re: Uncovering Poor Workmanship in Your Home

Owned a house once that was built in the 40's. Structurally sound as shite, I mean this thing was like a fortress in terms of framing and roofing. But one prior owner would just add walls on top of walls and floors on top of floors. He also added wood-based acoustic paneling in between layers of sheet rock.

In the kitchen alone, gutted it and gained almost a foot in width from the multiple layers of sheet rock, acoustic paneling, and plywood (wtf); six inches down in flooring because it wasfour layers of linoleum tile and plywood over the original wood floors. Also gained TWO FEET in ceiling height because there was a false ceiling installed.

Due to old blown insulation, couldn't tell how bad electrical was and the home inspector was a lazy POS. Sucked up all of the insulation to reveal an electrical nightmare. Junction boxes open with exposed wiring, some connections made with just caps and no junctions, hot wires going nowhere, just a fricking mess. Luckily decided to do a complete gut job so it was all updated, but the old electrical was a disaster.

At the end of the day, I'd much rather have my money in a place that is structurally sound and have to update plumbing and/or electrical than the reverse.

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"How did this pass inspection?"

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Learned my lesson the first time, home inspectors aren't worth dick. Now I just pay a builder I know to spend a day going through the entire house and making a list of everything that is done wrong.

House built in 2006. I’ve found quite a few and one last week

Look.... frick a contractor that would take offense to that. He is working for you. If he has a good crew he won't be told anything right?

That's what I had to finally tell the owner of the company and his brain fart of a first lieutenant.... (my main mistake was letting my wife deal with it from the beginning but I thought she was anal enough to stay on top of it).

Even to the end of the build when we went to sign papers and get the keys the owner of the company was acting unprofessional and a total arse to the bank people saying he would refuse to pay more than 60 dollars for some paper work. Luckily it had nothing to do with us getting into the house....

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Learned my lesson the first time, home inspectors aren't worth dick. Now I just pay a builder I know to spend a day going through the entire house and making a list of everything that is done wrong

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Yep, it was my first house... never again.

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Pretty much the entire house Reve built.

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And Randy Noel, the owner of Reve, was just elected Chairman of the National Association of Homebuilders.
Him and his father before him are known as building cheap houses.

Randy that's the jack off... during a walk through I asked him if he would allow this in his home.... he said no... I asked him why should I.

I literally wanted to fight that man.

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Curious if anyone else has any good stories.

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too many to list. Everytime I get in the attic I am amazed the roof doesnt just slide off.

That and the plumbing and wiring seem to be put in by colorblind, dyslexic, Mexican truck drivers. Every time I have someone out to fix something they spend about 30 minutes explaining that they have never really encountered anything like it....."you know, we generally dont see it done like this"

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How was the old heater larger than the new? I recently replaced my primary water heater, if not for full-size door attic access I would've had to remove attic fold-up staircase (from garage). New heater is 26" dia. and a heavy bitch

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I had to downsize from a 50 gallon to a 40 gallon to fit up stairs. Guess I should of included that little fact.

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

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They are a joke. Mine obviously didnt care about the structural integrity, functionality or safety of the home. He did how ever write up that a brick was missing from a makeshift brick patio the prior owners had thrown together.