burnthesheep

You know what? Screw jack legged lazy contractors and constructors. The junk I find when fixing or remodelling our home is ludicrous.

We have a simple ranch. 3 bed 2 bath. There wasn't a tub in the house when we bought it, two showers. I reno'd the shower area in the one bathroom. Looking great. That room had wallpaper (screw you for doing that also). Alright, got quotes. Before settling on a guy, cause I don't have time to mess with that, I notice the ceiling sagging. I had thought that bath didn't vent well. Well, the jack leg idiot had just laid the fan vent tube next to the fan outlet. No tape, nothing. Way too small a tube anyway. It was just trying to move air against the insulation. It didn't really ruin anything wet, as it wasn't moving air. The wallpaper kept it all contained it seems and no condensation in the walls or insulation above the ceiling. Whew.

Either way, to rectify some junk I decided to instead to just pull the drywall off the three other walls opposite the shower instead of paying for tons of wallpaper/damage repair from holes.

Glad I did.

Freaking POS had wired some random cable up and out of the one sconce light, over, and down another stud. Then, just left it like that behind the wall. No caps, no termination, no outlet, nothing. The neutral was touching the ground barely. The hot wasn't, luckily. But, thing definitely was energized each time you'd turn on those sconce lights.

Fixed that. All the drywall is out. I did it in such a way to not make dust (get it started somewhere and just rip it off the nails). So, it's now ready for new drywall. I'll probably toe nail a stud or two in a couple places for better support and nail in a board in a couple places for solid mounting of towel racks or hooks and stuff.

I also need to fix a drip on the faucet supply shutoff valve. I'll probably turn the water off, drain it out at a lower point outdoor faucet, then cut the pipe and just install two new ones and not mess with replacing the gasket.

I don't mind doing stuff, but it really displeases me to run across stuff that wastes my time figuring out what some lazy jack legged drunk did and how to properly rectify it.

Enthalpic

I worked construction for a few summers, mostly new stuff but some renos. Sadly, almost all older homes walls are full of audities, mistakes and garbage (garbage makes great insulation, not).

In fairness rebuilding them often took some "creative engineering" - because assuming that homes are full of flat, level surfaces and right angles is a mistake.

burnthesheep

Lol, understood. I’ve had to get creative. Now, my foreman being the wife I can let schedule and cost slip a bit more than normal to meet quality.

My shed is 2 story and 360sqft. I built it to building code. Just to be sturdy. When the inspector came he was confused thinking it would be occupied. No. Not given the no plumbing or hvac and kid like ladder to get upstairs. But it looks like an oversized tiny house. Got around electrical by using the old massive amperage hot tub plug on the house to plug it in when I want to. Aka, permanently temporary power. Wink nod.

big john

The last garage where I worked was very old and they updated some of the in-ground hoists to the above ground electric ones. To do that they must remove 2 4 foot squares of concrete and pour thicker, reinforced concrete to anchor the hoist. After the concrete cured they crew bored the holes to bolt down the hoist and wood shavings came up. Turns out the concrete guy filled in part of the job with wood blocks, which could have caused the hoist to fall over with a car on it.

Flatballer

That's not shoddy work, that's fraud.

himespau 

Just wait until you try to reno an old bathroom and rip out the wall behind the medicine cabinet to find it's full of old razor blades. That's not laziness, that was the plan. They didn't consider how people coming after would have to deal with a section between two studs full of old rusty blades.

Cypress

Which part is leaking on the stop? A little bit of pipe dope can fix that leak super easy, and it'd save you the headache. (I'm a commercial plumber)

Cypress

That's residential construction in a nutshell. Get it done fast, screw the details.

That stuff doesn't fly in commercial. There's way too much liability at stake on our projects, so everyone in my crew keeps their nose clean. Leaving messes would only cause more meetings, and most tradesmen get into the industry to avoid meetings.

burnthesheep

I thought that, but it's about 2" too tall for the vanity I'm putting in there. I'd rather not hack the vanity up to fit height of the supply. They had a pedestal sink in before that the taller height was fine.

Cypress

What is the water pipe made of and how old is it?

burnthesheep

Copper, in good shape.

kensuf

We used to have a stage race in Ocala that was held in mid-June each year. Ocala is in the north/central part of the state -- nowhere near coastal breezes, in the summer you're just stewing in your own juices. The 2010 edition recorded road temps over 115°. The 1/2/3 race was 80 miles on Saturday and 63 miles on Sunday. Both started somewhere around 10:30AM. I think my kidneys suffered some serious trauma that weekend.

himespau 

[QUOTE=burnthesheep;21211961
I also need to fix a drip on the faucet supply shutoff valve. I'll probably turn the water off, drain it out at a lower point outdoor faucet, then cut the pipe and just install two new ones and not mess with replacing the gasket.
[/QUOTE]

Why not just replace the gasket and then swap the pipe out for braided stainless steel hose? That's a lot easier than making sure you get the pipe exactly the right height. It might not be quite as clean a look, but it works just as well and is hidden in the cabinets anyway.

Cypress

If residential is anything like commercial (in Oregon), the copper stubout from the wall might be soldered to a bracket behind the drywall. If you want to move the pipe, it may be more of a pain than you anticipate...

You're at the mercy of the lowest bidder that originally installed it

burnthesheep

If I lower it by 2" the vanity has a big opening that's like 8" long in it. I'll take pics later.

Any opinion on those new copper quick connect fittings they sell at Lowes? They seem expensive but seem really nice/easy to use versus sweating. Can't recall the brand.

big john

I saw the wood blocks when they dug it up the second time. The theory was he ran out of concrete and was too lazy to go and get more. They told us he was fired.

Cypress

"Sharkbites" and other push fittings can be used on copper and are UPC rated to be permanent, although I personally don't use them. If you go that route, make sure you ream/deburr the inside/outside of the pipe really well and make sure the cut is as near as perfect to square as you can get it.

Flatballer

I've had good, but limited, experience with Shark Bite stuff.

burnthesheep

I own a pipe cutter and debur tool. I've got all sorts of stuff accumulated over the years. I've got pex crimpers and gauges etc.... the inflatable drain plugs... I've got automotive leakdown/compression checker (not for home plumbing).....all sorts of random stuff.

I'm one of those "if the right quality tool saves me $xx but costs $xx minus a dollar....".

himespau 

Heck, with bike tools, I've ended up with tools I've used once that might have cost me more than it would cost to have the shop do the job once. I always think, "oh maybe I'll need this on future bikes and it's better to have it than pay someone to do this job multiple times" as I buy the dropout alignment tool or whatever.

big john

I have a cheap compression tester but doing a leakdown test is such a pain on some engines I would just borrow one if I had to. I borrowed a lot of tools at work and the guys were ok with it because I would help them when I could. The type of work I did didn't require a lot of tools but one guy I worked with spent over $65,000 on tools. One of the engine guys is close to $100,000 including his tool box.

Doge

No posts in this sub forum since? My music post was the last one. I could post my kid's power numbers, and light it up a bit. But winning should matter more, and not a lot on right now.

Hermes

I saw in a FB post that the Amgen Tour of California, Chico Stage Race, Tucson Bicycle Classic and San Dimas Stage Race were canceled in 2020 with Zwift eSports, gravel events, and high school MTB increasing. Amgen ToC cancelled? WTF. No explanation was given other than challenges and looking for a business model that works.

Hermes

Let's see the kids numbers. Why not.

himespau 

Wait, really? That's not a joke?