Learned how to make budget today
Learned how to be an old-time contractor today.
My folks had a kitchen extension built in the late ’70’s, early 80’s. I was out of the country.
No permits, of course.
9′ build out sitting on 2 piers: 24″x24″x8″, but on the ground, not 24″ under, like code says. Kitchen end dropped a little every year. We shimmed, but …..
Deck’s finally rotten, tore it off: got the oil tank removed; dug down 30″ & installed footers an 2 sides and propped up the kitchen on 2×6’s nailed together; started jackhammering the piers.
He probably used 2 bags of concrete in each pier. I found bricks, field stone, clay tile ….. and it was SOFT. I cut 3 of these things apart in 2 hours with an electric jackhammer.
Next time I feel like saving myself some money, instead of solid with rebar, I’ll be like an old -timer too.
NOT!
Quality repairs for your home.
AaronR Construction
Vancouver, Canada
Replies
LOL.
Our ancestors were not always as much craftsmen as the popular mythology would have us believe. Some of this is nostalgia, the romanticizing of the past. Typically through a willing, if not willful, denial of the available facts.
Myth is that houses were better built way back when. There is a grain of truth to this. Some were and it can be honestly said the wood they used was better than the stuff commonly used today. I have seen beautiful blemish free planks about and inch thick, 16" wide and 16' or more feet long used as roof decking. Where the carpenters would put the cheap wood.
I have talked to people who claimed that you can see the quality in the old homes. They go on to say all or most homes were similarly built. A skewed sample. What can be said is that: Of those houses which have survived a couple of hundred years the majority show a high degree of craftsmanship. Skewed simply because the more poorly built structures fell down, blew or washed away. Those that survived tended to be the best of the best.
Shoddy construction and shortcuts are nothing new. Builders have long tried to get the most profits for the least effort. Difference now is that our standards, building codes primarily, and understanding of stresses on put on buildings are better understood.
Not all of our ancestors were paragons of virtue and even a quick study of the literature of the time shows that 'the good old days' were often more old than good.
You know the saying "they don't build 'em like they used to?"
sometimes that's a good thing!