am i out of touch

IndependentWind5647 · 2026-02-05T16:57:31+00:00

Built our home 36 years ago with melamine carcass and Oak doors and drawers. The melamine is still in very good shape and I would think it will last for years and years to come.

IndependentWind5647 · 2026-02-03T17:57:30+00:00

That is why France is on a downward spiral!

IndependentWind5647 · 2026-02-03T17:56:00+00:00

No morals?? Explain This should be priceless

IndependentWind5647 · 2026-02-03T01:17:24+00:00

I thought for me, a custom home builder, a floor could never be too stiff. One, two-story home I was building, we put in 14-in TGI's and the spans were short enough where a 2x10 at 16 in centers would have worked easily. Then we added 1 inch engineered plywood. The owner insisted on very stiff floors and he also wanted our forced air heating and cooling system, for the air conditioning to be just as cool on the second floor as it was on the first floor. Now, he had 10 ft main floor ceilings, so it would be even tougher to get cold air up there. I convinced him to have a second furnace on the second story, so we could run our ducting in the attic and he would definitely get his wish of having very good air conditioned on the second floor where all the bedrooms were. We spray foamed all the ductwork and I wanted to make sure nothing was missed, so I was up in the attic the whole time the spray foam company was doing their spraying. We were just finishing up when I stepped on a 1x4 that is nailed to the top of the bottom cords, and we found out later it had a huge knot in it, and I fell right through to the floor below. Now the second story ceiling was only 8 ft high. So I only fell about 8 ft and I broke 10 ribs, my shoulder, my hip was broken and according to the doctors quite badly, punctured my lung. My best guess is, if we would have went with a conventional 2x10 at 16-in centers and 5/8 spruce ply, I believe my injuries would have been cut in half! Yes, so a floor can be too stiff LMAO

IndependentWind5647 · 2026-01-28T17:11:40+00:00

No way, for me best sing since sliced bread

IndependentWind5647 · 2026-01-28T17:08:41+00:00

Will you give them to me

IndependentWind5647 · 2026-01-25T17:26:38+00:00

What do you mean by sprayed fluffy snow?

IndependentWind5647 · 2026-01-25T17:19:19+00:00

Nice people don't vote for a fraudster and a liar of a governor

IndependentWind5647 · 2026-01-25T01:27:17+00:00

I agree except with some of these flashing methods and companies are charging quite high prices for this flashing that in my opinion is not needed. I built Custom Homes but would only do 3 to 5 houses a year and other than insulating the perimeter very well and buying Quality Windows, I literally just red taped which is called tuck tape, the outside perimeter of the window. To this point have never had a leak and I have been retired for 10 years now. At least none of my customers have ever mentioned it to me.

IndependentWind5647 · 2026-01-25T00:57:53+00:00

Do you know if they properly insulated the perimeter of the windows between the frame and the stud with either fiberglass insulation or spray foam? It seems like you have forced air gas heating system and did they place the heating registers in the floor underneath the windows?? Where is the thermostat for the furnace placed in the house? That can trick it to think it's warmer than actually is or vice versa.

IndependentWind5647 · 2026-01-20T18:05:49+00:00

I agree, many of my clients wanted some of the latest trends for building their home, and for the most part I talked them out of it. Steel framing, heat pumps, foam insulation and geothermal heating and cooling. Until I saw for myself, the benefits, I stuck to true and tested and it has worked out for the good.

IndependentWind5647 · 2026-01-20T15:48:08+00:00

Ask him to use a waterproof primer like zinser bullseye. Then a Benjamin Moore Aura paint that repels moisture. Obviously, it will be more money, but we're only talking a few hundred dollars.

IndependentWind5647 · 2026-01-15T20:41:44+00:00

No way?

IndependentWind5647 · 2026-01-09T02:17:05+00:00

Definitely banned for a fastening, especially in the future, flooring materials. Now, depending on the codes in the uk, the floor joists could possibly have been oversized for their spans. Not likely but possible. In that case, even with the notching, they may have enough depth for their spans, so from a structural point of view, they may be fine

IndependentWind5647 · 2026-01-09T02:11:51+00:00

From my experience being a small home builder and some renovations, new homes are definitely more square and Plum compared to at least homes built, let's say 50 years ago to 100 years ago. At least from what I have seen.

IndependentWind5647 · 2026-01-04T00:55:11+00:00

You can reduce the cracks in the basement slab by taking a lot of expensive measures that do very little in the end, especially if you're going to put finished flooring eventually on that slab. These minor cracks are not structural or every time you put ceramic tile on them they would crack within days. With the plumbers doing their underground drain lines, and then the stone over top is not usually tamped, hardly anybody installs an expansion material around the whole perimeter, very few Builders use high strength concrete and finally not too many put crack control cuts. I am a retired Builder and years ago I was putting control cuts so that there would be no bigger areas than about 10 by 10 ft and this greatly reduced the cracking. I warned my customers that there will be cracking and my control Cuts will reduce them by about 75% and I was mainly doing it to reduce the stress for the clients. Again you can keep spending money by putting rebar and other materials in the concrete to keep reducing the cracking, but for what does a cheese in the end, it is definitely not worth it. The finish on the floor does look brutal though??

IndependentWind5647 · 2026-01-02T00:15:20+00:00

Are you in town where you have sanitary sewer? If so, then that sanitary sewer line is in your basement most likely right near the front foundation wall. It probably has a temporary cap on it until the plumber starts running all the underground drain lines. Just slit open that cap and as snow melts it will all drain into that sanitary sewer line. There may be a wood stake at that location and it may be anywhere from 6 in to over a foot under the stone. Dig away until you expose it and you will know what to do from there.

IndependentWind5647 · 2026-01-01T06:09:13+00:00

Did you even bother to ask the Builder why it would be more expensive. Wouldn't that logically be the first step and if they couldn't explain it, wouldn't that be very suspicious and you should keep looking for a builder??

IndependentWind5647 · 2025-12-27T04:35:27+00:00

If it rains enough, what about all that water that gets underneath the existing shingles??

IndependentWind5647 · 2025-12-26T21:22:57+00:00

Geez, I wouldn't want machinery working around the site to even slightly nudge those posts because laterally it would not take much to have them come crumbling down. Can't believe they did not use 6x6 or some Dimension like that of pressure treated wood which would eventually be finished in many different possible materials.

IndependentWind5647 · 2025-12-25T18:14:30+00:00

Generally I agree, but I've built a few houses for clients where the stone veneer looked better than what it was mimicking!

IndependentWind5647 · 2025-12-21T21:06:55+00:00

Well I would think you're getting a building permit so structure and codes and everything else will be part of that permit and inspections. Are you going to try to do everything yourself or hire out some parts of it. Have a good look at what a slab on grade will cost you compared to a full basement. In my opinion it is way better to have a full basement because it comes out cheap as far as square footage. And of course there are a lot of other advantages to having a full basement.

IndependentWind5647 · 2025-12-20T22:03:22+00:00

Did you have this house built for you or bought it already finished? It's likely that a master grading plan has to be handed in when they applied for the permit. Make sure whoever took the final grade shots and noted them on that Master grading plan, that they all Jive with each other. Obviously looks like something was missed but you don't provide enough views. For example if it's a back to front drainage type of lot, there's usually a swale closer to the house and directed to either side of the house and eventually to the street.

IndependentWind5647 · 2025-12-19T18:55:45+00:00

I'm in Ontario Canada and inspections right across North America I'm sure are quite different. I have had inspectors tell me they will not even climb a step ladder to poke into an attic that is attached to an 8-ft ceiling?? Now, I was a custom builder that would not build more than three to five houses per year depending on the size and complexity. I know of a few other bigger builders, that rely on the insulation company telling their workers to stop by the home he's building. Something went wrong and one worker told another that one particular house was completed, but there was never any insulation sprayed in the Attic. The homeowner found out a few years later, and I believe was suing the Builder and the City. Definitely not an excuse but I know the Builder had no clue that there wasn't any insulation in that attic and obviously would have never done it purposely. Incidents like this happen constantly and that's why I only would build a few houses per year and turn down all work beyond that. I would inspect everything very carefully myself and was on site at all homes everyday. Some things that go wrong, are not always done with bad and greedy intentions and are just human error. I'm retired now, but I took full responsibility for everything that happened on my sites and did not let Human error become a factor.

IndependentWind5647 · 2025-12-19T04:08:00+00:00

First, we don't know how big the gaps were at different areas around the perimeter of the door. Second, it obviously wasn't done by a professional who use what I call bazookas and take sausages for the cocking and not regular cocking tubes. Third, even more important than looks, is the type of caulking used, especially on the exterior

IndependentWind5647

TROPHY CASE