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02-08-2023, 12:50 AM   #99616
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QuoteOriginally posted by StiffLegged Quote
You have got to be joking - that started on Monday and it hasn’t finished yet!
I did say ..... can be fixed ........ you want a time frame well that's another thing altogether

02-08-2023, 07:14 AM - 1 Like   #99617
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QuoteOriginally posted by dbs Quote
I did say ..... can be fixed ........ you want a time frame well that's another thing altogether
By Christmas.
02-08-2023, 07:14 AM   #99618
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QuoteOriginally posted by tim60 Quote
By Christmas.
Which Christmas?
02-08-2023, 07:27 AM - 1 Like   #99619
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My step son Rick is acting a his own general contractor building his "dream home". He's hired an out of work crew to come in and help the original tradesmen, a number of whom have fallen short. He's moving out March 14th, so things need to be done. he says the new guys, regular house builders who couldn't find work for the whole winter are really good and getting him back on schedule... but he's paying two crews to do what he thought could be done by one. Possibly the result of having one of his friends put together the first crew from personal friends etc.


Last edited by normhead; 02-10-2023 at 04:42 PM.
02-09-2023, 04:00 PM   #99620
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QuoteOriginally posted by normhead Quote
My step son Rick is acting a his own general contractor building his "dream home". He's hired an out of work crew to come in and help the original tradesmen, a number of whom have fallen short. He's moving out March 14th, so things need to be done. he says the new guys, regular house builder who couldn't find work for the whole winter are really good and getting him back on schedule... but he's paying two crews to do what he thought could be done by one. Possibly the result of having one of his friends put together the first crew from personal friends etc.
When we built our house, I did the design, secured all the required permits, readied the site by moving the singlewide, acted as the construction superintendent, and after interviewing contractors who specialized in ICF construction chose one and we moved forward. I also installed all the low voltage wiring, phone, cable, networking, security system, and painted the interior.

The contractor built two houses a year, taking about six months each. Other than a few days at the beginning and end of the build while he wound down one job and started the next, he was here everyday.

We had daily conversations about the build, resolved issues that came up, and when it was all done, I couldn’t really complain.
02-10-2023, 12:41 AM - 1 Like   #99621
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You two illustrate the possible extremes of getting a house built by someone else. My father was a contractor who reckoned building a house was a dependable way of finding out what the customer was really like! In our case, we only extended our home and I did much of the work myself, relying on a good contractor to do the drains, foundations, block work and plastering. I’m glad it’s complete and don’t intend to do it again!
02-10-2023, 06:09 AM - 1 Like   #99622
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There are good contractors and bad contractors.

Unfortunately the bad ones make it look like there aren’t any good ones.

And no matter how well you check them out, you never really know them until you are working together.

Like the guy I worked with said, “We will be married for six months.”

02-10-2023, 06:20 AM - 1 Like   #99623
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QuoteOriginally posted by Racer X 69 Quote
There are good contractors and bad contractors.

Unfortunately the bad ones make it look like there aren’t any good ones.

And no matter how well you check them out, you never really know them until you are working together.

Like the guy I worked with said, “We will be married for six months.”
I don't know that it's all on Rick's contractor. One of his best friends since forever. They talk every morning on the phone. The biggest issue with Rick's place was, the concrete block was 6 weeks late. The supply chain shortages, then when block did arrive, his foundation guy was working 12 hours a day through weekends etc. trying to catch up. Then he hired an HVAC guy who turned out to be completely unreliable, costing him thousands in fuel and rent for generators. IN any case, his second crew is getting him back on schedule. Plus, he's hung much of the drywall himself, being an IT guy, with lots of physical energy left when his regular work day is over. HIs GF and dogs stay with us, so he can concentrate on getting the house done.

Last edited by normhead; 02-10-2023 at 04:43 PM.
02-10-2023, 07:04 AM - 2 Likes   #99624
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QuoteOriginally posted by normhead Quote
My step son Rick is acting a his own general contractor building his "dream home". He's hired an out of work crew to come in and help the original tradesmen, a number of whom have fallen short. He's moving out March 14th, so things need to be done. he says the new guys, regular house builder who couldn't find work for the whole winter are really good and getting him back on schedule... but he's paying two crews to do what he thought could be done by one. Possibly the result of having one of his friends put together the first crew from personal friends etc.
I feel his pain. We went through something similar 20 years ago when my wife decided to hire her best friend's husband (sold to her as God's gift to the building industry) to do a major renovation on our house. The reno involved removing the roof from a bungalow and building a second story on top of it.
His idea of a crew was to hire a gang from Labour Ready.
As expected, it was a disaster. The guy was at best one day ahead of the job at any given time, I'm pretty sure he went home at the end of the day and watched YouTube videos to see what he should do next.
He didn't know or care about building codes and considered inspectors to be the enemy. He also had a really ugly attitude. Questioning anything inevitably led to some kind of a battle.
After 6 months of putting up with his manure I pulled the plug on financing him and he went away, but not until after we were nearly 100% over budget for a half finished job and had inspectors breathing down our necks for the number of deficiencies in the build.
After that, I was the one watching YouTube videos to figure out what to do next.
I had to deal with structural issues, electrical issues and plumbing issues because the guy was an incompetent idiot.
It worked out well enough eventually, but it was not an experience I would repeat.
Self contracting is OK as long as one knows what needs to be done, which actually isn't that difficult. To me, hiring qualified trades people that know how to do it rather than people who at best know what a hammer looks like is the really important part.
02-10-2023, 07:20 AM - 1 Like   #99625
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QuoteOriginally posted by Wheatfield Quote
I feel his pain. We went through something similar 20 years ago when my wife decided to hire her best friend's husband (sold to her as God's gift to the building industry) to do a major renovation on our house. The reno involved removing the roof from a bungalow and building a second story on top of it.
His idea of a crew was to hire a gang from Labour Ready.
As expected, it was a disaster. The guy was at best one day ahead of the job at any given time, I'm pretty sure he went home at the end of the day and watched YouTube videos to see what he should do next.
He didn't know or care about building codes and considered inspectors to be the enemy. He also had a really ugly attitude. Questioning anything inevitably led to some kind of a battle.
After 6 months of putting up with his manure I pulled the plug on financing him and he went away, but not until after we were nearly 100% over budget for a half finished job and had inspectors breathing down our necks for the number of deficiencies in the build.
After that, I was the one watching YouTube videos to figure out what to do next.
I had to deal with structural issues, electrical issues and plumbing issues because the guy was an incompetent idiot.
It worked out well enough eventually, but it was not an experience I would repeat.
Self contracting is OK as long as one knows what needs to be done, which actually isn't that difficult. To me, hiring qualified trades people that know how to do it rather than people who at best know what a hammer looks like is the really important part.
When I wired my old log farmhouse, I got quotes in the $1500-$2000 range (1875 money). I asked my neighbour an electrician, if he wanted to do it, "get 'this guy', he's the best currently working in the county." "This guy" cost me $800 and was done in a day. When I told the inspector who had done the wiring, my name was on the permit, he just said "Oh, I don't need to inspect that, I'll just file the report and you're good to go." Having knowledge of who is good is important. That being said, most big companies keep their best employees during the winter so they don't have an excuse to look for work somewhere else. Many of the best are not available to the run of the mill contractors. If you find a skilled tradesman doing 'make work' in the winter, you know he makes enough on the real jobs in the season to be paid all winter long. I also used to know a really good window installer. He by himself could replace the windows in a house in 1/3 the time as a 3 man crew.

Last edited by normhead; 02-10-2023 at 01:29 PM.
02-10-2023, 11:01 AM - 2 Likes   #99626
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Long time coming back. Last summer was incredibly busy. The trip down to Texas in November was rough weather-wise, only to return to Michigan's Upper Peninsula when my mother-in-law passed the day before we were to fly to Germany for Christmas. We lived in a half-reopened house for a few weeks, including an official blizzard, and then dodged weather for the return trip to south-central Texas. I haven't touched my dSLR equipment in months. We will deal with finalizing my mother-in-laws estate next spring/summer.

Meanwhile jumping back into this thread... In 1981 it was cheaper to build a new house than buy/refurbish an existing home. We found a nice piece of land, and a really good young builder looking to get out of working for a multi-home subdivision building company. We got to talk to the owners of a couple homes he had built and peek at how he pinned their houses together. His shortcoming at the time was dealing with bureaucracy. We struck a deal. I designed our house and had a co-worker's architect spouse do the construction blueprints. I did all the legal paperwork. My wife and I purchased fixtures, flooring and paint. He did what he did best - order materials, hire subcontractors he knew were good, and assemble our new home. He was upfront that there would be flaws that would bug him, but we might never spot. It took us years to find a few flaws and nothing remotely serious. We made ourselves available, but not underfoot. Ground breaking to occupation was a tad over 3 months.

We lived in the house for a bit over 8 years until I had a job offer requiring relocation. We expected to have the house on the market for a couple months as the market was slow. The first couple that toured the house saw the quality of the construction and within an hour made a full-price offer (about 150% of our investment cost). The house was officially sold in 3 days with the purchaser indicating it was the first house he'd looked at that wasn't prettied up junk. Lesson learned. Quality construction nearly always pays for itself.
02-10-2023, 11:13 AM - 1 Like   #99627
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QuoteOriginally posted by JimJohnson Quote
Long time coming back. Last summer was incredibly busy. The trip down to Texas in November was rough weather-wise, only to return to Michigan's Upper Peninsula when my mother-in-law passed the day before we were to fly to Germany for Christmas. We lived in a half-reopened house for a few weeks, including an official blizzard, and then dodged weather for the return trip to south-central Texas. I haven't touched my dSLR equipment in months. We will deal with finalizing my mother-in-laws estate next spring/summer.

Meanwhile jumping back into this thread... In 1981 it was cheaper to build a new house than buy/refurbish an existing home. We found a nice piece of land, and a really good young builder looking to get out of working for a multi-home subdivision building company. We got to talk to the owners of a couple homes he had built and peek at how he pinned their houses together. His shortcoming at the time was dealing with bureaucracy. We struck a deal. I designed our house and had a co-worker's architect spouse do the construction blueprints. I did all the legal paperwork. My wife and I purchased fixtures, flooring and paint. He did what he did best - order materials, hire subcontractors he knew were good, and assemble our new home. He was upfront that there would be flaws that would bug him, but we might never spot. It took us years to find a few flaws and nothing remotely serious. We made ourselves available, but not underfoot. Ground breaking to occupation was a tad over 3 months.

We lived in the house for a bit over 8 years until I had a job offer requiring relocation. We expected to have the house on the market for a couple months as the market was slow. The first couple that toured the house saw the quality of the construction and within an hour made a full-price offer (about 150% of our investment cost). The house was officially sold in 3 days with the purchaser indicating it was the first house he'd looked at that wasn't prettied up junk. Lesson learned. Quality construction nearly always pays for itself.
Rick has built so much quality into his (dream home) house it's almost mind blowing. Soundproofing insulation in most of the walls, high end flooring, mid to high end fixtures, custom wood doors. He actually had to reduce the size of the house about 50% to build it with the quality he wanted.
02-10-2023, 01:09 PM   #99628
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QuoteOriginally posted by normhead Quote
Having knowledge of who's good is important.
^^^ This, and if you're going to do anything yourself, to know know your own limitations.
02-10-2023, 07:50 PM - 2 Likes   #99629
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Had the skin cancer removed this morning. Afterwards Mrs. Racer and I stopped for Mexican food for lunch, went by the pharmacy for the pain meds, then home, where I landed in the recliner and took a nap.

Just woke up, and she fixed me a bacon cheeseburger.

The before and after:

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Last edited by Racer X 69; 02-10-2023 at 08:06 PM.
02-10-2023, 08:00 PM - 2 Likes   #99630
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what? No picture of the bacon cheeseburger?
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