"Old world craftsmanship" How NOT to pour footings

[CATMAN]

My brother pours concrete slabs for grain bins back in Iowa and upper Missouri. His boss sells the bins and installation with just the minimum of concrete in the quote (4" thick). When my brother shows up at the farmers' location, he always tries to talk them into a 5" thick slab with fiber mesh. There is no additional labor, just the cost of the product. 99% of the farmers will upgrade. My brother has tried to get his boss to "figure in" this upgrade and quote it according, but for advertising reasons (shows a lower price with 4") the boss stays with the minimum.

 

[art]

My house was started in the mid 1800's and added on to till it has become about 5600 sq ft! I use a saying quite often that "there were good old carpenters and then there were old good carpenters" and I think it is true in most crafts.

 

[EddieWalker]

If everyone did it right the first time, I'd be out of business. For me, it's fun discovering the shortcuts people take, and seeing what the results are. Probably the very worse built homes that I've come across are mobile homes. There's just nothing in them that doesn't wear out and need fixing. For me, that's job security.

When you correct the problem, you'll have the pride and satisfaction of know it will be right. That makes it fun, but of course, charging extra for those hidden issues is always good motivation.

Eddie

 

[mjncad]

That's quite a mess you have on your hands Builder. If I didn't know better, I'd say the crook who built our house worked in your part of the country.

Our clown was good at putting just enough frosting on the canine Twinkie so to speak that it looked good until the frosting melted and you realize what you really have.

Some of the things I keep discovering in our 7-1/2 year old house just ticks me off that one guy can be so cheap and find every lousy sub-contractor in the area.

I told the builder his motto should be "Caulk & Walk"; but he can't even caulk a house correctly.

I subscribe to Fine Homebuilding and I see wonderful examples of true craftsmanship in home construction. I just wish more people including myself could afford to have a truly well built house constructed for them.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

The first thing about building codes is they are lessons learned. It isn't about some engineers getting together and trying to make it hard on the trades and do it yourselfers. They are based upon real life failures that cost real lives real money.

One of the problems I see is the vicious cycle of progress. That involves the laws of economy beating down the pride and skill of labor. There aren't many real tradesmen left anymore. They've been replaced by the cookie cutter mass production crews that are much more efficient at building, well, cookies.

A fact of life that we have to live with is when you design things in a way that any idiot can do it you end up with only idiots willing to do the work. I see it as a form of universal justice. The corporate concept is to make money and the most obvious place to save money is where most of the money is spent, labor. So management keeps trying to lower the skill level required so they can pay less for the work done. In the end they get what they pay for. So do we.

I get to work around high end projects sometimes. One of the disappointments is even when the homeowner is capable and willing to pay for good work it isn't available. The people willing and capable of doing good work in the trades have abandoned their trades because they couldn't compete with the latest wave of modernity. And it isn't worth their while to come back in for one project.

So I get to get in on a great project and find the same crews that fight for the cookie cutter ones doing what they know the only way they know of doing it. It makes it tough on occasion.

 

[Builder]

I had an engineer customer 5 years ago I built an addition for. Their backyard sloped upward as you walked farther out from the back of their house, and that is where the addition went. As we built the addition, I pointed-out that the sill plate was too close to the ground.

Rather than go through the expense of removing 8-12" of dirt around the foundation out far enough (like 6 feet) to make a swail around the house, they came up with the idea to put a waterproof membrane from the bottom of the block up about 1 foot up the wall, then stucco over the membrane. What a joke. The building inspector approved it. I tried as much as possible to get them to instead lower the grade around the addition, but it would have cost more money, maybe $1,000 more and it was a $75,000 job. They were very cheap people.

That was one job I didn't want to "sign my name" to. I hope the dirt doesn't cause moisture problems, but I think it will.

 

[MarkV]

I get to work around high end projects sometimes. One of the disappointments is even when the homeowner is capable and willing to pay for good work it isn't available. The people willing and capable of doing good work in the trades have abandoned their trades because they couldn't compete with the latest wave of modernity. And it isn't worth their while to come back in for one project.

Harv I could not agree with you more. I’ve been in the trades close to 30 years now and it gets harder and harder to do good work and still get work. With unskilled labor, inferior materials and the “short cuts” used by so many you just can’t stay price competitive and still do good work with good materials. I feel sorry for the home owner that wants good work done and is willing to pay for it. There is so much “BS” out there that they can’t tell if the extra 25% in cost is buying them a better product or they are listening to a better “BSer”. The trades have hurt themselves by not establishing more universal standards of quality. As was said above, code is the minimum not the standard of quality.

MarkV

 

[em14]

The first thing about building codes is they are lessons learned. It isn't about some engineers getting together and trying to make it hard on the trades and do it yourselfers. They are based upon real life failures that cost real lives real money.

One of the problems I see is the vicious cycle of progress. That involves the laws of economy beating down the pride and skill of labor. There aren't many real tradesmen left anymore. They've been replaced by the cookie cutter mass production crews that are much more efficient at building, well, cookies.

A fact of life that we have to live with is when you design things in a way that any idiot can do it you end up with only idiots willing to do the work. I see it as a form of universal justice. The corporate concept is to make money and the most obvious place to save money is where most of the money is spent, labor. So management keeps trying to lower the skill level required so they can pay less for the work done. In the end they get what they pay for. So do we.

I get to work around high end projects sometimes. One of the disappointments is even when the homeowner is capable and willing to pay for good work it isn't available. The people willing and capable of doing good work in the trades have abandoned their trades because they couldn't compete with the latest wave of modernity. And it isn't worth their while to come back in for one project.

So I get to get in on a great project and find the same crews that fight for the cookie cutter ones doing what they know the only way they know of doing it. It makes it tough on occasion.

Harv,
I have saved this ... well said and well written!
Leo

 

[BXRICK]

I agree with Harv. The goal of companies is to make money, and the easiest way to do that in labor-intensive businesses is to find ways to use cheaper labor, or to allow the same labor to do something faster, and therefore be able to do more of it in the same time.

All of which matters to a company - that's why they are in business.

Almost everyone here bought a tractor for at least partly that reason - it can do more than I could do without it.

On a personal project, things are different. Savings don't add up. I only plan to put one addition on my house. The fact it takes a little longer to "do it right" doesn't hinder me from getting on to the next job, since it's the only job of that type I'll ever have. When doing it myself, there is no "profit margin", just the cost of the project.

I also think one can go too far in the other direction with the "old craftsman" thing though. Most people use drywall when finishing their houses. Drywall hasn't been around forever. Plastering is an art that is becoming more rare.
For that matter, we all (ok - I'm sure someone on here will be an exception) use plywood to sheath our houses now. Why don't we all cut down trees with our axes and hand cut boards anymore? Those are largely lost arts that people don't seem too upset about losing when it comes to actually finishing their house.

 

[6sunset6]

I have fixed quite a few foundations that look like that. Take it easy on the old guys. I think engineered foundations only started on residential construction about 50 years ago maybe. If you think about it the reason there are codes is because of failures and increasing knowledge. Anyway any foundation can be fixed. Sometimes it looks a little scary but if done slowly the worst is some cracked plaster. .