House build start to finish

[hunterdan]

Here are a few more concerns. A good friend of mine describes it as "looks like shit on a white rag"...any comments are welcome.

 

[hunterdan]

More

 

[jeepinmatt]

The masonry looks like I did it, but functionally should be fine. The plumbing looks like my 2 year old was playing with suction cup pipes on the wall of the bathtub.

 

[Loganwayne]

meh the block is fine. all that is below grade. i saw one spot id have them touch up. but id rather use a rubberized liquid as a water proofing than that. idk what the hell is going on with the piping

 

[CasterTroy]

The root of the word Plumbing is what?

 

[rockcity]

Masonry looks fine.

Not sure what's going on with the plumbing. Hard to tell. Kind of looks temporary for some reason and not sure why he used two street 45s instead of a regular 90

 

[hunterdan]

As far as the plumbing he said those were the only fittings he had so he zigzagged it. He said it is supposed to have a 10' head? At the washer and says should eventually have a y fitting 3-4' off the floor joining the washer drain and then go up through the roof.
As far as masonry it will work but I will fix it. Many of the pics are from inside the basement and are the finished deal. On the stucco'd outside there's no way that no mortar in a joint even after being stucco'd is acceptable. Also it may look like the bad lap of stucco is going to be below grade but most will be visible because positive grade will be below the frt windows

 

[CasterTroy]

He said it is supposed to have a 10' head?

Yes, he has to have 10ft for his underground inspection

 

[rockcity]

Looks like he is leak testing it with the zig zag fittings. Like I said, looks temporary.

I'm betting the piece on the wall is pre made to fit through the outside wall and he will use that once he leak tests it.

I'm betting there are other stub ups the same height.

 

[CasterTroy]

Plumber was supposed to show up Thursday then Friday but showed up yesterday out of the blue.

This is why when we build, I will hire a GC and not deal with this shit directly. Despite being VERY good friends with several reputable PM&E contractors. Maybe I should say BECAUSE I have very good friends that are PM&E contractors, and I'd like to KEEP it that way.

Pretty sure who I'll hire if she's still in the biz by then.....and she's a BITCH!! But she gets shit done, and done on time, and twists the balls of her subs to keep her reputation.

Sequencing and expectations of scheduling is a nightmare. Especially in today's economy where subs are subject to flake on you for the bigger fish that just happened to land on their line yesterday, even when they promised you 2 days ago they'd be there on site.

I don't envy you taking this on as your own GC.

 

[Loganwayne]

As far as the plumbing he said those were the only fittings he had so he zigzagged it. He said it is supposed to have a 10' head? At the washer and says should eventually have a y fitting 3-4' off the floor joining the washer drain and then go up through the roof.
As far as masonry it will work but I will fix it. Many of the pics are from inside the basement and are the finished deal. On the stucco'd outside there's no way that no mortar in a joint even after being stucco'd is acceptable. Also it may look like the bad lap of stucco is going to be below grade but most will be visible because positive grade will be below the frt windows

honestly looks like your making mountians outta mole hills. grout shrinks they pic you showed looks like they pulled it to late and pulled the edge or did it to soon and removed a little and it shrunk a little no big deal surface imperfection. and for the stucco if you expected a brick mason to do a A+ job on stucco your high they would be a stucco guy if they were any good at it. most apply a stucco coat as a base for ( rock, stucco, brick or whatever)

 

[hunterdan]

We are going to finish one half of the basement for the kids. The other half does not need to look nice or professional it's just what I would prefer. Will corners that were made by breaking blocks with a hammer and then halfway throwing mortar in the holes work... probably.

 

[rockcity]

Are you not finishing with batten strips and drywall? If so, it will cover it up. Are you expecting to have a perfect finish on the block for a finished room? Does the mason know this?

If I'm installing block, it's rough because it's either going to be unfinished, painted to be an unconditioned basement storage area, or will be covered by some type of wall coating. Anything other than that is expecting too much of a mason. If you expect more than their norm, your going to pay dearly for it and likely still won't be what you expect.

If you plan to finish, might as well figure on batten strips with drywall for a true finished surface other than looking like an old painted block wall in a rest area on I 40

 

[hunterdan]

Stairs will come down into unfinished half of basement. There will be a washer and dryer and probably a pool table/ping pong... walls will just be block with drylock or some such paint. Shitrock is not allowed in our house so all walls, ceilings will be knotty pine including the finished section of the basement.

I understand some of you are trying to help by making light of my issues or are just hard to convince. I've been in one form or another of construction for over 30yrs. I've pretty much seen it all so I don't expect perfection or for people to be on time all the time. But... when someone builds a block wall for a living then I expect them to put grout in all the joints. If they don't like this fella didn't then I politely point out "hey, could you guys throw some grout in those spots that are missing some"? In this case the guy said "aww we will hit that when we stucco..." Well now there done with the stucco and I can still put my pocket knife through four or five spots on the. out side wall and 2-3 on the inside. As I said, I'll fix those spots and then ad mortar to the depressions on the inside ...but I shouldn't have to and if that's asking for too much from a pro then there needs to be a new word for pros.
As far as the plumbing...he was too lazy to dig a 5/6"deep trench 12+/-' long so he knocked a hole through my block wall and was gonna circle the house with 50' of pipe!

 

[rockcity]

That quality is par for the course for residential block masons unless you have performance specs saying they should be doing different.

The important question. Do you know if the mason even used the correct mortar? That would be my question before picking out 5-6 minuscule areas where they are missing some mortar.

 

[Loganwayne]

Did you get several different prices to put the wall up? Did you choose the cheapest?

Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

 

[hunterdan]

I'm using a local contractors subs. He supplies the subs including the masons. As far as the mortar it was type s.

 

[hunterdan]

Getting ready to pour the basement floor next week. I know some have said to just stay away from the site til it's done but others have agreed one needs to check behind people theses days. I have been on site for every step and have been making the subs do it right. Here are a few things that were avoided due to staying involved and not leaving things to the "Pros".

1)There were three large roots after they did the final grade removing excess dirt from the basement. The roots were right next to some plumbing. I asked them to cut them out before spreading the #57 stone. They didn't.... they just covered them with rock. I removed the rock, cut the roots and put back the rock.
2)As mentioned earlier in thread, I had trouble with the plumber. First he forgot to install pipe for washer drain line under slab. Next he came back to ad line and decided to sledge hammer a hole through the basement wall at footer... right where French drain would be. I made him install it correctly and then patched the hole in wall myself.
3)After the plumber left I checked all the plumbing for correct layout. Turned out that 3 out of 4 pipes were in the wrong place. For example the toilet drain was positioned 7" from center of drain to wall stud when a minimum of 12.5 is needed. To save time and do it right I removed the clean gravel from around the pipes, dug out the dirt for correcting the plumbing and left it for him to just cut and fix...
4)Yesterday 3 subs came out to apply sealer to the basement wall exterior and footer. I told them to wait for me to get there before sealing the footer/wall intersection because I wanted to make sure it was clean as possible. When I got there they had already dug dirt away from footers and halfway swept it. The lead guy told me that there were some places where my wall was barely on the footer but it was No big deal. I told him "you don't really think that's the footer do You?" His reply was "well... yeah". I quickly grabbed a hammer and broke off the concrete droppings and dug down another 3- 4" to show him where the real footer was. What he assumed to be the footer was mortar mix from when the mason had been doing the top section of the wall and dropping it on the dirt that had washed on to the footer. As a matter of fact I'm just assuming that. Today I'm going back out there to see if the mason put mortar to the footer or if he just ran it to the dirt on the footer. If there is no mortar at the bottom of the wall then guess what... there will be.

Glad I'm able to keep an eye on these guys. (Pics soon)

 

[CasterTroy]

leaving things to the "Pros

The man who holds the plumbing license is MORE than capable....and would be offended at your actions.

Same with the electrical contractor, HVAC, etc


HOWEVER....the mechanic and helper (if you're that lucky...you MAY just get a helper roughing in your stuff) that plumber sent out to your job (because the license holder can't be bothered with your piddly little job) who may or may not be working for beer money, really is just looking to earn his 8hrs and go home.

I respect what others have said about leaving it to the pros, and that would be appropriate for a GC who took such pride in his work that HE HIMSELF checked behind his subs. But that doesn't sound like what's happening here

 

[rockcity]

I do take back what I said earlier about staying away because at the time I didn't realize you were acting as the GC. As the GC, yes, you should be checking behind the subs, etc. to make sure things are correct.

 

[hunterdan]

The man who holds the plumbing license is MORE than capable....and would be offended at your actions.

Same with the electrical contractor, HVAC, etch

The man who holds the license also teaches a class on plumbing. He has done All the plumbing for the GC that is letting me borrow his subs. He also claims to have just finished an apartment complex that was a 180k plumbing job. And yes it was he himself who did my piddle house and forgot the washer drain line, busted a hole through my basement wall and installed three pipes 7-10" off from where they should have been. The GC came out to see the problem and said he would have found out about pipes being off when they were setting up to pour concrete. He admitted that he was glad I found it before that point because they would have had to remove vapor barrier, remove poison saturated rock (termite spray) and then fix plumbing...


HOWEVER....the mechanic and helper (if you're that lucky...you MAY just get a helper roughing in your stuff) that plumber sent out to your job (because the license holder can't be bothered with your piddly little job) who may or may not be working for beer money, really is just looking to earn his 8hrs and go home.

I respect what others have said about leaving it to the pros, and that would be appropriate for a GC who took such pride in his work that HE HIMSELF checked behind his subs. But that doesn't sound like what's happening here

I do take back what I said earlier about staying away because at the time I didn't realize you were acting as the GC. As the GC, yes, you should be checking behind the subs, etc. to make sure things are correct.

Thanks
If I wasn't catching theses things then these guys would have sealed the wall and the ground 4" above the footer. Then they would have installed the French drain not realizing it was too high to even work! (in the footer pic you can see the concrete slag and dirt mixture at top of pic and footer at mid and bottom of pic.)

 

[paradisePWoffrd]

sounds to me like you should be doing most of this stuff yourself vs redoing it all?

 

[hunterdan]

sounds to me like you should be doing most of this stuff yourself vs redoing it all?

I have experience in roofing, framing and most above ground stuff to some extent... 'but no experience with footers/foundations. Since I'm going to do all the interior including most likely the plumbing/elec....having the shell done seemed like a good idea???

 

[hunterdan]

Went to get a better look at the footer today. I removed the dirt then swept it all up. Basically, when they laid the block there was a pile of mortar here and there all around the perimeter. I asked them at that time if it would be cleaned up and if places where no grout was under the first run of block would be filled. I remember him saying it was easy to clean up after it dried and they would fill gaps at footer and bottom blocks when doing the stucco.
They took 3 weeks to start the stucco so when they got there it had rained 3-4 times. And covered the footer and the slop with dirt and silt. They were too lazy to shovel off the dirt and concrete slop so they just stucco'd to the dirt leaving 4" without stucco and not filling the gaps I had pointed out.


Would you guys have them remove the slop and finish the stucco to the footer?

In one pic you can see a section of drain pipe I placed on the slop and then on the footer. Another pic shows pipe on footer and two wet spots(spit) on the block. Bottom wet spot is height of gravel and top wet spot is top of interior slab. To me pipe on nice flat footer below the bottom of interior slab would be correct. Any thoughts on the matter are welcome.

The last pic is a stick stuck in the slop(mortar) that fell when stacking the wall. It's about a foot long and 1.25" thick.

 

[ponykilr]

I am in the home improvement business and we fix things the "pros" did every day.

There is some poor ass stuff in this thread. I would be livid.