What home improvement work did you do today?

Aluminium Patio?

 

Nice!!
We have a custom made canvas tent with the sock and drawstring for a window unit.
Also opted for the rubberised floor.
To many sand fleas and fire ants around here to go with a dirt floor.

 

Yep.

 

Been MIA for a few months getting moved a quarter of the way across the country and settled into a new build spec home. And boy has that been an adventure. WTF are these builders doing nowadays? The stuff I've found that our joke of a home inspector, and county inspector missed, just comical. Some stuff is very minor but still frustrating for expecting a "perfect" new home, especially for the ridiculous inflated price we paid. Luckily the builder has been cooperative with fixing these issues but what else am I missing?

Found some water dripping out of this soffit during light rain.


Went into attic to check from top side and found no insulation baffles. Insulation guy admitted they effed up. They fixed and reblew over their foot traffic.


But during that fiasco we couldn't get access to one corner of the attic. Which I found what looked like there was another return air leg there too?!??! After I already cut a RAP above the door.




So I cut an access hole, which then led to finding that there's a dryer vent booster fan - but no outlet to plug it into...



At least there's filtered return air from this bedroom now!



Every banister mount missing one screw


Backs cut off and sideways screwed old work boxes for outdoor outlets


Typical drain findings


"fixed" counter chips


Didn't need all the pins in the doors did we?


nicely aligned door handles


On top of all this we're entering our 7th week of irrigation system install.
They ordered wrong glass for a broken window so we're still 2 weeks out on that.
Gas fireplace doesn't work, waiting on parts.

Oh and the small soffit leak in the first picture.... also still not resolved. Stay busy friends.

 

Unreal to say the least.

 

I swear they hire people who can just barley find there way to the jobsite.
Some bad "fails" there. Hopefully that's all there is.

(35+ years building and bld mnt/trades, I've seen some head shakers before)
Our recently purchased 2 year old home here in Michigan has 2 outside hose bibs... not frost free, buried in a wall, that's been closed-cell spray foamed, against pole barn steel.
No way to Isolate and bleed back so they don't freeze out. Real men of Genius
I can get to one of them through the drywall in the garage and then carve my way through the foam (haven't tackled it yet). But the other one is behind beautiful knotty pine in the kitchen.
There were quite a few other items that I have fixed already.

 

Holy shit my friend. I would not be happy. That's gotta to be extremely frustrating. There is always little things, but these things are all pretty large things. Even the door handles, it just makes you wonder what stuff looks like underneath the drywall. Hopefully your builder keeps coming back and fixing things up for you .

Regarding the irrigation. It shouldn't be more than a day or two, 3 at most for a large installation. You might want to refund anything you've got and call the competitor. Or is he hooked in with the builder?

I just GC'd a project more or less, and if I wasn't there every day "asking dumb questions" I fear what would have been done by some of these subs out here.

 

geez man. sorry to hear. sucks to move into a new home and have to go back and do all that kinda stuff. hopefully you can get it done and just get back to "living" in your home and adjusting to the move and not chasing this stuff around.

 

Rain has been hitting us hard. But they got the 4 posts up and concreted in for the lean-to. Hopefully get concrete poured soon so they can knock out the rest.

 

Three words come to mind . . . W T F !?!?

 

Landscaper is tied in with the builder. They installed the system over 3 days work spread out over other more important projects in the development. It looks like a decent system but zero communication with the plumber, the city, and the utility company for the RPZ, inspection, and meter. All these subs are overwhelmed working 7 days a week. I definitely feel like a GC bird dogging all of this myself. Squeaky wheel!

GBS, a small local builder. I know this looks bad but you should have seen the big name builders in this area. My time and options were limited and at least the walls are straight, doors close, windows seal!

 

Previous owner never did anything with this after the excavation for the driveway/parking spot.
Roots were sticking out and it was slowly eroding into the gravel.
Took one of the pine poles from the huge pile out back and made it better.
I know it's not a forever fix but the price was right, and lets face it, it might outlive me.

 

Wow, you found a lot of “mistakes”. We had a lot of problems with our Covid era built home, but got most resolved. A lot of different problems from what you are experiencing.

We needed up doing work to improve drainage for water, but we did a lot of extra landscaping on out dime. I never knew there was such a thing as a dryer vent boost. Our builder had the vents “cleaned” after our move in, but 3.5 years later, we paid some $$$$ to get our furnace and vents done. This time they cleaned out the furnace and all the ducts of still construction dust. Hopefully it will resolve some of my wife’s allergies issues.

 

Speaking of drainage, hard downpour this morning overwhelmed the downspouts (only 1x 4" corrugated pipe around each side of the house). This is why the landscapers took so long to get the irrigation done, much higher priority work all around the neighborhood! Add me to the list. I'm trying to be patient until the uphill row behind me gets gutters, grading, and sod but something tells me this will still be a problem.

 

holy fk, I feel bad for you...
I used to be a Soil Erosion Sediment Control Inspector. Did all that sand come from the lot up the hill?
Because it looks like you had an established lawn that's now covered in sand.
That's all going to have to be removed if you want proper drainage.... and a lawn again.
If this was a situation that was in my jurisdiction there would have been a citation/fine for the builder and they would have had to remove the sand/restore your property/and install the proper controls.
You can check with your State, or City (if they run the SESC permits) permitting office and get information.
Maybe have them come take a look at it even. Just a backup plan if they don't willfully fix that for you.

 

river rock in back yard

 

Couple items this morning. Went to put my oatmeal bowl in the dishwasher. Smelled a little musty. Decided to clean it. Oh. My. God. Pulled the bottom rack out for ease of access. Pulled the water wand out and removed the strainer. Beneath it is a layer of darkness. A large bowl with the pump. A ball valve and some larger strainers. All covered in mildew and soap scum.
Spent the better part of 30mins removing it all with a toothbrush and some cleaner to get it whitish again.



all reassembled



Added some detergent and ran a sanitize cycle after

 

Oh, second item. Hornets. Yellow jackets. Hate em. Spotted one in the house this week. Found the nest lurking in the upper corner of the back porch door. Best life hack I’ve found in a while to kill flying demons. Dawn soap in a pump sprayer. Mix it heavy. So the water is really blue. Maybe a cup a gallon or more. Set the nozzle to a semi concentrated mist for good aim but aerial dispersion. Hosed these sum bitches down and didn’t lose a single one.

 

Our first house was a brand new Pulte home. Our 2nd house is what we live in now and it was built in the late 1890’s. We had more issues with the Pulte home. In fact, I tell people I learned how to repair shit because I owned a Pulte. Sorry you are going through this.

 

Not really home improvement, but a home built project. Daughters getting married. She likes photo booths. Dad’s building a Photo Booth. “Why not just rent one for the day?” Good question. There are no real photo booths available. Just camera on a stick. And they are $750 for the night. F that. So dad is building one.

“Napkin plans”



Built the bench side first, then the camera side. They will be fastened together on site making it easier to transport.




Plans immediately change as soon as I start building. I’m an improviser. I get the idea that the two separate sides of the booth should be able to “nest” together. So I build the camera side slightly larger to accommodate the bench side. simply rotate the camera side around, and nest.



May add a handle and wheels so I don’t need a dolly.

 

Did this the other day also! I try to do it once a year. The amount of stuff that comes out is wild, I'll usually dump 3x load of cleaner in the bottom, and one load in the tray and run an empty load after, then a quick rinse. I made the kids come smell it and look at all the nasty dark funk in there. They never hose off the dishes well enough, don't seem to think it's important. Had to show them that's what it all ends up being.

Meanwhile, I'll take small wins any day. Wife wanted to get rid of the ugly ass hanging pendant light above the hallway stairs, it's probably one of the only fixtures in the house we hadn't updated yet. I don't have a ladder long enought to get directly under it for work, so had to install this new LED beast while hanging off the side of a stepladder along the banister. Glad my arms are 1" - 1½" longer than a normal human my size, but they were tired holding the wired pan, while trying to align the base up with the standoffs, while grabbing fasteners and threading on. Why haven't humans evolved with a 3rd arm yet? Sucked, but ... got it done.

Out with the old, in with the new. Happy wife, happy life? (yes, that's a Denso alternator at the bottom of the stairs)

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I'm still plugging away and getting there,man I can't wait to go back to work to get some rest.lol!

 

I own a wedding venue, and have seen a handful of different booths. You did a good job on this. From the back of the house, a handle and wheels will make you a god at the end of the night/next day when staff has to move it around.

 

My entire family didn't think it was important.

In our previous house, we had the *cheapest* dishwasher we could find. Given that our water was hard as hell already, I figured "better give it all the help I can" and pre-rinsed all the dishes.

When we bought a new one after 9 years (a Bosch - highly recommend them) to replace it, the guy looked at the old dishwasher and said ".....do you pre-rinse your dishes?"

When I said I did, he said "Good, because that is the ONLY way this survived 9 years. So many homeowners just throw sh*t in there expecting the dishwasher to do it for them. Kills 'em early."

Me looking @ my wife as he said this:

 

Wow, that's horrible!! Yeah, subpar work seems to be the norm now. That really sucks!

 

Ditto! Quieter than any other DW I've ever owned.

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This reminds me. The kids are f' brutal washing & putting away dishes and I have a couple of corner chips in our Silestone I need to repair. I'd intended to look up what to use for filler on these, so I could then file/sand down and polish to make it look more-natural. Never got around to it, but would like to do that at some point this year.

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Applies to almost anything in the house. I love how weekly they keep twllme that their shower drain is clogged again. My first question is have you cleaned the drain screen I installed? Then they just walk away. I remind them that it needs to be cleaned after every shower because both my girls have long hair. *I usually have to clean mine as the wife just lets hers stay there as well.