Home remodeling rant

[psalms144.1]

Since we bought our house in Jan 2013, first thing we did was complete finishing the basement. During the process, we determined that the previous owner had roughed out the basement using scrap lumber - driving us to replace about 75% of the framing lumber (most of which he'd nailed into the concrete with the wide side of the lumber against the concrete, in order to make "more room."

Then we had to replace the roof. Inspection of the roof showed that the previous owner had expanded the house twice, and each time just recontoured the roof line by building a new roof over the old roof. As a result, water had been POURING down the studs of the exterior wall for a decade + - with the net result that, along with the roof, we had to remove and rebuild 26 FEET of exterior wall. While that was in progress, SWMBO decided she didn't want the maintenance hassle of the old hand-cut cedar shake shingles, so the whole house got stripped, reinsulated, and vinyl sided.

While we were rebuilding the room where the exterior wall was destroyed, we found out the the "in floor radiant heat" the previous owner had installed was, literally, an old cast iron radiator that the owner had jackhammered a hole in the slab for, then laid in lying on it's side.

When we decided to move the washer/dryer from the garage to our "master suite," we expected an easy do - the suite had previously been set up as an apartment with water lines (adjacent to the bathroom) for a kitchenette. When the plumbers opened the wall to make the "minor" adjustments to the plumbing, we found out the previous owner had plumbed that bathroom using electrical conduit pipe instead of plumbing PVC. Whole shebang had to be redone.

Then my wife decided she wanted "open concept" in the living room/dining room, so we had 15" of load bearing wall removed, along with the wall enclosing the stairs to the basement. When we did that, we discovered that the wood floor in the kitchen was new engineered hardwood laid over the previous flooring - so the floor in the kitchen was 3/4" higher than the living room. When we decided to change that, we discovered the engineered hardwood was laid over INDOOR OUTDOOR CARPET, over 1/4" plywood, so, we had to strip the kitchen to the beams, and start from scratch. That was part and parcel of the $35K kitchen remodel that was driven by the fact that my wife HAD TO have an incredibly oversized refrigerator that wouldn't fit into the existing cabinetry...

We also found out we had long-term pre-existing leaks in both of the upstairs bathrooms, leading to a gut of the master bath, second bath, and re-do of the ceiling in the basement bath (which collapsed due to the water leak from the second bath).

We had to redo the main power circuit for the house, as we found the previous owner had "improved" the original wiring during his tenure. This led to the discovery that about 50% of the wiring in the house was either improperly grounded, or used OLD wiring - you guessed it - stripped it all and replaced it.

All told, over the last 7 years, I'm about $150K in repairs and upgrades on this house. I am NOT going to miss it when we move this summer...

[Borderland]

Just had some work done to the tune of about 10K, small potatoes in a remodel. Hired it done.

After talking to 5 contractors I found 2 that said they would do the work. I hired one but he never showed up. Other guy showed up and knocked it out. All in all it took me 2 months to find someone to do the job. The work took about 3 weeks.

A few years ago I remodeled both of our bathrooms myself. That's the reason I don't do anymore remodels myself. What a freakin nightmare. Plumbing was about 20 years old
(new construction) and whoever did it should have been shot.

[RevolverRob]

Right now, I’m going on seven months trying to find a contractor to retile the concrete shower pan in our downstairs shower.

When the downstairs remodel was done, they chose a limestone-based tiled. Which did not hold up for shit (shock of shocks, from the geologist here). And ended up cracking and leaking, ruining the ceiling if the unit below. We had to demo the shower floor to figure out the leak. Now that the leak is fixed, I need to get the floor retiled.

It is, apparently, impossible to get someone to do a small job of a couple of grand. I’m a bit frustrated with it, because I’ve had four contractors just not show up to bid the job. I was told, “If it isn’t at least a 10k job, I won’t get out of bed for it.”

So, I’m now at this point where I debate what to do. One issue is, the shower is a non-standard size. So using a drop in fiberglass base won’t work. I’d have to order a custom one to fit the drain location and size. I’ve had to go in a circle on this, because our building also moves constantly (build on landfill, they said, it’ll be fine they said). So the only thing that really makes sense is a fiberglass shower. So - do I order a custom shower and tear out all of the tile, or do I say fuck it and have it retiled and let the next owner deal with it if/when it cracks?

[Darth_Uno]

Around St Louis, new construction is so busy it’s hard to find a subcontractor to do a small job (thousands of dollars for one shower would be a considered a small job) when contractors are throwing them all the work they can handle.

[Darth_Uno]

Contractors love to begin a job and then leave to work elsewhere. Eventually they show up to do your work. Expect this and expect lies and bullshit.

Sigh....yeah, there’s guys like that. They make the rest of us look bad.

I personally don’t put completion dates in my contracts. You just can’t predict what might slow the job down, for any number of reasons. OTOH I have no reason to delay your job, and if you don’t trust me then you should probably hire someone else.

I use a lot of Cambria (quartz) countertops. Normally turnaround from template to installation is about 2 weeks. But sometimes it’s as much as 6. I never know from job to job. So if I give a completion date hoping for 2 weeks and now they tell me it’s 5 weeks, I’m left looking like a jackass. Sometimes other items are back ordered, and sometimes in remodeling we find issues that are outright dangerous and need to be addressed.

Sometimes lenders demand a completion date so I’ll just give them one so far out I’m certain to hit it. Banks don’t care, they just want a date.

[willie]

You have described yourself as an honorable man with good intentions. Few would criticize your efforts. On one of our projects 100 percent of my crew had done hard time. Interviewing this bunch convinced me that they were trying to get their lives back on track. They were skilled. I laid out my expectations which were met. We treated them like grandkids we never had. My wife cooked lunch for the group everyday. They finished the job on time. My total cost was $1500 less than I had estimated. My wife and I divided up the sum by 4 and gave them the money. All except one has stayed out of trouble. Since I'm already off topic, I will add that I do not always go with the lowest bid. In this case I did.

[rob_s]

I personally don’t put completion dates in my contracts. You just can’t predict what might slow the job down, for any number of reasons. OTOH I have no reason to delay your job, and if you don’t trust me then you should probably hire someone else.

In new, commercial, construction we deal with the same issues, and we are tied to a schedule.

But we are also *both* tied to that schedule. If, for example, the Owner specs or demands a material with a lead time that is impossible to predict, or that requires a deposit or a selection on their part by a certain date in order to guarantee delivery, we include that in the contract.

so to use your countertop example, we would include the worst-case lead time of 6 weeks, along with a date by which the Owner has to make their selection and give us a deposit for that material. And we're not talking about one or two countertops, we're talking about up to 500.

The issue that I see in residential remodels is that the contractor will tear everything out, THEN find the problems, THEN start the plus, plus, plus... then they get the cabinet boxes in, then layout the template, and then start the ordering process for the countertops. and then tell the homeowner "well, let's hope the countertops get here in two weeks" and clear out leaving a half done job, with an imprecise return date.

I don't think most of them are malicious, or even incompetent for that matter. Like most things, they just don't actually have a clue what business they are in. They mistakenly think that they are in the building business when in reality they are in the "make a happy customer" business.

Just like I'm not in the building business, I'm in the repeat client business.

[okie john]

Since we bought our house in Jan 2013, first thing we did was complete finishing the basement. During the process, we determined that the previous owner had roughed out the basement using scrap lumber - driving us to replace about 75% of the framing lumber (most of which he'd nailed into the concrete with the wide side of the lumber against the concrete, in order to make "more room."

Then we had to replace the roof. Inspection of the roof showed that the previous owner had expanded the house twice, and each time just recontoured the roof line by building a new roof over the old roof. As a result, water had been POURING down the studs of the exterior wall for a decade + - with the net result that, along with the roof, we had to remove and rebuild 26 FEET of exterior wall. While that was in progress, SWMBO decided she didn't want the maintenance hassle of the old hand-cut cedar shake shingles, so the whole house got stripped, reinsulated, and vinyl sided.

While we were rebuilding the room where the exterior wall was destroyed, we found out the the "in floor radiant heat" the previous owner had installed was, literally, an old cast iron radiator that the owner had jackhammered a hole in the slab for, then laid in lying on it's side.

When we decided to move the washer/dryer from the garage to our "master suite," we expected an easy do - the suite had previously been set up as an apartment with water lines (adjacent to the bathroom) for a kitchenette. When the plumbers opened the wall to make the "minor" adjustments to the plumbing, we found out the previous owner had plumbed that bathroom using electrical conduit pipe instead of plumbing PVC. Whole shebang had to be redone.

Then my wife decided she wanted "open concept" in the living room/dining room, so we had 15" of load bearing wall removed, along with the wall enclosing the stairs to the basement. When we did that, we discovered that the wood floor in the kitchen was new engineered hardwood laid over the previous flooring - so the floor in the kitchen was 3/4" higher than the living room. When we decided to change that, we discovered the engineered hardwood was laid over INDOOR OUTDOOR CARPET, over 1/4" plywood, so, we had to strip the kitchen to the beams, and start from scratch. That was part and parcel of the $35K kitchen remodel that was driven by the fact that my wife HAD TO have an incredibly oversized refrigerator that wouldn't fit into the existing cabinetry...

We also found out we had long-term pre-existing leaks in both of the upstairs bathrooms, leading to a gut of the master bath, second bath, and re-do of the ceiling in the basement bath (which collapsed due to the water leak from the second bath).

We had to redo the main power circuit for the house, as we found the previous owner had "improved" the original wiring during his tenure. This led to the discovery that about 50% of the wiring in the house was either improperly grounded, or used OLD wiring - you guessed it - stripped it all and replaced it.

All told, over the last 7 years, I'm about $150K in repairs and upgrades on this house. I am NOT going to miss it when we move this summer...

The hardest part about maintaining a house is figuring out what the previous owner(s) were thinking when they maintained it.


Okie John

[idahojess]

The hardest part about maintaining a house is figuring out what the previous owner(s) were thinking when they "improved" it.


Okie John

FIFY.

[Borderland]

FIFY.

Guy next door resided his house with vinyl over some LP exploding siding. Now the new owners have two layers of siding to replace. I told them about it before they bought the house and it didn't even slow them down. It's on a real nice 2 acre lot and they have a plan to totally renovate the entire property. Not much for sale around here under 400K and they paid 3 fiddy. Probably a pretty fair deal.