At Home In The Woods

[Obed]

I once had a contractor, after 18 months of trying to fix a serious problem tell me he had insurance, and that I should call them. Don't fall into this trap. The insurance company has done this thousands of times, you have only done it once. They will tell you what they are going to do, which is usually nothing or a very inexpensive fix, which does not work.

As soon as I heard that, I called a lawyer, who called the insurance company and told them what they were going to do. They didn't like this one little bit, but after a lot of wrangling they settled for $80k, which was about $70k higher than their first offer. If you do not have a lawyer, they will never seriously negotiate with you.

I've been there myself. As young newlyweds, we bought our first house in Charleston, SC. After living in the house for 3 months, Hurricane Hugo put 3 1/2 feet of ocean in our downstairs. The contractor bids to fix my house equaled a year's salary at my payrate at the time. Our homeowner's insurance would only pay us half of what it would cost to fix our house. As a young couple, there was no way we could hire someone to fix our house.

After getting a lawyer involved, the insurance company finally agreed to match our lowest contractor bid. We had to pay the lawyer 10% of the insurance payment which left us having to handle the difference ourselves plus the deductible our of our own pocket. The 10% payment to the lawyer really hurt. However, without the lawyer's assistance, our negotiation attempts were completely fruitless. I'm not thrilled with a lot of what lawyers do but sometimes they do provide a valuable service.

Obed

 

[Obed]

Our master closet has not been finished. It has no shelves or clothes hanging rods. My wife hung some new plywood shelves in the basement in order to put polyurethane on them.

 

[dstig1]

Obed ...that's a nutso amount of prep time... and I'm the kind of guy that would actually think of doing something like that... Just drive some nails or screws through some plywood to use as nail boards to support a couple boards while you finish them. Brush or spraying, this works easy. There is only so much you can do at one time anyways, so spread it out a bit.

 

[PhysAssist]

1) I used Benjamin Moore M70/71 epoxy. It was recommended by a friend who owns a machine shop. It's bombproof. Do NOT use Rust-Oleum floor epoxy from HD/Lowes. Same friend had a very bad experince with it. And this was in the office area!

http://164.109.30.55/professionals/manual/6-06-M70-M71.pdf




2)Commercial spec is 1/8 inch variation over 6 feet.




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Hi Danno,

Thanks for the pdf and the advice, we'll be looking into it.

Thomas

 

[PhysAssist]

Thomas, please do.
Obed

Hi Obed,

Thanks, I appreciate it. Our contractor is gping to meet us to look at it tomorrow afternoon, and some outside opinions would be helpful.

Thomas

 

[PhysAssist]

I replaced a sink drain in the rental house. Plumbing is definitely not my gifting. On my first attempt, I did not use any plumber's putty which resulted in a leaking sink. I got it right the second time using copious amounts of putty.

View attachment 345748 View attachment 345749 View attachment 345750

I still haven't finished fixing the shower so the house is still empty. Granted I haven't killed myself working on the house but I have spent almost every Saturday there for a while. I am looking forward to getting my Saturday's back so I can cut some more firewood.

I hate doing any plumbing work because it seems like even when you do everything right, leaks happen, or the next junction down starts to leak.

Electrical is better, unless you're trying to track down a short, in which case, it's probably worse.

We're fighting the weather to get splitting done, now that my doc says that I'm healed enough to start it up again, CAREFULLY. I bought some heavy duty knee pads from HF to keep splits that go airborne from the splitter.

Thomas

 

[PhysAssist]

Thomas,
Building is a great exercise in patience. At the end of the day, sometimes you have figure out if the stress that comes from trying to make people do the right thing is worth it. When we built our house, I was always trying to balance what was important to us against when to make a big deal out of something and when not to. The line I drew had a lot to do with whether or not the issue would cause maintenance or structural problems somewhere down the road. Also, if a subcontractor was in general conscientious, I would give him more grace than a sub who cut corners as his normal practice.

Regarding your floor, our basement is larger than yours but is very flat. Before the house was dried in, I could only tell where low spots were by looking at the pools of water after a rain. Now that the house is finished, I have no idea what spots are low or high. I cannot see them and don't notice them while walking.

In the grand scheme, you are building a barn. If the unlevelness doesn't cause you significant issues on a practical nature, I would tend to let it go and spend my energy on something else. I know that's easier said than done.

Obed

Hi Obed,

Thanks for the perspective and very good advice, we have already come across some similar issues where we had to make the same choice to live with it, if it didn't make the building unsafe, likely to fail, or just so unsoghtly as to make us unable to tolerate it.

My real reasons for concern are 1) that Pat already had balance issues walking over it, and 2) I want my workbenches and power equipment to be level and stable.

We will see what our contractor has to say about it, but he already seems to have indicated that he doesn't believe it is significant (sight unseen).

Thanks again,
Thomas

 

[PhysAssist]

I'd look at someone who could use a concrete 'shaving' ? machine; what is used to cut/polish concrete floors prior to coating them with epoxy or tile or whatever for high end garagemahal type floors, and inquire if it's possible to grind off high spots or fill in lows or both.
You may find that the cost to correct the installers mistakes is high enough to choose to live with it or take him to court to force him to make it right or refund your money.:confused3:
You ought to search other web forums about garage floors to get the right know-how about this.
This thread isn't likely going to yield much in the way of pro grade advice. Except for mine, of course!:laughing:

Hi CM!

Thanks for your pro advice, I do appreciate it.

To be honest though, I was just looking for other people's experiences with this kind of thing, having never been through it before as a private homeowner, especially as it relates to a building like our barn/shop/garage.

I did see some really badly poured floors when I worked in retail, but they were ones that we knew were to be covered later by tile or aheet flooring, and thus were leveled with a leveling compound.

Thanks,
Thomas

 

[PhysAssist]

I have used one of these concrete grinding machines.

There are two basic kinds I know of, possibly more. The kind I used is called a "scarrifier" which is obviously not the same as the tooth-like attachment on a box blade or drag. They are very dusty and remove a very light layer of concrete by striking it with metal blades. Sort of the size of a lawn mower, but much heavier.

The surface finish they produce is coarse, almost like the concrete has been hit hard with thousands of small hammers about 1/8" in diameter. They can shave possibly 1/32" from concrete in one pass, maybe only half of that. The concrete turns to dust. I had a small "mound" of concrete in an otherwise flat floor, about 3" high and 12' in diameter. It took three days to get this to an acceptable point of maybe a 3/4" mound centered in the same place. You have to be careful to get it evenly ground down. Too many passes in the wrong place and you get a groove.

The second type of a machine is more of a polisher. Tt is used to produce Terrazzo-type floors. I am not sure how much material it removes, but I don't think it is the one for this situation.

* * * * * *

I will never again have concrete flatwork done by an outside contractor with out a flatness specification in the contract, and a measurement of flatness before payment.

I think you may have to learn to live with the surface you have, or, if you can accept a raised floor, pour a 3" pad on top of the one you have.

If you can't, tear it out and start again is the only realistic way of getting it flat.

* * * * *

I once had a contractor, after 18 months of trying to fix a serious problem tell me he had insurance, and that I should call them. Don't fall into this trap. The insurance company has done this thousands of times, you have only done it once. They will tell you what they are going to do, which is usually nothing or a very inexpensive fix, which does not work.

As soon as I heard that, I called a lawyer, who called the insurance company and told them what they were going to do. They didn't like this one little bit, but after a lot of wrangling they settled for $80k, which was about $70k higher than their first offer. If you do not have a lawyer, they will never seriously negotiate with you.

Hi Curly Dave,

I'm not sure that eeither machine makes sense and I suspect that you are right and we'll either have to live with it, or else have leveling compound spread over it, and the floor over that with something resilient.

The thing is, once we saw the irregularity, we felt that we had to say SOMEthing about it, even if there is no reasonable recourse... Even if it's onlyso that the next time they pour and "evel" someone's floor, at least they will know that they have been called on their leveling before, and will maybe do a better job of it, even if we can't afford to take any punitive or remunerative action against them.

Thanks again,
Thomas

 

[CurlyDave]

Hi Obed,

Thanks, I appreciate it. Our contractor is gping to meet us to look at it tomorrow afternoon, and some outside opinions would be helpful.

Thomas

For my money, that looks more like a snowdrift than a professionally installed concrete floor. The contractor needs to either fix that or tear it out and do it again.

I don't know of a good fix, but if you could afford to lose a little bit of ceiling height, a new pour (about 3" above the "peaks") on top of this might be the most cost effective way to get this smooth & flat.