters the property to inspect it at any time before handover......
Thank you so much for holding the powers that be accountable. This house looks unacceptable. Here in Phoenix a home inspector with a popular UA-cam channel just won his case against the builders, the company took him to court saying he shouldn't be able to make videos about his inspections but the court sided with him!
Where I build in Canada, that house would be condemned and torn down. The problem is not only the builder, who I admit should take up a different career, but the designer. All that structure around the glass should be steel, engineered to be fully integrated with the foundation.
The real scary thing about this level of imcompatance is when it's combined with an over stressed building dept and I find it on my projects. I've been a remodel carpenter by trade for 38 years. Like I always tell the clients, we can never know for sure until we open things up.
My wife and I had to finish the house we are in. The first builder stole our $ and used it to finish a bunch of specs he was building and the second builder abandoned the job after spending his initial draw money on a new truck and falling 6 months behind because he ran out of money to keep the job going. Go figure. My wife and I jumped in and had to re-frame the entire second floor and made numerous repairs to the faulty foundation and first floor and basement framing. We took thousands, yes, THOUSANDS. of pictures and recorded video of all of the defects, ommissions, and sub-standard work and material. We successfully sued the first builder but didn't bother suing the second builder because he was broke and would never have satisfied a judgment. Fortunately, my wife and I are knowledgeable and competent builders. We were so excited to be able to hire what we thought was a reputable builder but will probably never hire another builder. We have at least one, if not two houses, to go before we die.....
@janofb We had a construction loan. The first builder steamrolled right over the lady who was overseeing the job. I took over after they took us/the bank for about $86 K.
@@philmorel1363 possibly, it works on lots of applications, usually there’s some kind of lateral tie on the outside wall/beam horizontally But good suggestion.
It might be done other ways, but there's a lot wrong with how it was done. It looks like the secondary roof framing is actually holding up those outboard rafters, and when the roofing is on and everything settles they'll have some issues.
It is glaringly apparent there was no framing inspection. You don’t apply roofing, rough plumbing and hvac and termite treatment until you get the framing and fire stops signed off. A chef could see the glass walls are not correct. The owner will be lucky if they can find another builder willing to take on this project.
Fire stops? To my knowledge (in the areas where I have lived and owned houses) fire stops between framing studs stopped being used more than fifty years ago. These days the insulation acts as a fire stop.
@@avsystem3142 You wouldn’t get your framing signed off in the town I live. Every penetration between floors or fire rated walls better be sealed with Flame Safe caulk. Our inspector tugs on the romex at random to make sure you packed the hole. Stops between studs are called blocking, purlins or cats. They are mostly blocking to strengthen load bearing walls, not for fire stops. The bottom and top plate prevent air flow in stud cavities. Stud blocking was used in the 1920’s era as fire stopping because balloon construction was utilized. Balloon construction is no longer legal anywhere.
All of those issues are serious but can be addressed without spending gobs of money doing it. The outside beams that were cut and unsupported could be made whole using a custom bracket with thru bolts holding it together...it would add to the modern element of the home. The foundation ties are fixable...just going to need a lot of holes drilled and tapped into the pad...use an epoxy to set the new bolts. Engineer will probably call for more, just to make up the difference. the glass will need to be supported ...which means many of the floor sized glass panels will have to come out and moved down the wall, especially in the one bedroom. That corner post will need a Simpson tie on either side after being packed out. As a builder I can't believe someone would do much of what this idiot did and think it was alright. I wonder if money played a part in his decision making...as he cut a shit ton of corners...no pun intended. Why would anyone in this day and age build a house using 2x4's? Even with a blown in foam like Icynene, they won't get the needed R-value in them.
@@davidg3944 I could make that design work but the way it’s put together doesn’t; the header and hanging methods aren’t even close to sized for that load.
Builder here. So I built a nice house recently and I had to be on the jobsite every single day. I could tell the subcontractors exactly what to do, show them, and walk off only to come back and have to show two new guys what to do. Every single day there would be new guys working that had zero knowledge of what I told the previous guys. The main sub-contractor rarely showed up. Many of these crews are made of immigrants that work for pretty cheap and are picked up from the Homedepot parking lot each day, or bounce around to six different jobs/crews. I don't have a problem with immigrants. They are hard workers. The issue is with the sub-contractor that isn't training anyone. I came to the job one day to find them walking on a 20' 2x4 eighteen feet up in the air as they framed the vaulted living room ceiling. No way. No one is dying or getting mangled just because of ridiculous stuff like that. Also, if you hire a builder he better be there every day and should be constantly fixing things and be knowledgeable enough to build a whole house by himself. That was my job. Come and fix and redo everything that wasn't quite right. Know the codes. Know the design from start to finish and how to execute it.
4:33 WOW, just WOW!!! Carpenter ex builder for 35 years I've NEVER SEEN Beams so mistreated...Those cuts are pathetic the end one is split...smh...I've seen some bad stuff you've shown but, between the roof, etc But this one is brutal..
Tradesmen used to be tested and policed by their unions. Now that we "don't need" unions, you are on your own. Most contractor licensing is just a paper test you can study for. Now every guy with a saw and a hammer is a framer or carpenter and people just shop for the cheapest, and get what they pay for.
If you REALLY want to have some fun when looking for any kind of construction/remodeling contractor, tell them up front you'll need copies of their General Liability and Workman's Comp insurance policy Certificates of Coverage, and that you verify coverage with the issuer of those certificates. If they balk, they're likely not insured, which would leave you holding the bag in the event one their workers gets hurt on the job. Don't depend on the city/county/State or whatever licensing process to make sure of that insurance coverage.
Unions are largely at fault for stuff like this now. Often they will shield bad workers and just shuffle them around to keep them employed when they really shouldnt be. Or if its like the umpire union for MLB they just do nothing because they know nobody can really do anything about it. Or rather, the people who _can_ do something about it choose not to because they are in on it.
Have to say most of the unions didn't do a good job of self policing either. One summer (back around 1980, when unions still had power) I worked with my dad as independents fixing Electrical Union work in a newly built convention center building. Wires had been strand twisted together, and left that way. (not even capped in many cases) Lighting fixtures that were supposed to have a plug and socket set up... directly wired and badly done at that. Had to work 'hot' as the contractor had miswired the main with the other buildings, (there was a central electrical building for the complex) and could not cut the power in the one building without shutting down the entire complex. (Yeah, they messed up the main electrical cabinets as well, we didn't have clearance for that) That was union work. No better and no worse than I have seen by non-union. If there isn't constant outside oversight, you will always get this kind of garbage. The only difference is, the union guy could afford to buy a sandwich after work, the non-union can't. Just gotta remember, the union and non-union contractors are hiring from the same pool of workers that contain a large amount of lazy, incompetent people. And neither one actually cares about quality, just how much money they will have at the end. If you want bad building practices fixed, an inspector on-site at all times is the only possible solution. And not a good one as likely that position will quickly be filled with people willing to take bribes.
I clicked for the analysis but I'm subscribing for the joy at finding an owl pellet, seeing what the stealthbirbs eat is always fun! (also I'm only on the construction side of youtube because I like to make my drawings and minecraft builds look slick, but your job and the adjacent jobs all sound fascinating.)
I feel sorry for this inspector after watching 3 of his videos I wonder who is building houses in Texas. I would be scared to buy a house in this area.
Wow! I am not a professional builder but have done my share of cobbling stuff together. This building is a disaster waiting to happen. Finding good, competent help these days is next to impossible.
I think some of that you don’t need to worry about. But other things are certainly insignificant and are going to have to be remedied. I certainly believe everyone should go over every phase of the job and hopefully you have a contractor who can explain what is going on and will work with you to make it right. I try on every job I work on to point out things I come across. In remodeling, you do find things other than what you’ve been hired to do . Sometimes people think you’re trying to add money to the job and get pissed. But you absolutely need to explain it so everyone is on the same page. It’s tough but for safety and quality everyone must work together.
I told my father when I was 40, that he could have saved me an awful lot of anxiety in my youth if he had just told me that, to be successful in life, you don’t need to be stellar; All you have to do is be COMPETENT. Because it’s just THAT rare that it will always be worth money.
Quite good point and it's true. I am always telling myself, that I am waay below capabilities of some of my coworkers. I sometimes wonder why they don't fire me. I guess I am okay enough. In previous job, I was quite good, but due to health issues wasn't able to maintain normal 9 to 5 work schedule. When I decided to leave that job, they offered me money to stay, even though I wasn't physically able to. It's quite weird world, but perhaps everybody has issues and in general people accept somebody not being perfect.
@@IlusysSystems
You may have been able to successfully complete "jobs" to a standard that many of the more able bodied could not attain.
Therefore even with less production whatever you made didn't come back to be fixed???
It's true. I've realized this that's why I'm starting my own business. After working so many fucking hacks that suck I know I can do better.
@@psyience3213 I’ve been self employed for 40 years. It’s much better to be able to build your own reputation than have yours limited by the poor decisions of an employer. The only downside with being self employed is the boss can be a real slave driver, and he makes you sleep with him.
No, in our society we favor confidence over competence, which is why most people at the top are total idiots.🤦♀🤦♀
This happened when we were building a restaurant. It was on a beach so the entire wall facing the beach was glass. It was a 2 story building. The ground floor glass wall had steel 1.5" x 5" box tube with 1/2" wall supporting the floor above at the windlow sill. There were about 8 of these along the glass wall. Im mechanical plumbing/gas fitiing/refrig. At a site meeting I brought up my concern that the posts were insufficient to support the floor above. I was told to stay in my lane and concern myself with my part of the contract. I said I wanted it noted in the minutes. They begrudgingly put my concern in the minutes. I was the site foreman for the mechanical. About 3 days later they had 4 welders onsite welding on 1" plates to the sides of the posts. I found that interesting. I asked the welder foreman what was up as they were doing work onsite but had finished this area months ago. He said they recieved a work order to add these additions and that it is needed to be done immediately. Turns out they had miscalculated the lateral sheer load calculation when designing the loads. It was obvious to me. This is how accidents happen. No one is perfect. But if you see something weird, say something. I was still in the bad books with the site super as he had missed it and it made him look bad. Thats how people die. By not speaking up.
You did the absolute right thing my man. Any builder or supervisor worth their salt would appreciate some outside counsel and it may very well be that somebody in that meeting took it upon themselves to take a second look based on your observation, brought the engineer out, and got s*** fixed. Well done homie.
Wow buddy you're so amazing.
Ego almost messed up that situation.
And that's why you have someone calculate the loads and weight distributions
At least someone did the recalc. Egos are such a pain. We all have them but learning to check them is a skill that saves lives.
In construction, you never get what you expect, you only get what you inspect.
I have to use that one .
That's the best quote I have heard of 2024 xD
This is broadly true for any form of manufacturing: testing is required for quality.
Lost a job to an out of town contractor. Turned out that the contract was for less than my material costs. Wonder where the fly-by-nighters bought their materials. (Three guesses and the first two don't count).
I was raised on a farm, at 8 years old my brother and I laid the wood in a jig and nailed them up to make rafters for a pole barn for cattle, we did ALL our own building, as an adult on exwifes family farm, we did all our own building, tool shed, garage, foundations for grain bins, I’ve remodeled two houses, and it’s basically learn as you go, making sure you do your own work properly, it’s pays off in the long run.
Damn dude...3 mins in and you have convinced me to never let other people build anything for me.
i suddenly feel fortunate that i will never be in a position to build a custom home.
Same, but then that means buying one already built which will still have same issues just hidden where I wont see. I would build myself but states want licenses, permits, etc.. for you to do things on your own property. I can't wait until we have to ask our government for permission to spend our own money.
Yup.
@scriptles
If you buy a house that's 100 years old, at least you know that it has stood all that time. Ah But then something could have been rotten and worn out though.
@@FreedomTalkMedia That would be up to me to have inspected prior to buying. Things that are much easier to spot then a small 5 square inch area hidden behind things you cant see that cause a whole building to collapse.
If you watched the video.. was a headache for them.. I was not wrong here.
Also, rotting is a thing.. on those wood houses.. I live in a brick house and brick doesn't rot.
But I mean fair point at least.
I was a framer for years. watching this video is like a nightmare that would have woken me up in a cold sweat. Cannot believe this thing actually exists
I have a 32-inch doorway with a 2x8 header (it's in a load-bearing wall) leading into the mechanical room in my basement.
It looks more soundly built than the wall of windows in this "luxury" home!
Hard to imagine it is still standing. My parents' home was built in 1922. You can see the floor joists on the basement ceiling - massive!
It exists… but likely not for long.
I'd expect anyone that did high school shop to do better than this job
Houses used to be built by Americans to American standards. Now they're built by South Americans to South American standards.
I am a custom homebuilder, and I wanted to share a slightly different perspective. It’s amazing how many clients we do consultations with only to lose the project to a builder with little experience and bad reputation because people are cheap and want more house than they can afford. We’ve seen countless projects where we get called back in after the “budget” builder realizes he’s over his head. All these issues are fixable but it’s insane how many people fall for the slick tongued sales pitch of the Dunning Kruger Contractor that’s just as delusional as the homeowners.
We’ve had five callbacks this year from Customer who hired the cheaper builder. Then they end up spending more than the original budget trying to get it back on the rails.
I'm not in the contractor business (I do mechanical design and manufacture in medical, aerospace, etc.), but to me these look like cheap materials, let alone the poor workmanship in their application. Do you have an opinion on the bowed studs, the OSB siding, the uneven gaps I noted in stud placement, etc.? It just seems so shoddy for such a large and (presumably) expensive house.
My wife’s a civil engineer and is held to a standard, when she does the design work for a project, of being +/- 10 (MAYBE 15) percent of final cost when she’s estimating. As homeowners, we worked with an architect last year who underestimated the project by close to 60% of what we were clear our budget was on a project we had estimated at close to $1m, which caused us to fire their design and building team and start over, losing $80k in design fees we’d paid out of pocket. It’s astounding how many architects and builders are bad at the estimation and communication part of their jobs.
@@karlkatzke this is 100% true! We are almost exclusively design build but virtually all projects we bid that were designed by architects are shocked at actual construction costs. In many cases it purposeful because the same architects do it over and over using outdated sq foot budgets.
@@davidg3944 it looks like they hired a track home framer to frame a moderately complicated home. Bowed studs happen as lumber dries in my hot humid climate in Florida. We dry in the house and run dehumidifiers to bring these issues forward before mechanicals and insulation.
We always string the walls and ceilings and make adjustments by straightening, replacing and furring framing.
We use Zip Systems for wall sheathing and roof decks. I don’t like house wrap and prefer fluid applied membranes for high risk areas and window pans.
@@thebullgator Thanks, it's good to get informed by people in the business.
The incompetence everywhere in all trades is staggering.
Not really. We have them competing an awful lot with illegal immigrants. Wages are down, meaning there is less time for quality work.
It seems there’s no more pride in your work anymore.
The root problem of everything is that the working class has no money because the capitalist class has it all.
Before the government destroyed them the unions helped control quality .
Boss wants things done fast for the cheapest amount possible, so they can move onto the next job sooner to repeat the process. People can blame illegals, but until we actually discuss going after companies that run operations like this freely, it will continue. If not an illegal, it’s just going to be your local crackhead.
Anchor bolts were missing washers. The purpose of adding washers is for extra hold down strength and prevent the nut on the bolt from 'sinking' into the sill plate. As you can see in the video, many of those anchor bolt nuts were driven down below the top of the sill plate which also weakens their holding strength. A washer would've corrected that.
It's the small things that contractors generally overlook that would make all the difference!
Yeah the washers are kind of the point of the whole thing. In one odd case I've even seen those bolts AND washers get ripped through the bottom plate. I worked at a bird rescue place and we had a big aviary get knocked over by the wind. It was a 10x40' building, about 15' walls, open frame with wire mesh. The rainwater apparently degraded the bottom plate enough that a wind storm was able to rip those bolts through through the wood - they were all still in the concrete with their washers on and the building was on it's side. Those were the standard washers that come with the wedge anchors. Maybe the big 3" square bearing plates that they're apparently requiring now might have prevented that.
It is amazing what just 10 more minutes of effort in your day make / determine if u are a craftsman or a knuckle buster.
More than likely, according to the intended build, this is in California, where, earthquake prevention is the reason for the torsion plates. I'm surprised the inspector didn't point out those missing washers. 😏
@@BENTandTWISTED I'm from California, now living in Texas. I do believe Corey was inspecting a Texas home as he's reference a few Texas cities at times where he's currently inspecting.
However, you are correct with the seismic considerations of building a house to withstand that. In Texas, there are winds to be considered. Many may not realize that absent of one stress will always present another. Texas winds can be pretty fierce, especially during severe weather events. Wind stresses on a house not built to withstand those will result in a failure of that structure.
@@timestealr2967 interesting! Thanks for the info! I'm in Indiana, rebar isn't even used in footers for crawlspace built homes! It is used in slab built homes though.
Seeing those big tempered glass panes brought back a memory for me. I worked at Scripps networks in the early 2000's. At the time they had HGTV, DIY, Food Network, Travel Channel and GAC. I worked in Network Operations where we literally put those networks on the air. 24-7, 365 days a year. They had built us a brand new control room the year before. The center piece of the design were 2 boxes featuring tempered glass walls, where the monitoring and control of On-Air actually occurred. I was there one weekend working in an area near one of those boxes when I heard, what sounded like, a small muffled explosion. One of the corner pieces of glass had indeed exploded. The top 1/3 of the pane was missing and the rest was spider webbed. It was determined the building settled during the year post construction and put pressure on that pane until it was overloaded and it failed. So if that type of failure can occur in a commercially built building with steel framing etc.... I hate to think what would happen to all those windows in the house that you showed in this video with its substandard wood framing...
We don't live in a perfect world. Make provisions for that. Expect rare failures as the norm. It's all good. We're men not mice. No one wants to be held to a standard of absolute perfection.
I like the excitement at knowing what an owl pellet is and that it can be dissected for the kiddos.
Poop
This reminds me of a situation my sister and her husband ended up in. They bought a lot, bought blueprints and hired a contractor to build their house. Four months later they took a trip to see how it was coming along. The house was a CBS house and they were getting ready to put the roof trusses on. But my brother-in-law noticed that the walls didn’t look right. They looked like they were leaning out. The guy on site assured him they were fine. But later that day, after the worker left, he bought a level and went back. Not only were the walls leaning, but my sister went to move a left over block that was lying on the ground and it broke! My BIL then picked up a small rock and was able to easily knock a hole in one of the blocks in the wall.
They took pictures and showed it to the builder’s representative (the builder had left town) and told him they would get a lawyer if he didn’t fix it.
As it turned out, the builder was just hiring the lowest bidders for each phase of his builds. The Mason who got the contract was then subcontracting it again. The guy who actually did the work wasn’t licensed himself and was using the wrong kind of blocks. I didn’t even know there were different kinds of cinder blocks myself. Live and learn.
Man I would not have the nerves to be out of town while I had any builders doing anything for me. I would be looking everything over each night. Can't trust anyone with something you need to live in. Gotta check yourself.
Specialist contractors subbing out their own job is a big red flag, my dad did a big rebuild about a year ago and was not onsite enough for the first part. The roofer and his team of 4 fucked the dog so hard they ended up months behind schedule, until he finally subbed out to another team of just 2 guys then stopped showing up entirely. I was onsite a couple weeks after that and the new guys had already made a bunch of progress, but they pulled me aside to say they hadn't declared their hours because so much of the work they were doing was redoing what the first guy had done, and it wasn't right to let him continue to take our money and keep a cut. So that guy was fired right smartly after that, we worked something out with the new contractors, and spent a lot more time onsite after that. But jeez, you know you're a shyster when...
I saw one of those UA-cam shorts once, where a guy would take a cement block and toss it. It would explode upon impact with the ground. Then it cut to another clip, where a guy dumped a load of similar looking blocks out of a dump truck. Each one of them hit the ground perfectly fine. The blocks looked approximately identical but they were clearly structurally very different.
I bought an older home last year which was gut-job renovated 5 years ago and I'm finding little things here and there that the previous owners obviously did not catch during the process. One medium-ish thing was caught by the inspector during the buying process. Thank God the bones of the house are extremely solid from when it was built in the 1950s. A previous house I owned, which was built in the 90's had a strange rattling noise when the air conditioner came on upstairs. I opened up an air vent and there was a beer can in there. What kind of jerk does that? And while replacing light fixtures I found the builder didn't always put in electrical boxes. The wire was poking through the sheetrock and they just screwed the fixture into the sheetrock. Can you even imagine that level of work?
@@jm7804 That's insane.
I live in a house that was a DYI built by a cheap, clueless guy. Everything is just done the cheapest, laziest way possible. My neighbor told me later that watching the process terrified him. The house is still standing and the structure seems ok but I just prepare myself anytime anything is installed or repaired. The first thing the person says us " wow... that's weird." Every single time.
Competence is underrated. I bought a house when I lived in UK, from a widow, whose hubbie’s, “brother was an electrician.” Oh. My. God. I hadn’t been in 48h before I replaced all 34 halogen bulbs because they’d melted the caps and wires, and kept tripping the lights. An external floodlight was full of water, kept tripping power, too: and the switched fused spur feeding it had been wired as a junction block so it was permanently live regardless of the apparent switch position (and therefore unfused, too?). The kitchen ring wasn’t, because one end was dangling loose (and live) inside the distribution board. They’d wired a double gang socket outlet in the meter cupboard using a lone length of 2.5mm twin and earth but must have overloaded it at some point because there was a consistent black trace all the way along the cable on the live conductor side. Not on the return - maybe they grounded it by mistake at some point? Those are just the highlights. I fixed everything I came across but I wasn’t ever brave enough to have it inspected…
"DYI built by a cheap, clueless"
Tell your story to those opposing any building codes and regulations.
@goatgirl5968 I’m in a similar situation. I’m the 4th owner of the house I’m living in. I’ve been here for 4 years now. All of my neighbors have lived in this development since it was built in the early 80’s.
Anytime my neighbors see me working on something, one or more will stop by to tell me stories of what the 2nd and 3rd owners did to the house/property. It’s kind of humorous at times when more than one comes over at the same time. That’s when the good stories come out.
Same here man, my parents bought the house from a flipper and I'm surprised the house hasn't burnt down with all the horrible electrical problems. Not to mention any flood damage from the plumbing issues in the attic. Surprised some of the dry wall is still on the ceiling and walls, I see nails coming out all around the house, yeah they used nails not even the strong nails either. The back deck wasn't even made to support more than 5 lbs probably so we had to fix it ourselves and fix it right, that wasn't any fun.
@@arguedscarab7985 The cheap ass that flipped my house did such a bad job on the electrical, even the local fire department is familiar with it. Ive replaced most of everything he did. The plumbing was worse. He didnt even weld pvc correctly or pay for valves to turn off sections of the house. Ive had pipes burst just because of a bad weld. Fun times.
After going through several builds, I've learned a valuable lesson.... If they can hide it, the will hide it...
yeah like the tv dinner tray and beer can i found under my floorboards on top of the insulation.
and the fact that my walls dont have any sheeting just vinyl sidling, foam board insulation, studs 2ft apart, and drywall. classic hold my beer im too drunk to build a real house type of builders worked on it.
The sad fact is they're not even bothering to make an effort at hiding things anymore. They just slap things up, throw in a few nails and expect the client and inspector to be fine with it. It's disgusting.
@@Implied_Confessions except the inspector usually IS fine with it... because he cbf either!
I hide my salami every chance I get!
@@Implied_Confessions The old slap and throw trick, eh?
I’m as General as General gets at being a Jack of all trades, Master of None. Holy shit that house scares me.
Love the excitement over the owl pellet haha.
We did an addition five years ago in the Northeast. My wife grilled the bidders (the three top names in town). I am still in awe at the quality of the work. They had their own in-house framing crew and they had a roster of subs three deep. I came by one night and there was a retired guy from Maine putting in the landing … he said “Yeah, I’ll always help (the contractor) out if he’s stuck. IE, on-time, on-budget, good work
I'm in manufacturing. If I did work this shoddy, I'd not be in manufacturing for very long. That's a teardown and start over in my book, with a competent crew and architect.
Nah, a good crew could fix it pretty easy, it would just take a bit of extra time and probably some engineering changes.
Yea that's a horrible "solution" it's good you're in a different field
Architect is not the problem(usually). Builders who refuse to follow the architects instructions to save $$$ ARE 100% the problem.
@@creamwobbly Not true. Inspectors NEVER hold builders to account because nearly ALL inspectors are the DREGS of the industry who did not WANT to work and instead "work" a desk. I know several of said inspectors who all FAILED at being electricians or framers. They do not know $hit. And that which they do know they REFUSE to inspect. They have to actually show up to the jobsite, but inspect it? Oh hell no they do not. UNLESS you are an independent non union guy, then occasionally they inspect for real. Or they write up the jobsite to be fixed, assuming they inspect at all so they can say they "found" something and then sign off pretending the problem was actually fixed so they NEVER have to come back to the jobsite but can "LOG OUT" later(couple days later) and pretend they are "checking" on the "fix" while they are ACTUALLY at the Doughnut shop for 2 hours or getting a haricut.
I’m a framing contractor- there was a lot of mistakes by the carpenters but it’s all easily corrected.
DONT TEAR IT DOWN!!!😂😂😂😂
I read complaints about picky inspectors, and that "I should be able to build what I want on my own property", but if this house is finished this way, soon there will be water leaks everywhere, cracks in walls as things settle, and in a windstorm parts of the place will become unstable. The faults may be covered up, but they will make themselves known. This house will have a short life. A thorough inspection by a qualified person is well worth the money!
They can take that opinion of "I should be able to build what I want on my own property" to their home insurer and see what they have to say about it.
I had friends that asked me about doinga renovation with no permits. I refused. Later they called me in desperation because they were hiring idiots who left them so they could attend summer music festivals. I asked if they had a permit. No. I refused
Why do Americans live in overgrown garden sheds?
Why can they not build houses??
R
@@morninboy
What about the client who says Oh I'm going to live here for 5 years then build another house..
(?) Let the next guy worry about that..
I feel sorry for whoever has to remove that HVAC unit from the attic...only a small access in a little closet..
@@michaeldowson6988 As long as it isn't a danger to others, I thing one should be able to build whater one wants. But the inspector is hired for onself to make shure the thing won't come down on oneself.
Love that you are just highlighting things that you want an engineer to look at - I've seen a bunch of 'inspectors' on youtube that are making engineering judgements on the fly and saying the builder was wrong.
Good for you for honoring their request to hold off on publishing the video. Some folks feel like their ownership of a camera gives them the right to put the entire world online.
Could you give the timestamp to which you refer?
@@miguelservetus9534read the description bozo 😛
@@miguelservetus9534 it's in the description! With some more info on the house today
Mostly, it does. Camera-person owns the copyright, unless there are other agreements in place. Invasion of privacy (pix of non-celebrities), trade secrets, trespass, etc might be the only thing to prevent that. Likely, this guy is taking video as work for hire / documentation for his clients, if he's smart - has agreement he can use his work product to advertise his services/make advertising revenue from. Smart to ask client for permission, so he keeps getting hired.
That windowed corner supporting an upper level with a few 2 by's is beyond gross incompetence - it is criminal !
I question the drawings and how they got a building permit
Agree..that corner is dangerous
The corner, and other supports, do not go up to the top level... as they should.
It needs steel./ iron.
There are hints in the "doesn't want brackets in the living space" that somebody wanted that all glass minimal uprights look and somebody else didn't tell them they couldn't have it. I've encountered this in other areas of construction; "I don't care, I know what I want, just make it work". They can always find someone who will do it, and it's no surprise that the rest of the job might then be less than perfect.
Some of that is going to be very difficult to fix.
And expensive to fix it properly.
Super expensive! A lot of that needs to be ripped out and start over. What a shame.
@@SirensC3 I hope the builder can afford to correct this work or this house may never get built.
@@markthompson4885They better be able to afford it, otherwise they have no business building a custom house of this size.
@@markthompson4885 the original builder is AWOL, see video description
This is a prime example of why municipalities need to employ, competent and accountable building inspectors. We have all heard the age old debate, people should be allowed to build the way they want on their own property. This is exactly why municipal Code Enforcement is so critical. A lot of these deficiencies will be covered up and hard to see. This becomes an issue when the homeowner decides to sell. People will argue. It’s up to the new buyer to get a home inspection, but a lot of these deficiencies will be impossible to locate without tearing the structure apart. This is why it is so important for municipalities to require thorough inspections throughout the construction process.
Hurricane Andrew went through south Florida a few decades back. Houses started coming apart (some houses had essentially been stapled together). I asked a friend who worked down there at the time about the building codes and she replied the codes were generally ok. They just weren't enforced. Folks down there were enraged about it and Florida cracked down. Now I see they have a problem with some of the older condos. But I would suspect I could find similar problems throughout the country.
building inspections are a fricken joke. We have kids just out of school that never swung a hammer doing inspections. Yeah- they're educated morons.
I've had to fix hundreds of structural deficiencies in homes that were inspected by municipal inspectors through out the build. It is important to be educated about basic building principles and hire a competent private inspector to visit through the build.
I don't think the guy here wanted the builders to build how they want though. Codes are BS IMO. sure let's have inspectors to document what is built and do structural analysis. But don't tell me, that I need to have light switch at certain height, otherwise my permit is void.
Writing from EU, just so you know.
PS: I have well water now. I have done tests, there are some unspecified bacteria. I do sanitize the well, but not as much as you should, so there is still some bacteria there. But let me tell you, my shit was never so good in quality! I had some issues while I drank municipal water. Makes you think :D They are probably making the frogs gay as well:D
PPS: yes, I am a bit drunk
@@pwhsbuild I agree with what you said, it is a good idea to hire an independent inspector if there is any question on the competency of your contractor or his crew. I also agree about the municipal inspectors. I do, however, feel it is very important to have municipal inspections throughout the building process, so they can catch stuff before it is covered up. Not so much of an issue protecting the homeowner having the work done, though that is important also. to me, it’s an issue of the unsuspecting future buyer, and the ability for a third-party inspector to find everything hidden at that point. And you are 100% correct there are a lot of municipal inspectors that are overworked or just don’t have the knowledge they need. I see this a lot in my industry as an excavation contractor. Most municipal inspectors have no clue what to look for. Some may be great at building construction inspection, but when it comes to foundations and earthwork, they just don’t know what they’re looking at. It is understandable, as I wouldn’t know what to look for inspecting framing, etc.. we have had these issues in my municipality. We have problems, retaining, and inspector. We only have one and he is overworked. He typically puts in a 15 hour day at an annual salary of just over $40,000. Fortunately he is very competent so he puts in the long hours to make sure the projects are inspected properly. Unfortunately, I don’t know how long he will last, he is fairly new. we have went through several recently after our long term inspector retired.
Their best move was discovering you when they did! Best of luck to them.
You learn so much having a house built that you wish you'd known beforehand. We actually booted our contractor that was cutting corners and chewing up our money after each inspection forced him re-do foundation, framing, roof framing, so often that the city dragged the architect out to the site and forced him to redo plans just to solve problems created by the contractor not following the approved plans. This continued through the whole process including half-a&&ed work on the drywall, ceilings, flooring and molding work, turned out he was hiring subs that were hiring unlicensed subs. even 10 years later we're still dealing with those cut-corners & shaking our heads.
As an Architect (in Europe) I'm always amazed at the flimsyness of Balloonframe buildings, with very little margin in resilience, for a loosely dimensioned "design-on site" aproach.
I guess good building practices and regulations mitigate most of the possible issues, but watching this video really lowered my expectation about contractors "expertise".
That porch alone with a half capriate without any support in the middle or tensioning rod, with the very long main truss prone to bow outward...😬
Balloon framing is intentionally cheap
Balloon framing two storey high is not allowed in Canada anymore probably not in the US either. If it's one and half stories high with lots of glass it has to be a moment frame especially windows close to corners. Windows can only be a certain percentage of a wall area in earthquake and wind areas.
@@jorglange2666 thats not true, ballon framing is actually preferred because it eliminates hinge issues. It just requires engineering, but many municipalities are requiring engineering now.
@@h2s-i9o
There has been no balloon framing in over 50 years here in the PNW, it's all platform framing.
I have only seen balloon framing in old houses when long lumber was available usually company towns and the houses were not well built, no headers, random layout, no plywood just shiplap wall and floor sheathing.
I have some balloon framed walls in my own house to gain headroom upstairs in the roof.
House is not inspected, it would have been an engineer but it's remote location with no building permit required.
@@jorglange2666 im sorry youre just wrong there are plenty of new ballon framed homes with fire blocking and second story floor assemblies ledgered into the feaming in the pnw. Ive worked on the late 1800 early 1900 ballon framed homes and reason why they were not built like that anymore was the let in ledger lackof fire blocking and sheet goods for prescriptive bracing. Many also were built on redwood tree foundations.
Back in the 90's, I worked for a company that all we did was go around fixing existing home's f**kups. Really bad ones! Our boss/owner would have the current copy of every building code applicable for the area under his arm in order to make the best estimate possible. We would lose more than 50% of our bids because 1.Customer wanted it fixed right away, or at least by next week (impossible.) 2. The cost to do the work correctly was astronomical (more often than not!) or 3. "How much to just make it look good"? In other words customer wanted out from under this place BADLY, and wanted to pass the misery on to the next sucker while paying as little as possible for the band-aids (Was not going to happen with our company. We had integrity! Like Holmes says "Do it once, do it eight!")
I'm always telling the family, maintenance is cheaper and faster than fixing. Do it right, maintain it, and all is good. Not just houses but in all aspects from cooking to computers, to cars, heck even the 'toys'.
Eight!, that's a lot of times!, 🤣
@@Cheepchipsable
Do it right!
My bad!
Yeah you stumped me with that one
The complete lack of engineered connectors at the beam junctions is appalling
Makes me question if they even got an engineer to look at the structure, or if they are just so bad they didn't install them. Either way.. terrible.
100percent , but easy fixed.
reminds me of 'theater construction' like SEA huts. Bolts are not available so just use more nails.. Unfortunately many builders are lazy and will do the same even though they're easily available. Will last for a while until it doesn't..
What a nightmare. Everyone should hire an independent construction inspector from day one.
They are some architect companies that offer "owner representation" services that will over sees the construction of custom homes from start to finish.
Home inspectors are also infected by the general malaise permeating society since Jimmy Carter continued lbj great society guidelines
"Nah too expensive, everything will be fine."
~ Average Joe
inspectors are usually morons too
100%
Fantastic video. No cap, you saved lives. The first builder needs to be held over the coals for this.
If I ever build a home again, I will be camped out at the site to observe EVERYTHING. Luckly I know enough about all aspects of building to know when something is not right. That said, the shottyness of the build in this video is simply mind blowing. You couldn't give me that home for free.
You missed the biggest issue with that chimney. They forgot the cricket water's just going to run up against the back of the chimney and right down into the house
I have a HUGE chimney on my house without a cricket. Roof sheathing finally failed after 50 years. Pretty impressive how long it lasted.
A well done pan flashing will last and not leak on both asphalt, metal roofing, concrete and clay tiles. It is common with skylights
Oh I saw it alright and it was in my report. There was a LOT more in my report than these few items in the video, believe me.
@toddsmith5894
That's is bull, and you know it.
I have been a union Carpenter for many years, went to school for three months, then served as apprentice for four years. I was trained to do the job I was paid to do. Like plumbers, other trades should be licensed. Some think being able to frame a wall and pound nails makes you a Carpenter. The truth is it is a trade with many skills that must be known. FIRST knowing how to read a blueprint with full understanding. If you can't do that, you can't do the job right. It is clear whoever framed that house never had any real training. I could only imagine those pocket doors in about three years LOL.
If you're in a union, instead of working in the real world, you only THINK you know what you're doing. If you were actually a skilled, productive worker, you'd be making WAY more money out in the real world. Unions are where the dregs go to hide out lest their lack of skill and productivity get discovered and they either get paid the low wage they deserve or just get outright fired for lying about their skill.
FIRST Learn how to read a tape measures !
@@7779-c3m fourteen inches and 5 of those little marks. See, I can do it!
@@7779-c3m So true. Reminded me of a guy on a job I was running. He seriously came up to me and said no matter how many times I cut this its still too short 🙂 Aluminum framing. The stop to hold the glass in. He messed up an entire wall. A commercial project. I sent him home and asked the boss to send him to a different job.
@user-lk7zr5hm9y
True, I was showing people how to read a ruler in college..
I guess a 16th of a inch did not make sense..
And that was in 1983...my God I can only imagine what its like now..
I don’t do this type of work. But as a site contractor I often get called to fix issues typically at around the 10 to 12 year post new construction. It is around this time improper excavation work starts to become apparent. Nine times out of 10 the site work was performed by the general contractor, or homeowner. Unfortunately A lot of people, including builders think of the site work process is just digging and moving dirt. Digging foundations with teeth, over digging sewer, pipe and backfilling under the over, digs, etc. these things and many others always come back years later as the ground settles.
Maybe I’m biased because of my business but as far as I’m concerned what people do in my industry is the most critical part of the construction process. If the work we do isn’t correct, it doesn’t matter how well built the structure is on top.
You might also be tired of seeing what other alleged "professional" do wrong all the time to cut costs.
@@markh.6687 no doubt there are many of them in my industry as well. I think a lot of times what happens is you have good equipment operators that go into business but they don’t have the actual engineering background. It’s not as critical on commercial jobs because there are engineered site plans to follow. and frequent municipal inspections. When you get into the residential excavation on many types of projects there are no permits required so there is no professional engineering done hence no inspections. The contractor may be very proficient at moving material and getting things to grade, but they don’t have the knowledge to design the project properly. In many cases, it is not nefarious. They think they are doing the right thing, but they aren’t. I do feel bad for the customers, but it does keep myself and a half dozen more quality local excavators busy redoing others work. It is pretty common in my area as we have poor ground conditions. A large lake, shallow, groundwater table, clay and silty soils, and lots of ledge rock. The homes surrounding our lake are on top of each other so what you do as far as grading on one lot will affect 20 other people. It is easy to create problems if you are not on top of your game.
Does your code allow under slab injection....
holes drilled and solid foam injected, computer controlled....to level up the house and fill any voids?
It is expensive but beats tearing a concrete slab apart...
and it works wonders in concrete floored warehouses to level out tilting floor areas........
As they say... no hooves, no horse..... 🤔😂😎🇦🇺👌
Site work. We had a depression in our driveway. Was time to replace the driveway, a little early because no maintenance had been done for about 16 years. Anyway, take off the old asphalt, the depression was in the ground. The builder used a huge boulder as fill. It settled and sucked down the soil and driveway. Nice. And this was supposedly a 'high end home' when it was built. One of many shortcuts that the builder took found on the property. Luckily, none were major problems.
Wow, that poor buyer ❤
He should start preparing for the worst, like, oh, a rainstorm…
Kudos for calling u in.
From a Brit who has only ever built with bricks and mortar, this is very interesting. Entirely different skill-set and vastly different load bearing issues in particular.
Guess why these lousy sheds are blown all over when normal weather changes suddenly happens..
United Bluff 🙈
Sorry to see that yes call the lawyer the structure engineer and start over. That roof I have never seen it in my life as a carpenter and I have pretty much done everything. That picture alone will settle the lawsuit. Where are the washers for the a.b.’s and nobody uses nails in the hd’s anymore. There is so much to list that I saw in the video to even start.
Anymore? Nearly 50 years ago they were bolting them.
You are missing the point that those windows are really transparent Aluminum that Scottie invented..lol
Yes! This reference made my day.
Worth noting that transparent alumin(i)um has since been invented (aluminium oxynitride) :)
@@GearboxEnt And it's even pretty strong : )
Actually it's unobtanium.
This approaches tear down and start over by 4:30
The new builder is not going to want to take on the liability of the shoddy work by the original builder.
I totally agree, everything was done wrong. The roof will always leak, the walls are wrong, the rafters are wrong, this thing is a disaster top to bottom.
Yup I've done jobs like this had to tear down most of them there was no way to make safe and correct
Yeah, teardown and redo was my comment also.
I’ve done a lot of teardown work in my main job, and it’s caused me to do that as a last resort in other areas now too. This isn’t a tear down necessarily, but it needs a double handful of modifications that the owners might not be happy with in order to not rot and leak. Austin, Texas is a humid climate with a lot of rotting and water issues on all planes of a structure.
Box of matches needed urgently,
Got to love the pre-drywall inspections. Most builders hate them because they know drywall (and caulk) cover most mistakes
No way I would have walked on that roof after discovering they didn't even nail the sheathing down. What sloppy work. So glad we have inspectors.
Reminds me of a commercial OSS system i just inspected. Contractor made unapproved changes to the design and then backfilled things to try and hide it. Gave them a choice, dig it up and fix it or, the system will never be permitted and the violation letter will be sent to the local prosecutor for legal action. OSS contrator and general contractor together.
As an auto mechanic, I can say I could've done a better job, and I have.
LMAO 😂😂😂 so true
😂😂🤣 Im a librarian, and could probably say the same!
Absolutely, because chances are you would have attention to the details and care about the quality if you were building this yourself for yourself or your loved ones... these building firms do not give a toss, they throw it up asap and get paid. Then if there's a problem they disappear into the woodwork and the business get dissolved
Build an engine that has to run at 7000 rpms vs slapping cheap pine boards together and covering them with chalk are two different universes…😂
@@someonethatwatchesyoutube2953 somebody has their pink panties in a bunch.
As an electrical contractor doing commercial and industrial projects for 30 years with 25 of those years as an architectural and electrical engineer also, the past 10+ years has made me question how so many people get a contractors license. Not just builders, all trades! Good, "professional" contractors are out there, but few and far between.
Looks like a figure it put as you go builder. Good plans make all the difference and are well worth the time and effort
Holy contractor nightmare. It's like someone hired guys from the Home Depot parking lot, gave them a set of plans and dropped them off to work unsupervised. These "framers" clearly had no experience. You can find excellent contractors that do framing but you have to pay them what they're worth and allow them to do their job the right way (which costs money).
Probably exactly what happened. Probably also told "no corner that can't be cut."
Looks like my house. We had new windows and Hardy board siding put on about four years ago. We did the windows at the same time so they could be fully and properly installed under the siding. Then we had a bad hailstorm and there was roof damage, so insurance paid to have the full roof replaced. We had it done and it looked good.
Then it rained. We’ve never had roof leaks in the 26 years we’d lived here, but we had them now. Both leaks were where a sloped roof meets a vertical wall upstairs (we have a cathedral ceiling in our living room and upstairs rooms over the kitchen/bathroom/bedroom downstairs. The leaks were in the ceiling where the cathedral ceiling meets an upstairs bedroom wall.
The leaks were BAD, too. Water pouring in like from a faucet. We had a third-party inspector come take a look. There was no flashing along any of the places where the roof meets vertical walls…or around the chimney. The roof people claimed it wasn’t their fault because…well, they just said it wasn’t their fault. The inspector wrote a letter explaining the problem and saying that it WAS the roofers’ responsibility to install flashing. We passed that on to our attorney. We’re threatening a lawsuit if the roofers don’t come fix the roof. They came out and did something, but the next time it rained, we still had leaks.
Guess it’ll be lawsuit time. Why are so many companies not doing the work right nowadays? Why won’t they stand behind the quality of their work and fix it if there’s a problem?
If the roofing company is hired by the insurance company, then they are either the lowest bid or someone in the roofing company know some management people in the insurance company.
If you hire the guys yourself, then it is likely the insurance company gives an unrealistic quote and they will be losing money for doing the job properly.
As far as "standing behind the quality of their works", it doesn't matter. Company affiliated with the insurance company will still get jobs. Company that doesn't will simply move on.
Most people don't know inspector is a thing. Even if they did, they likely don't have enough disposable income to hire one. And who's to say they are not in cahoots with the roofing guys. Lastly most people placed negative trust in the court system, because it is a court system not a justice system.
Companies and people don't stand by the quality of their work or fix it if it's wrong, simply because they don't have to. That is the beauty of capitalism, and giving up government regulations to allow the private sector to control things. If they can get away with it, they absolutely will, and if it will make them more money they will do it every single time. It makes them more money to do it wrong and get paid again to fix it. If they get sued and lose they can dissolve their LLC and not have to pay anything. Even if there is a good inspector the companies will blackball them and blacklist them and do everything they can to ruin that inspector's reputation and stop them from doing their job (just look at Cy, it's only a matter of time before someone decides to just straight up end his life or career for doing his job correctly) and if a customer complains online they will just do everything to make the customer look bad and like it was somehow their fault and turn people against them, up to suing them, and people will still side with the companies or contractors.
You have to realize this. The government hasn't made it too hard to make a profit by being bad. In fact, right now they can make so much more of a profit by doing a bad job that anyone who is doing a good job will just not be able to compete. If they can get away with it, they will. The only thing that would ever possibly stop them is that if they do even one house wrong they would lose their right to do business, and that will never happen.
When I'm going to hire out a job I do homework first. Research to find reasonable cost, how the job should be done, what are special requirements, e.g. flashing at seams on a roof. Then I'm a bit of a pain, always walking around checking out things as the job progresses and asking questions when I don't understand something. I'm not a jerk about it but I do this for 2 reasons. I want to make sure they know I'm watching and I want to learn from those who really know what they are doing.
It is because they hire Americans instead of immigrants. Americans can't do a job right, they are too lazy and take too many shortcuts so they can get back to drinking beer and watching TV. All they are good at it seems many times.
"Why are so many companies not doing the work right nowadays?" One word, MONEY. The person at the top is trying to make as much MONEY as they can, as fast as they can.
our 1978 house never disaapointsnin finding corners cut etc when doing projects. our 1995 house was, cheaply built, shortcuts takren
owned a 1942 house. rock solid and quality all around
sad to see the state of constrcution
The biggest factor is WHO builds the house, not when it was built.
The best house I bought out of three was 1947, extremely solid; it was my first. The next was 1979 and a bit flimsy. The current one was custom built and haven't discovered the shortcomings yet; I think I may not want to know. Used to be everyone valued quality and pride of workmanship. Now that's all gone and it's all about ripping off everyone for the greatest profit possible, even in health care. Nothing is quality anymore.
@@darknes7800 I disagree.. skilled carpenters are not longer building houses, it's mostly men on drugs and illegals that can barely speak English, both of which have no clue what they are doing!!
@@darknes7800 I concur. I lived for 10 years in a house that was built in 1950 and it was a mess of shortcuts and cheapness.
Guy I knew bought a house. Years later he went to have new windows installed. Installers found some of the old windows weren't even nailed at the flanges properly. Thinks they were rushed to get them out of taxable material inventory, then forgotten about before house was sided.
I bought a house built in '41...I have REAL 2 x 4's, not the new stuff that's allowed by code and the industry. Unfortunately it also lacks any insulation between the layers of brick that are structural, not ornamental, and the house isn't worth enough to have foam blown in the gap between layers of brick.
This is almost "shed of doom" quality work, but it's a house that people are going to live in.
The H type floor plan is weird and wastes a lot of space. Lots of walls and hallways, not much usable space.
Kitchen plumbing in an exterior wall is also a big no where I live. Guess it must never freeze there.... Better hope.
WOW! What an expensive nightmare this is going to be. Augh! When you said "between builders" you said it all.
2x6 outer walls.. saves a lot of grief
I used to hear tradesmen say, "You can't see the mistakes at 55 mph in the rearview mirror." Many would just do anything it took to meet a deadline for a draw on the job, leaving the contractor to cleanup their mess. It puts the contractor in a tough spot because a lot of times these subcontractors have families and their employees have families and they will go without unless they get their draw, but some subcontractors once they are paid will ghost the contractor. My family owned a construction company for seventy years.
Here in Quebec , pipes in an outside wall is a no-no ! Great channel you have ! Thanks !
There's this amazing new invention we in Oz use in construction that would solve all the ills of these projects. It's called..
Steel.
Cheers
This is why we NEED harsh regulation and licensing requirements for home builders... this is a nationwide problem, where builders just don't care about anything, so the regulations have to be Federal not state by state.
The federal government doesn't make anything better either.
@@dr.emilschaffhausen4683the FDIC would like to have a word, same with the army corps of engineers
Hell no!
@@ShionWinkler edgy anti federal types conveniently forget the FDIC, the EPA, USDA, FDA... Fools 🥲
@@ShouPowthe damn FDA won't let me sell lead coated cookies anymore! *shakes fist* /S
The true fact that should scare the shit out of everyone, this shit is more common in a lot of builders.
You can go into any tract house and find serious mistakes.
I just finished an owner builder 3100sqf home. If I wouldn’t be a fairly experienced DIY and spent tons of time onsite it would end up a disaster and eventually in court. I spent countless of hours fixing shoddy work from different subs before drywall went up.
A friend hired a builder whose sole job it was to fully frame up the house.
My friend welded up the steel 15 metre ridge I beam with the legs going down in each corner of the main room of the house....
the footings for the beam legs were cubic metre solid concrete founds that were reinforced and monolithic poured along with the reinforced concrete floor and foundation footings....
Every night he and his wife worked putting in the extra dwangs etc. that they wanted to reinforce the 6x2 timber studs in the exterior walls...
The whole house was sheathed in PT plywood..... so if the bricks of the exterior decorative cladding fell off the house remained totally watertight.
It all rode out a 6.8 earthquake with 12 metres of ceiling drywall seam cracking...
requiring a rake, stop, and repaint ...
as the only damage.
Casey, this is the first of your videos I've seen, and it was informative and terrific. And, of course, a little bit frightening, too. Caveat emptor, indeed.
Well done!
Where I live in Fl and Caribbean I have block and concrete homes. The carib home doesn't have any plaster board or interior wood framing.or wood flooring. Solid built.
3:43 looks like non galvanized nails. We can already see the rust trails weeping from the nail heads.
That is a hugeeee list with a lot of costly repairs.
“But thats how we build them in my home country”. Hire a trained framing crew, not the cheapest framing crew.
Hey Corey, one factor here with those picture windows is that if they're not sufficiently supported with deflecting load bearings, over time and due to load bearing stresses, the glass will fracture, crack and even shatter. Where beam support is lacking due to large windows, the contractor needs to 'beef up' the load bearing in order to offset that future disaster.
Great work, sir!
I’m betting someone (the client) changed the size of the windows without consulting with the architect making it impossible to frame those walls correctly. I hope the builder got written change orders for all the things the client changed from the approved plans!
@@STEVE-lk2ft Well, not only that, the GC abandoned the job, so whomever is hired to complete it will have to correct all the errors with this build. That can add thousands of dollars to the overall contract cost! This is why if you're going to do a 'custom home' build get a very reliable and bonded GC!
@@timestealr2967 my experience as a home builder for 40 years makes me think me the client made changes and is totally responsible. The roof and the walls with the windows could not have been on the approved plans. Someone made changes as the home was being framed and I can’t understand why the contractor would make those changes.
@@STEVE-lk2ft Without a doubt that's what happened. Question is, how much will it cost to correct? 🤔
Yo, thanks for watching. I hope to get the chance to revisit this house once it is finished and post a follow up video!
Loved dissecting owl pellets as a kid! Great that you bring those with you to show your kids :)
Love this. Walking around and critiquing a worksites. What's great is, before the mistakes get sealed in, you took a look. Be interesting to see how you fix it. What can't be fixed?
When I was a teenager, back around 1970, my dad had a job that included some concrete work. I don't even remember at the moment the details of that job. I'll never forget that Pete Argenta and his cousin Julio were working with us that day. Pete was a concrete wizard. So we sit down for lunch, take out our sandwiches and Pete suddenly says, "Com'on, com'on we don't have much time!" Okay..... we get in the truck Julio and me in the back, Pete drives about a quarter of a mile to a new neighborhood under construction. Parks like he's an EMT, we rush around the framed out house to the back.
We then spent probably less than half an hour, rushing house to house. "Oh my God! Look at this! The load was about to go off, so they just added a bunch of water..... " Next place, "They skimmed this too much! that surface is going to start flaking off after a couple of winters" I learned a lot about concrete in that half hour. Never forgot Pete.
The last time I saw him, we went over to his new house. He was laying the cinder blocks for his basement wall. He was apologizing for not knowing what he was doing. "I've never laid block before." Looked great.
And the oversized vent for the washing machine hook up? Air is 800 time less dense than water, so you don't need a vent that big. And it's not in the code, but if you really needed that sized vent, but didn't want to compromise those studs? Physics, but maybe not the building code says, just constrict it with a smaller pipe size at each stud.
And here's a tip. If you'd like to be remembered, be a bit over the top. Another character was Old Man Joe. He was a carpenter, always said things like, "Do that, do that, do that." and when it got done? "Dey you iz." When my dad got a sporty British sports car cap, Pete smashed an over ripe cantaloupe on it, of course while my dad was wearing it. I don't think my dad wore that cap for more than a week, the cantaloupe ended it, and made it immortal.
“In between builders” is a place I hope NEVER to find myself. Sounds expensive
If you're going to go to the expense of building something like this I don't understand why more people don't suck it up and put some steel beams and supports instead of all these toothpicks.
This is a commercial build way more than residential. Most framers never see a steel Ibeam.
They are gonna hafta add some steel in to deal with these without starting over. Imagine this contractor"s cavalier disregard for plans on a steel job. I cant, im too amateur. Scary.
A friend hired a builder whose sole job it was to fully frame up the house.
My friend welded up the steel 15 metre ridge I beam with the legs going down in each corner of the main room of the house....
the footings for the beam legs were cubic metre solid concrete founds that were reinforced and monolithic poured along with the reinforced concrete floor and foundation footings....
Every night he and his wife worked putting in the extra dwangs etc. that they wanted to reinforce the 6x2 timber studs in the exterior walls...
The whole house was sheathed in PT plywood..... so if the bricks of the exterior decorative cladding fell off the house remained totally watertight.
It all rode out a 6.8 earthquake with 12 metres of ceiling drywall seam cracking...
requiring a rake, stop, and repaint ...
as the only damage.
With all that glass, it's a shame to have posts/studs in the corners. If steel was used, those corners could be cantalievered they could have glass-glass in the corners. The difference is amazing.
@@stringlarson1247 I'm a welder and I second that opinion! These big atrium like spaces are the perfect spot for quality precision steelwork, super strong, light in appearance, can be painted any way you like, just use the timber for accent, not load bearing.
this was eye-opening in terms of what can go wrong with a custom build in terms of contractors not being able to do it right.
That's exactly right. There are contractors able to do this easily. It just costs more and the owner went with the cheap one
The worst would be the clause they all try to insert which says the contract is null and void if the owner or any other person (other than local council inspector) enters the property to inspect it at any time before handover......
Good stuff, teachable moments. I appreciate it, we lost a lot of the good men in the last few years, so this will help out the new guys.
Thank you so much for holding the powers that be accountable. This house looks unacceptable.
Here in Phoenix a home inspector with a popular UA-cam channel just won his case against the builders, the company took him to court saying he shouldn't be able to make videos about his inspections but the court sided with him!
6:00 How did they even install that? Lower it in prebuilt by crane and tell everyone to never stand on that section of roof?
Fixing up a mess is often a harder than starting from scratch.
Whoever did the framing on this had no clue what they were doing. The structural issues alone are scary. This is a nightmare.
I’m fairly certain the pop heard near the end of the video was something structural cracking.
At least you caught it in time. Once the coverings go on all of that is hidden, and very expensive to fix!
Excellent video, and great comments. Thank you, i learned a lot.
Provide a level of excellence in our work.
Where I build in Canada, that house would be condemned and torn down. The problem is not only the builder, who I admit should take up a different career, but the designer. All that structure around the glass should be steel, engineered to be fully integrated with the foundation.
The real scary thing about this level of imcompatance is when it's combined with an over stressed building dept and I find it on my projects. I've been a remodel carpenter by trade for 38 years.
Like I always tell the clients, we can never know for sure until we open things up.
My wife and I had to finish the house we are in. The first builder stole our $ and used it to finish a bunch of specs he was building and the second builder abandoned the job after spending his initial draw money on a new truck and falling 6 months behind because he ran out of money to keep the job going. Go figure. My wife and I jumped in and had to re-frame the entire second floor and made numerous repairs to the faulty foundation and first floor and basement framing. We took thousands, yes, THOUSANDS. of pictures and recorded video of all of the defects, ommissions, and sub-standard work and material. We successfully sued the first builder but didn't bother suing the second builder because he was broke and would never have satisfied a judgment. Fortunately, my wife and I are knowledgeable and competent builders. We were so excited to be able to hire what we thought was a reputable builder but will probably never hire another builder. We have at least one, if not two houses, to go before we die.....
Get a construction loan. The bank keeps the money in an escrow account and dishes out only enough to do that weeks worth of work.
@janofb We had a construction loan. The first builder steamrolled right over the lady who was overseeing the job. I took over after they took us/the bank for about $86 K.
You guys aren't competent. I doubt you have air gap insulation or geothermal...
@@RipliWitani Huh? 🤷
@@Jeff-v2c troll alert
would be great to see the final product, specifically what the new contractor did to remedy the issues!
Bless the good inspectors. Wow, the money on that house, and that shit work.
The rafters with the unsupported ridge are diff. A problem. The cantilevered rafters on one side helps but there needs to be a beam under the ridge.
steel gussets
@@philmorel1363 possibly, it works on lots of applications, usually there’s some kind of lateral tie on the outside wall/beam horizontally But good suggestion.
@@rheuss1 maybe threaded rod from beam to house? fun project just to fix issues
It might be done other ways, but there's a lot wrong with how it was done. It looks like the secondary roof framing is actually holding up those outboard rafters, and when the roofing is on and everything settles they'll have some issues.
do they get snow there???? you know why i ask.
Yeah. Ouch.
It is glaringly apparent there was no framing inspection. You don’t apply roofing, rough plumbing and hvac and termite treatment until you get the framing and fire stops signed off. A chef could see the glass walls are not correct. The owner will be lucky if they can find another builder willing to take on this project.
Fire stops? To my knowledge (in the areas where I have lived and owned houses) fire stops between framing studs stopped being used more than fifty years ago. These days the insulation acts as a fire stop.
@@avsystem3142 You wouldn’t get your framing signed off in the town I live. Every penetration between floors or fire rated walls better be sealed with Flame Safe caulk. Our inspector tugs on the romex at random to make sure you packed the hole. Stops between studs are called blocking, purlins or cats. They are mostly blocking to strengthen load bearing walls, not for fire stops. The bottom and top plate prevent air flow in stud cavities. Stud blocking was used in the 1920’s era as fire stopping because balloon construction was utilized. Balloon construction is no longer legal anywhere.
Best part of this video was the finding of the owl pellet and the excitement at the prospect of taking it home to the kids!
Pure insanity!
Looks like a tear down and start over project to me!
All of those issues are serious but can be addressed without spending gobs of money doing it. The outside beams that were cut and unsupported could be made whole using a custom bracket with thru bolts holding it together...it would add to the modern element of the home. The foundation ties are fixable...just going to need a lot of holes drilled and tapped into the pad...use an epoxy to set the new bolts. Engineer will probably call for more, just to make up the difference. the glass will need to be supported ...which means many of the floor sized glass panels will have to come out and moved down the wall, especially in the one bedroom. That corner post will need a Simpson tie on either side after being packed out.
As a builder I can't believe someone would do much of what this idiot did and think it was alright. I wonder if money played a part in his decision making...as he cut a shit ton of corners...no pun intended. Why would anyone in this day and age build a house using 2x4's? Even with a blown in foam like Icynene, they won't get the needed R-value in them.
Good to have a builder chime in. The owner/builder reading upvoted comments about leveling it and starting over isn't good.
Thanks for the insight. I hope to have a chance to do the final inspection when it is wrapped up.
That load bearing pocket door frame (9:12) is also fun.
Good catch (of a bad design).
@@davidg3944 I could make that design work but the way it’s put together doesn’t; the header and hanging methods aren’t even close to sized for that load.
Do you want to do a video on our custom build? It may be even worse than this.
Hell yeah, send me the address! constructivainspections at g mail
First video I saw of yours. Cool insights. I like your walk through as an engineer myself.
Such a great and well spoken creator ! Thanks
wuuuut? Thanks though. Never thought of myself as well spoken by any means but I guess that's the beauty of editing!
Builder here. So I built a nice house recently and I had to be on the jobsite every single day. I could tell the subcontractors exactly what to do, show them, and walk off only to come back and have to show two new guys what to do. Every single day there would be new guys working that had zero knowledge of what I told the previous guys. The main sub-contractor rarely showed up.
Many of these crews are made of immigrants that work for pretty cheap and are picked up from the Homedepot parking lot each day, or bounce around to six different jobs/crews. I don't have a problem with immigrants. They are hard workers. The issue is with the sub-contractor that isn't training anyone.
I came to the job one day to find them walking on a 20' 2x4 eighteen feet up in the air as they framed the vaulted living room ceiling. No way. No one is dying or getting mangled just because of ridiculous stuff like that.
Also, if you hire a builder he better be there every day and should be constantly fixing things and be knowledgeable enough to build a whole house by himself. That was my job. Come and fix and redo everything that wasn't quite right. Know the codes. Know the design from start to finish and how to execute it.
I wish production home builders did this! You should move down to Austin; you'd have plenty of work.
4:33 WOW, just WOW!!! Carpenter ex builder for 35 years I've NEVER SEEN Beams so mistreated...Those cuts are pathetic the end one is split...smh...I've seen some bad stuff you've shown but, between the roof, etc But this one is brutal..
It hurt to see with my own eyes.
Tradesmen used to be tested and policed by their unions. Now that we "don't need" unions, you are on your own. Most contractor licensing is just a paper test you can study for.
Now every guy with a saw and a hammer is a framer or carpenter and people just shop for the cheapest, and get what they pay for.
If you REALLY want to have some fun when looking for any kind of construction/remodeling contractor, tell them up front you'll need copies of their General Liability and Workman's Comp insurance policy Certificates of Coverage, and that you verify coverage with the issuer of those certificates.
If they balk, they're likely not insured, which would leave you holding the bag in the event one their workers gets hurt on the job.
Don't depend on the city/county/State or whatever licensing process to make sure of that insurance coverage.
FWIW, but the worst, most shoddy, and dangerous electrical work i ever saw was on a house with an IBEW sticker on the storm door.
Unions are largely at fault for stuff like this now. Often they will shield bad workers and just shuffle them around to keep them employed when they really shouldnt be. Or if its like the umpire union for MLB they just do nothing because they know nobody can really do anything about it. Or rather, the people who _can_ do something about it choose not to because they are in on it.
Thought all you needed was a tool belt and a dog!
Have to say most of the unions didn't do a good job of self policing either. One summer (back around 1980, when unions still had power) I worked with my dad as independents fixing Electrical Union work in a newly built convention center building. Wires had been strand twisted together, and left that way. (not even capped in many cases) Lighting fixtures that were supposed to have a plug and socket set up... directly wired and badly done at that. Had to work 'hot' as the contractor had miswired the main with the other buildings, (there was a central electrical building for the complex) and could not cut the power in the one building without shutting down the entire complex. (Yeah, they messed up the main electrical cabinets as well, we didn't have clearance for that) That was union work. No better and no worse than I have seen by non-union. If there isn't constant outside oversight, you will always get this kind of garbage. The only difference is, the union guy could afford to buy a sandwich after work, the non-union can't. Just gotta remember, the union and non-union contractors are hiring from the same pool of workers that contain a large amount of lazy, incompetent people. And neither one actually cares about quality, just how much money they will have at the end. If you want bad building practices fixed, an inspector on-site at all times is the only possible solution. And not a good one as likely that position will quickly be filled with people willing to take bribes.
I clicked for the analysis but I'm subscribing for the joy at finding an owl pellet, seeing what the stealthbirbs eat is always fun!
(also I'm only on the construction side of youtube because I like to make my drawings and minecraft builds look slick, but your job and the adjacent jobs all sound fascinating.)
I am only accustomed to cinder blocks construction from my country. It's interesting seeing how things are done the other side of the Atlantic.
I feel sorry for this inspector after watching 3 of his videos I wonder who is building houses in Texas. I would be scared to buy a house in this area.
Ha! You kidding? That's JOB SECURITY!
Where are all the Simpson connectors tying all those beams together?
On a shelf at the building suppy store.
Catch the hole in the wall at 7:55?
Wow! I am not a professional builder but have done my share of cobbling stuff together. This building is a disaster waiting to happen. Finding good, competent help these days is next to impossible.
I think some of that you don’t need to worry about. But other things are certainly insignificant and are going to have to be remedied. I certainly believe everyone should go over every phase of the job and hopefully you have a contractor who can explain what is going on and will work with you to make it right. I try on every job I work on to point out things I come across. In remodeling, you do find things other than what you’ve been hired to do . Sometimes people think you’re trying to add money to the job and get pissed. But you absolutely need to explain it so everyone is on the same page. It’s tough but for safety and quality everyone must work together.