Building a stick frame house in the woods in 90 days

[pclausen]

Day 91

Looks like Adam snowed me pretty good this morning when he said they would fix and shim the trim that had already been done, and do a better job going forward. But I'm getting ahead of myself...

The Good

They did not start on the septic drain field today (which could be bad depending on how you look at it), but I got those hung trees taken care of. I tried with my tractor first, but it just spun. But once I hooked up the dozer to the chain, they came right down.

They got all the pads prepped and ready for the concrete pour tomorrow

We have running water!

The fireplace is in

The Bad

They mounted it flush with the drywall. Should it not be flush with the stone that's going on the wall?

Some of the trim work that was completed today

This next pic is of the kitchen window, which really needs to be as nice as can be as mom will spend a lot of time here. Not so much!

Master bedroom. Hardwood is going in here. Not sure why they are putting down the floor trim before the floor. Should it not be done the other way around?

The Ugly

I think this speaks for itself...

I had not noticed this before. The door will slide all the way shut, but still...

Front door. Look at the gap at the top compared to the bottom. Door is all the way shut...

View from the outside. Note how it does not seal completely at the top.

They did not trim the inside yet, so hopefully they realize that they have some work to do first.

I had my neighbor come take a look, who is a finish carpenter at UVa, and he agreed that this was pretty bad. He did say it was up to the painters now to make it look good, but that there were some spots they would not be able to fix properly. His recommendation was to let them continue, and then do a walk through with the builders once everything is caulked and painted, and point out anything that is unsatisfactory at that time. Right now everything is very "raw" he said. I guess I'm ok with that, but it just seems like fixing it later is going to be more work than fixing it now...

 

[pacerron]

:laughing: Nice. :thumbsup: I was busy last night uploading all those (big ) photos to my picture thread (carpentry and misc. stuff).

http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/photos/277493-carpentry-stuff-not-tractor-related.html

Jay,
You can be "Fart Proud"

 

[FairfaxStu]

Peter,

Ok, the bad guy speaks again, so boys on the forum have at it. That trim is real good and terrible. I am pretty sure that you and I with your Dewalt PMB could do a MUCH better job. Good that you have running water, however, and are ready for concrete. I am still not sure why they want to do butt joint's instead of mitered corners. If you trim at 45 degrees then you can pin one piece of trim to the other and make it all line up on the face, then caulk behind it to make it look good. Seems to me these guys are not finish carpenters, just folks that get paid to put up sticks of wood. Bottom line, unacceptable.

Did I get you right that you actually drove the dozer to pull down the trees? If so, LOL, expand your horizons. The main comment I have is that you will have to stay very much on top of things from here to the close. As such, you may want to work from home for several days.
-Stu

 

[EddieWalker]

I'm not a fan of the trim either, but it's also very hard to take cheap materials, done in a simple manner and make it look all that great. For what was spent on the house, it's very disappointing to see this level of finish.

As for the doors, they where installed wrong and need to come out to do it right. Nothing else will work, and the longer you wait, the more they wait, the more work it's going to be.

Fireplaces are a funny thing. What did you specify for the finish and design? Some very fancy homes have some of the most ugly fireplaces that I've ever seen. The devil is in the details and somebody has to have a plan on what it's going to look like when it's all done so everything can be installed where it needs to be.

Its very common to put down the baseboards before the floors are installed. Standard would be to have them half an inch off the floor so the flooring guys can either slide tile under them or they will install quarter round. If it's carpet, they just go right to the edge and it doesn't matter if the baseboards are on the ground or up a little. It's not how I do it, but I do all my own trim and tile work, so it's easy for my to install the tile, then finish off with baseboards.

The most important thing to remember with problems is to NEVER EVER NEVER pay the final payment until every single little thing is taken care of. No matter how much you like the contractor, or how honest you think he is, once he is paid, it is very hard to get anybody to come back and do anything. In fact, it's usually impossible.

Eddie

 

[dave1949]

Peter, It looks like I have been working on your house. :laughing: It's pretty rough.

The sliding door looks like maybe it wasn't shimmed and trued up when installed? The front door, pretty much the same. The standard pre-hung doors are a real challenge to get straight and swing level in my limited experience. They look perfect with the banding on them, but you play heck getting them to fit uniformly and correctly when installed. It must be an art, I know I never mastered it. I've had enough shims around a pre-hung door to heat the house all winter if they went in the stove, then take them all out and start over.

But, I am not a carpenter, and you are paying for a carpenter, I guess is the point. Those people either don't know what they are doing, or they don't care about the results.

 

[pclausen]

Yes, that trim work just does not look right. I'm going to email Ian (the I in I & J Construction) and express my concerns with the fit and finish now that we're in the final stages. The guy that manages the workers (the builder I have been referring to), has 45 guys on 8 different sites, all dealing with different issues I'm sure, so I probably need to discuss this directly with Ian.

Eddie, you're totally right about withholding the final payment. Up until this point, I have told mom to make the payment since the work was excellent, but now that I'm seeing things being rushed, that will change.

Yes Stu, I'm the one that drove the dozer. I did a little work with it early on to smooth out the landing area when I was loading logs initially and the ground was frozen solid with ruts in it, which made it very hard for my tractor to drive across it. It is all joystick actuated. Left side for moving the dozer and right side for articulating the blade. Very smooth. Here's a pic I took with my cell earlier today.

 

[s219]

The fireplace install is probably OK flush to drywall -- if there is a stone fascade going up, you want the stone to just overlap from the drywall onto the lip of the firebox frame:



Normally, they will screw a lathe mesh over the drywall, mud it up, then stick the stone to that, overlapping around the firebox frame. Then the firebox will appear to be inset a little (the depth of the stone).

The trim continues to look sloppy, though I did think I saw a shim in one of the pics, so maybe they are trying a little harder. I would tell the builder that you are not happy with it, but that you won't judge him until it's completely caulked and painted. That may take care of the minor stuff. If the builder has any sense, he will have the guys correct the major problems sooner than later. I know folks tend to rely on caulk these days, but it definitely could be better to start.

They are probably planning to use a shoe molding at the bottom of the baseboard, so it doesn't really matter the order of install for flooring. Bonus points for elevating the baseboard a bit.

 

[dave1949]

Peter,

<snip>

I am still not sure why they want to do butt joint's instead of mitered corners. If you trim at 45 degrees then you can pin one piece of trim to the other and make it all line up on the face, then caulk behind it to make it look good. Seems to me these guys are not finish carpenters, just folks that get paid to put up sticks of wood. Bottom line, unacceptable.

-Stu

There is a popular trim style that uses butts in this area, and it's not new. Or butting to a rosette as you said earlier. But in either case, plain butt or rosette, there is usually a relief of about 1/8", ie, the top and bottom trim extends past the side trim by about 1/8" or a bit more.

Biscuits could still be used in a butt style.

I like the butt style with a small relief better than mitered myself. It's a personal preference thing no doubt. Going with paint or with stain makes some difference in the choice too.

 

[ljnelson109]

While I agree that the overall appearance of the wiring is important. But, don't overlook the accuracy! I was pleased with the overall neatness. I don't have any inside pictures, but the inside also looks fairly nice. What came as a surprise is the mistakes. I have recently identified numerous labeling errors. I have one circuit that is labeled on 2 breakers. I have a bedroom circuit that is not on an arc fault circuit interrupter. I found a breaker that was not labeled at all. And my favorite, I found a circuit wired with #14 that is on a 20A breaker (it is an AFCI). I would at least spot check the labeling.

Here is a picture of the closed panels at my house. I was pleased with the overall appearance. I never thought to do any testing, or even look at labels and notice that there was a circuit labeled the same in both panels.

 

[J F]

I'm with Dave. :thumbsup: I'm not a big fan of the base board and door casing being the same stuff, too difficult to get a good/even joint, if the carpenters don't care. If the casing is thicker than the baseboard, the base just kills into the casing nicely with the reveal similar to what Dave was saying for the casing header (which I would like to have seen done as well.)