Quality work is fading away! My neighbor had a second floor addition put on,starting last summer 2003.The quality of the work is horrible, there is a drop in the roof in the middle, windows are crooked and the walls bow in towards the roof.they didnt follow the plane of the walls .This is so noticeable ,it must be almost six inches in difference ,to boot they also had the electrical conduit run parrallel on the front of the house with the corner of the house on the front .It simply looks horrible.How does a buiding inspecter let this go?
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maybe quality should be added to the "lost skills" thread.
gk
How does a buiding inspecter let this go?
The building inspector isn't there for quality control- he's there for life safety- ie: the codes. More than likely he didn't even notice the problems unless they were so severe as to cause structural instability. Even if he did see them, if they're not causing the work to violate code or threaten life and limb, he's got no jurisdiction over the work anyway.
Of course, a casual comment to the homeowner on his part would have been nice, but most public employees won't even do that. It opens the city/county up to lawsuits and all kinds of crap.
It's unfortunate, but this kinda stuff happens every day.
Bob
like I just told a friend of my wifes ....
their new house is just awful ...
but ... building codes don't handle "ugly".
She needs a better lawyer than the builder .....
JeffBuck Construction Pittsburgh,PA
Artistry in Carpentry
Inna nutshell its called going with the low bidder. You get what you pay for.
Darkworksite4:
Gancho agarrador izquierdo americano pasado que la bandera antes de usted sale
"Inna nutshell its called going with the low bidder. You get what you pay for."Which has been the case for a long time. I've seen plenty of poor work, some of it 1 year old and some 100 years old. Usually the bad old stuff doesn't stick around so we don't notice it as much.
Caveat Emptor.
Jon Blakemore
I don't think the quality is much different then it use to be. Just that the old junk was demolish and replaced with some thing else. You don't find a lot of 200 year old quality homes.
The quality is going to depend on the ability of the builder along with the willingness to build a high quality building and the contract you sign with the builder. The contract needs to spell out level of standards the house is to be built to.
A lot of the contractor don't spell out the standards to what they will build to in the contract. It is because they can't, because of the poor materials that they have to work with.
You make a good point about the mythology that somehow 20, 50 or 100 years ago quality was a common thing and that we have somehow fallen from this grace. Decades ago I was on a tour of Colonial Williamsburg. One of the people on the tour commented about how well built homes were back then, indirectly lamenting the present state.
The tour guide, an expert in historic building construction methods, noted that our view of historic building quality was greatly skewed. The surviving buildings tend to be the very high end of the market. The majority of the buildings, those built by more common folks, were far less substantial.
In the intervening years the vast majority of these buildings built in colonial times have fallen down, burned or rotted. Those few remaining buildings, more likely to be well built, no longer provide an accurate representation of the general and average quality and workmanship of the time.
Generally speaking IMHO the average structural integrity of houses has improved over time. This does not speak to the aesthetics of the present day structures. Nothing a good renovation and face lift can't correct.
Compared to when? Certainly plenty of mass-produced junk homes from the 40s, 50's, 60's, 70s...
And quality stuff as well.
Part of the quality issues we are seeing now is the result of the labor shortage in construction trades. High labor rates make sweating the details an expensive proposition.
I think its more or less the use of illeagals in the construction trades, lowering the cost of labor and quality.
Darkworksite4:
Gancho agarrador izquierdo americano pasado que la bandera antes de usted sale
Ron,
I 2nd that!
Why would you suspect that an illegal would be more likely to produce poor quality work when US citizens, many who claim to 'have been doing it this way for years', are so very willing to screw things up on their own?
Stop by one of the job site I work on, More days then not I am the ONLY english speaking guy on the site. Whitey ( who I call the labor pimp) sends the troops out . They have a set of plans! Only problem, plans our in english, a language they can't speak let alone read! And all Whitey can say is "Voy al banco"!
I'm not sure it's different than it ever was. All jobs depend on the skill and care of the people doing it. For quality work you have to find the right people. There are ranges of quality in every job, from construction, to retail, to presidents. It all hinges on finding the good ones.
sounds like a quality builder should have been hired. Quality is still around, but going the lowest bid usually is the fault of the HO.
Using the lowest bidder does not guarantee a lousy job, an "unqualified bidder" is usually the source of an lousy job. After all we went to the moon with the "lowest bidder"