re: Uncovering Poor Workmanship in Your Home

House was built in 2014. The jackass contractor:

1) Forgot to run power to my kitchen island. They busted up my slab to run conduit and did a shifty patch up job.

2) Tiled my entire kitchen and bathrooms with the wrong tile.

3) Used half rotten wood for columns on my back porch.

4) Poured my driveway and sidewalks right before a massive rainstorm.

5) Didn’t properly fasten the drawer doors in the kitchen (most of them fell off).

Ya, but there's a reason...

Story time!

Bought the house from a guy who took a 1940s bungalow and gutted it down to the joists and rafters. All new plumbing and electrical. Added on a 1600 sqft addition that added an upstairs room, additional bedroom, and huge master bed and bath. Dad was the GC. Dumps serious money in to this house. $4k range, $2500 vented commercial hood, 3/4in oak flooring, custom molding around all the windows and doors, custom cabinetry, etc.

Then he gets busted with his side chick, gets divorced, gets taken to the cleaners by the ex. Takes out several loans from friends and family to finish the house. During closing he had SEVEN different loans the money was going to.

Long story short, great build quality everywhere and I got the house for a steal. But you can also tell where he rushed to finish. Painting is bad in several rooms, shitty spackle job in places, recessed ceiling lights not in flush, some floor molding missing, etc. Nothing major...just annoying shite the fiance and I have been fixing over the past year.

Moved into our house last September. The outside vinyl on the back patio seems to be pretty shotty work. I think the previous owner did it himself.

While I was in college, our rent house attic had crisscrossed exposed wires and certain outlets would only work when certain other light switches were turned on in other rooms. I was pretty sure we were going to end up with an electrical fire at some point. Luckily we never did

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Reve built.

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Go on.

Curious because my buddy bought a house of his and he’s pretty satisfied with it thus far. I was even looking into lots he has in the new development of Ashton and maybe letting him build for me.

The wife and I bought our house in late 2014. She noted that the master bath had been remodeled and wanted to redo it at some point. Some previous owner (the one we bought it from, we suspect) had put up sheet rock and tiled it 3/4 the way up. The grout wasn't sealed well but it wasn't anything major.

Looking at the wall from outside you could see where a large window had been but had since been covered by some decorative wooden thingy.

Flash-forward to the aftermath of the flood of 2016. We are demoing that master bath and find that it wasn't sheet rock but just tile board that had been placed against some 2x4's nailed to the frame (one was only nailed in the top, it didn't quite reach the frame on the foundation so you could just pull it down with a little effort). We also found the window still completely intact in its frame, covered on the inside by nothing more than styrofoam. The brackets for the blinds they had there were still in place.

And then we found out why all this shoddy work was done. At some point water had leaked through that big ol' window frame and rotted every bit of wood from halfway up the wall all the way down to the foundation. The wood was so rotted that you could thump it with your fingers and chunks would fly off.

We had to have not just the whole bottom half of the wall rebuilt, but a whole new window put in as well (original to the house, 1983 build so it was an old aluminum frame and single-paned glass). In that respect the flood was a bit of a blessing because otherwise we might not have found out about the issue until it sagged and/or collapsed.

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My house was built in the late 1940's, beautiful framing and 1.5" thick oak flooring. Nothing made in the last 30 years is that good. The quality of lumber then vs now is not even close. Some of the electrical "upgrades" have obviously been done by somebody not knowing or caring about what they were doing though. Same with some of the plumbing. All stuff I can fix myself though.

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I have owned several homes built in the 1930s and 40s, the construction and general woodwork was impeccable. Things like where the exterior siding meets the window framing, the fit was flawless, those guys didn't use caulk to fill up cracks, when they made a cut it fit, and it was all done with a handsaw. House I am in know was built in the 80s, hardly anywhere I can look and now find something that should have ben done better.

I just remodeled my bathroom and found out that my tub/surround was an inch out of level over the tub with plumb walls. Putting in the new one I had to really do a lot of work to get it to sit right and the surround to sit right. Had I wanted to keep the house and tile the walls it wouldn't have been a big deal as the floor was falling to the drain.

I bought a house in TX that was roughly 2 years old when we purchased. Looked really nice. Since then, we realized how cheaply houses are put together here. I'm fairly certain 10% of our molding is actually caulk. Looks fine when painted initially, but slowly dries out and pulls away showing how shitty it was done.

We also had cracked shower which required extensive repair. Well, we got a crack in the same spot over the last few days. Seems it's just a poor design. cold air in the open space around the garden tub and hot water from the shower hitting it leads to cracks. I am just using grout caulk instead of trying to redo it again.

This kind of shite is my biggest fear as a first time home buyer. I'm not a construction guy and I wouldn't know what to even look for.

How much do Home Inspectors cost these days and do they do a good job?