Remodeling Woes

After moving a few times and every move becoming a home remodel I have found a few "what were they thinking" repairs to make. The latest is in the house we are in now that was originally built as a shop on the first floor above the basement with a studio upstairs above the shop. The place is well built except that the second owner converted the shop to two bedrooms and a bath (we are the third owners). The interesting thing is that they kept the original shop wiring plan so all the lights to the bedrooms and bathroom are connected to one switch at the front door. That was a fun rewire, would have been much easier to wire before all the drywall went up. I have plenty of shop space in the drive-out basement below so I was able the keep the bedrooms and bath conversion (which still required lots of other work) but what a headache.

Sounds like coming behind a 'mechanic' on an old car.

Radios installed in curious fashion, things not completely reassembled after a prior repair.

Never know what kind of Easter eggs await.

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My uncle told me back when he was into hot rodding he bought a car once and tore the intake off to put on a taller one and found a wrench laying between the rods.

My favorite was a GFCI that was tripping in the bathroom. I found the culprit to be an outlet in another room that was added to the circuit, they ran the wiring too shallow and it was pierced by a nail from a baseboard. Seems to be that the first step of a remodel is to be removing the previous remodel.

Nail plates are your friend.

I use plenty of nail plates. Unfortunately this wire was added by a "handyman/woman" who thought it was OK to run Romex along the bottom plate in the gap below the drywall and behind the baseboard. I guess I should have explained it better. Anyway, all of that has been fixed.

I found 7 hidden junction boxes in two walls to a bedroom, that the previous owners had put up. When I took off the drywall down from the ceiling, I found a huge frame work made from 2x4x8's, when I took that down, the wall between the bedroom and the workshop started moving. It was not secured to the floor joists! They are now.

Every one of them has been an adventure. We are on our eighth or ninth project house and kind of browsing around for the next one.

I am amazed at what passes for quality work nowadays.

I thought of starting a company where for $20.00, I'll walk a house before closing and detail every little item that stands out. Not a inspection, just an attention to detail survey. I would find the things that people find after closing.
A friend just bought a beautiful house. He took me to the upstairs master bathroom where there is a soft spot in the floor and asked what I thought. It had the new particle tiles rather than ceramic and no backer under it. I told him that the decking had been water damage and needed to be replaced. The home inspection didn't mention that.

People fall in love with houses, cars, machining equipment, etc... and are blinded. They need someone to pick it apart to get a clear view.

It is worth 10 times the $20 you would charge for your services. Easily. I tried to sell realestate for a short time back in the 90's but was unable to not notice defects, and point them out to prospective buyers. It did not go very well.

Home inspectors miss many of the small details I think they look mainly for code issues, Unfortunately, they can only call out what they see. I had a bathroom with a seeping toilet and the floor sheathing was rotting out under it. Opening up the floor revealed a previous remodeler had moved the toilet by cutting off the end of a joist and never bridging the end. Adding a bridge between the joists and some support for the new sheathing and it was solid again. Never would have happened if it was done right to begin with.

I was an independent remodeling/restoration contractor for 22 years and can say from personal experience that just about the time you believe you've seen everything that can possibly be screwed up by sloppy workmanship or inept DIY, something new will jump out and bite you in the butt, running up costs and wrecking your job schedule.

Bill

Several years my step daughter was looking for a house on the used market. My wife and I went to several houses with her. I am no great carpenter or builder but my brother and I built my house, his house and garage and rebuilt our Dad's house not to mention all the required upkeep. Some of the things I saw were crazy, the sales lady didn't like me and got mad that I wasn't listening to her sales pitch. While she was running her mouth I took a light and was looking at crawl spaces, foundations, attics, pluming and such. Didn't make much difference, she bought one I had several problems with. Later she had problems in those areas I mentioned. While some things can be hidden others just jump up and slap you.

I did have fun with that lady, kept her tied up in a knot but in the end it mattered very little.

You haven't lived till you have a house that's 175 years old made handicapped accessible old bx wiring,fireplaces hidden behind a wall,brass plumbing connections etc. Spent $100 k redoing a first floor apartment for us new everything,counters,cabinets appliances,walk in shower and that doesn't begin to cover some of the things I had to repair well before the remodel. I'm not a contractor but I just was what were they thinking.

I tell folks that when we bought our present home, I didn't know I was buyinh a second career. We knew right up front the house needed maintenance, so we were not totally unprepared. The thing was that every project quickly escalated into a much larger project. When I redid the roof (which took 40 squares if shingles), I also had to use 13 sheets of plywood to replace bad roof decking. Also, no roofing felt had been used in the original install.

We bought our first house (in New Hampshire) from a contractor! He had put a large window in - and I knew it needed to be replaced because it was slightly cracked. When we went to replace it with a real bay window - the contractor showed us what he found when he took out what was there. This contractor had not bothered to frame in the window! With the window out you could move the exterior wall back and forth at least six inches. I'm glad the guy didn't build the house.

As far as wanna be mechanics is wiring boy do they love to make rat nests out of wiring

Had to redo a septic system where the addition was built straddling the septic tank.

Manufactured home had the anchor lags drilled thru 2 circuits when it was installed 10 years before but was let go till the punch list on the resale.

Found a ceiling fan on a due diligence report that had 2 circuits in a ceiling fan metal work box that was in an electrical engineer's former house. The wires were so short they didn't extend outside the box. My digital multimeter didn't know it still had power. My fingers found it.

There are some folks that shouldn't be allowed to breed.

My daughter bought a house, built in the 90s and redone just to sell 3 years ago. Nashville codes, inspected all to the letter. She wanted to replace the bathroom light fixture so called to get my input. I told her to turn it on and go turn off the breaker to be sure it was properly labeled. Called back an hour later, highly irritated. She said it didn’t go off with the breaker. Not surprised I told her to start trying others. Her reply was “only the main turns it off”! All breakers off and it was still on, really! That is my weekend project, suspect they stabbed a wire to the buss somehow. Really doubt there was much inspection, just fee collection.

I did a total rewire of a single story building that had been a diner up to end of WW2. Then it was converted into two one bedroom units. It has basement under it with just one 36” door into it from outside. I was hired to wire and put in separate breaker boxes and service entrances. No big deal but there was a surprise in basement. There is a model T Ford in basement. No way to get it out. I guess at one time there were garage doors. After war when they made apartments they laid up cinder block where doors were.

Before I retired, when my electrical business was up and running, I avoided remodels and rewires. You wore out you body and your tools and there was always a nasty surprise.

I was once helping a friend try to track down a foul smell in his home. Found that it really smelled bad whenever it rained. Couldn't figure it out. We were sitting in his backyard discussing the problem while enjoying a few cold snacks. Looking at his roofline, it finally dawned on me to look for the plumbing vent. Wasn't on the roof on the back side of the house where you would expect to find it. Wasn't on the front either. We looked on both ends of the gables just in case the vent was there. Nope, and nope. Hmmm....
Finally found it inside his attic, and it was not vented to the outside. That was some class A plumbing.

I know of the kind of problems with wiring in an old house, my house built by someone who did not know how to build very well was put up probably around the time of the civil war still has fuse panel put in when the TVA first brought power to the area. I'm still waiting on the only licensed electrician that would come out this far to get back here and put in a day's work.

I was a home inspector for a hot minute.

Here in Washington, it takes a general contractor's license or an engineer's license. (I was a general.)

There are two problems with being a home inspector. Number one, liability. For four hundred dollars, people think you will cover twenty-five thousand dollars worth of repairs, whether your report mentioned it or not.

And number two, in Washington, there's a direct conflict of interest built in. You get your business because when a realtor tells the buyers that they need a home inspection, the buyer's hands fly to their mouths and they gasp in horror "we don't know a home inspector! Can you recommend one?" And of course the realtor can. He has business cards. And flyers. We made sure he has lots of both, just to hand out at that moment.

But who do you suppose the realtor recommends?

If I do an airtight inspection, spend two or three hours for my measly four hundred, then another hour writing up a clear, no-nonsense report, and I report every last nail that's missing, every creak, every flaw, every window that won't open, and the sale blows up over my report, do you suppose I get a steady, heavy stream of business from that agent? (Actually, from either of the two agents involved.)

The Home Inspector's Association used to tell me it's about balance. Covering everything, but phrasing it in a way that allows the sale to go forward.

So I went back to good honest contracting. At least then, when folks started yelling, I knew what they were going to yell about.

I live in Washington and house inspection is a joke , better to look it over yourself as you will find what the inspector who is getting paid does not , had one say the bathroom floor needed replaced and he could even do it , Conflict of interest and a scam .

And whats that work out to almost $100 a hour , top wage for not breaking a sweat , this jack wagon liberal retard state has a fee for about anything and everything so they can support the homeless and lazy .

I feel sorry for those who are unable to remodel or repair , as the best work you will get done is work you do yourself , I have had to go repair work done by contractors and so called home repair experts , wonderful state this is but the codes and regulations are as nutty as the politics .

Building codes (and, to a lesser extent, regulations) have very little to do with building. They're a bare minimum. You don't want a house that just passes code, with a little thought and planning, I could probably get a large tent to pass code.

How about a Pushmatic 200A main panel and 3 subpanels. The 240V subpanels were wired with 2 conductor war surplus armored ship cable and the armor braid jacket was used as a combination neutral and ground. Each of the subpanel feeds was lugged directly to the main buss without a circuit breaker. They saved a bunch of money there.

One place the outlets were nailed to the wall (no box). Romex just stapled to the wall and a single wrap of tape to cover the connection screws. Cost less than a dollar per outlet.

Not my job but a house I was looking to buy had the electric service in the pantry. 8 120V plug fuses served the whole house. The Meter and fuses were bolted directly to the wall above about 5 feet so children couldn't touch it as there were No Boxes covering any of the connections. All the wiring was in the open.

Best one I have seen was hippy homeowner decided to convert a conventional square box house into a hexagon/star shape (for the vibes man),and completely destroyed the structural integrity by cutting the second box into the first.........subsequent came the 70s real estate boom ,and he sold the house sort of 3/4 finished to a "renovator"....who thought he had a bargain.......My comment was "Demolition is the cheapest option".....Other classics would be some older large houses with brickwork founded on bare earth.....no footings at all.Yet they have stood for 150 years......back in the day ,a lot of houses were built by rank amateurs....even big houses.