Helping "Tighten" some things up
Sept 17, 2020 9:43:44 GMT -5
princeout, kelye, and 2 more like this
Post by kings6 on Sept 17, 2020 9:43:44 GMT -5
The friend of mine who closed his cabinet shop and sold me several of his tools has sold his old house in the country and is having a new house built on the edge of town. When he told me who was building the house my thought bubble was "Oh crap, this won't go well!" Bill is a meticulous craftsman who builds beautiful cabinets. When I was dong custom homes he is the only local cabinet maker we would use and he did the cabinets in my own house years ago.
The guy who is building his new house is a farmer who has figured out he can peel off a few acres of his farm right along the edge of town and build a few houses every few years to add some income. That said he is from the "get a bigger hammer" school of farming rather than the "lets make it fit tight and right the first time as a builder". It did not take Bill long to understand why he got kind of funny looks from some of his friends in the building industry when he told them who the contractor was.
Bill was up at my shop using some of his old tools one day when he mentioned that a few things he was seeing just didn't seem right at the house as far as framing goes. He didn't know that my wife and I had stopped by the job and walked through the house and that I had pointed out some many cut corners and shoddy examples of workmanship I was just about sick to my stomach. When Bill mentioned some reservations he had, I tactfully mentioned that I had seen a few things in the house that were things he could address on his own if his builder did not want to address them. I offered to meet him there one evening and we could walk through the house if he wanted. He was very pleased with the offer and as it turned out we met up there one evening after everyone was gone and we spent an hour walking through the house with him taking notes on siding backing, loose top plate joints, walls nailed together with three small gun nails, loose studs, open 45* corners with no filler studs etc.
Since the builder is also a farmer he was been harvesting prunes this last week so Bill called and asked if he could hire me as his private consultant contractor for a day to help him correct some of these things before the insulation and sheetrock goes in while the contractor was farming. He had a disappointed look on his face when I told him it would not be his private contractor but when I then told him I would be his friend helping him out for a day, the smile returned.
Yesterday we spend about 6 hours going through the house room by room correcting sloppy workmanship and tightening thing up. Studs where two walls met where sucked up tight with a number of 3" construction screws, loose top plate fittings had custom filler blocks cut and driven it to tighten fill gaps that went up to 7/8"! Sheet rock backing was renailed and screwed down so when the sheet rockers nailed the edges of the lid, they had something to actually nail or screw to and those open corners on the 45* corners of the walls had custom studs cut and installed so there was something solid to nail corner bead too. We even installed siding backer on one wall since the frames did just simple "L" corners instead of boxed corners and with the wide trim, the end nails on the siding just sent through 7/16" OSB crap board. WE also cut 3/4" plywood filler pieces to go in the voids on both sides of the two pocket doors to help strengthen the flimsy pocket door frames and give the sheet rockers a solid wall to attach their sheet rock to. By the end of the day we had went through who knows how many pounds of construction screws, etc but you could walk through the house and not see any gaps between wall joints or top plates and when you grabbed a wall, you didn't hear boards rattling all down the wall.
I know it is a different world than when I was dong custom homes 25 years ago but to see the quality of work done by these guys, who by the way are the framing crew used by one of the "top builders" in town, was just appalling. Like Bill said after seeing the difference we made after 6 hours of corrective work, the "top builder" builds a nice looking house but it really is like lipstick on a pig. All I could do was look at him and smile then pick up my tools and go home knowing he has a much better house than he did when we started that morning.
The guy who is building his new house is a farmer who has figured out he can peel off a few acres of his farm right along the edge of town and build a few houses every few years to add some income. That said he is from the "get a bigger hammer" school of farming rather than the "lets make it fit tight and right the first time as a builder". It did not take Bill long to understand why he got kind of funny looks from some of his friends in the building industry when he told them who the contractor was.
Bill was up at my shop using some of his old tools one day when he mentioned that a few things he was seeing just didn't seem right at the house as far as framing goes. He didn't know that my wife and I had stopped by the job and walked through the house and that I had pointed out some many cut corners and shoddy examples of workmanship I was just about sick to my stomach. When Bill mentioned some reservations he had, I tactfully mentioned that I had seen a few things in the house that were things he could address on his own if his builder did not want to address them. I offered to meet him there one evening and we could walk through the house if he wanted. He was very pleased with the offer and as it turned out we met up there one evening after everyone was gone and we spent an hour walking through the house with him taking notes on siding backing, loose top plate joints, walls nailed together with three small gun nails, loose studs, open 45* corners with no filler studs etc.
Since the builder is also a farmer he was been harvesting prunes this last week so Bill called and asked if he could hire me as his private consultant contractor for a day to help him correct some of these things before the insulation and sheetrock goes in while the contractor was farming. He had a disappointed look on his face when I told him it would not be his private contractor but when I then told him I would be his friend helping him out for a day, the smile returned.
Yesterday we spend about 6 hours going through the house room by room correcting sloppy workmanship and tightening thing up. Studs where two walls met where sucked up tight with a number of 3" construction screws, loose top plate fittings had custom filler blocks cut and driven it to tighten fill gaps that went up to 7/8"! Sheet rock backing was renailed and screwed down so when the sheet rockers nailed the edges of the lid, they had something to actually nail or screw to and those open corners on the 45* corners of the walls had custom studs cut and installed so there was something solid to nail corner bead too. We even installed siding backer on one wall since the frames did just simple "L" corners instead of boxed corners and with the wide trim, the end nails on the siding just sent through 7/16" OSB crap board. WE also cut 3/4" plywood filler pieces to go in the voids on both sides of the two pocket doors to help strengthen the flimsy pocket door frames and give the sheet rockers a solid wall to attach their sheet rock to. By the end of the day we had went through who knows how many pounds of construction screws, etc but you could walk through the house and not see any gaps between wall joints or top plates and when you grabbed a wall, you didn't hear boards rattling all down the wall.
I know it is a different world than when I was dong custom homes 25 years ago but to see the quality of work done by these guys, who by the way are the framing crew used by one of the "top builders" in town, was just appalling. Like Bill said after seeing the difference we made after 6 hours of corrective work, the "top builder" builds a nice looking house but it really is like lipstick on a pig. All I could do was look at him and smile then pick up my tools and go home knowing he has a much better house than he did when we started that morning.
