I live in Seattle. I personally know that developers don’t really care about some of the condo’s they are building here. Few months back, since only two roofers were working on this atleast 12000 sq ft roof( they were laying down some kind of asphalt torch down stuff), and it rains quite a bit here, water got in. It got in on the third floor, and went down to the second floor and down to the first floor. On the second floor, there was about 8-10 ” of standing water on the floor, and it went down to the floors below. And then they turned the heat up. On one of the other condos they are building, on the same site, when they poured the columns that are going to hold the post tension slab, the bottom of the columns froze, becasue they forgot to protect it. well, they built little forms around them and poured them separately.
Well, I wasn’t very proud of working there. As a matter of fact, things look pretty much the same just about everywhere. On this one residential remodel, they built a deck with a door opening onto the deck. the door already existed and there was a window right next to the door. Well, how about a french door or a sliding door. No, they just kept the door and put in a new window. The poor clients were too busy shuffling kids around and things like that. Small remodel with a 250,000 dollar budget.
I got a lot of similar stories. Now, my question:
Why are they using stucco in Seattle. Anybody living here has seen that they come back in 5 years and wrap the whole building in plastic. Maybe it is cheaper
Story: they were building these three 1.5 million dollar homes and these Russians were building the decks etc. They did not put a post right next to the side of the house, but just nailed the 2 by 2 with a finish nail right to the shilgle. Job well done, I guess.
Replies
I have a request for two things in Seattle area residential construction that should be BANNED.
1. Stucco like you already stated.
2. FLAT ROOFS
Now I do commercial work & 95% of my roofs are flat & gives me more work ( roof drains & rain leaders)----- But some of the flat roofs on my jobs cost as much as a whole residential project---- so if someone wants to put that type of money into their residential flat roof then I suppose I could let that issue go------- but untill then............
“When politicians and journalists declare that the science of global warming is settled, they show a regrettable ignorance about how science works.” Nigel Calder, editor of New Scientist
No, I don't know why you live in Seattle.
:)
Temujin,
What kind of work do you do in Seattle? Do you still work for a large developer?
no I don't work for a developer. I get sent to all these jobs around Seattle by my company. I am in the unique position to see what all these people are doing. I am a carpenter, with rough and finish experience. Mostly I do framing and take care of a lot of loose ends, and things of that sort. I want to say that 'this is just temporary' I am almost ready to open my business after a long time. I have worked for medium end remodelers and from what I have seen, it is not very pretty.
My daughters appt. in Seattle just last week. "
It's lovely outside, but inside it's... MOLDY.So a few months ago they were working on the roof, and I knew this because the workers swept all their trash over the side onto my plants on the patio, and also thumped so hard I came home one day to a broken light fixture in the closet.Turns out they forgot to clean the drain, so the flat roof filled up with water and leaked into my bedroom last week... it gets worse the further from the original leak we get: it was streaming in my window, but it appears to have also made it's way into the walls, and now I'm living in a mold infested toxic waste site. It's AWESOME, thanks for asking.
http://arboreality.org/uploaded_images/IMG_8333-726837.jpg
Edited 3/14/2007 9:55 pm by dovetail97128
Seattle. HRV's should be code here. The wet is tough on roofs and paint. You better know your drainage too, and soil types. But most of all, we suffer from humid indoor air. And due to a temperate climate, little thought goes into proper venting. You will still find underfanned baths and kitchens with non venting range hoods. When my furnace gets replaced I will get the best HRV I can buy.http://www.etherhuffer.typepad.com
Here in B.C. with a very similar climate, our code mandates that we install a humidistat tied to fans of a certain cfm (can be bath, or kitchen, or both). Not a bad idea.
Not meaning to sound sexist, but you would be surprised how many times I have been called by women who couldn't figure out why their fans came on.
You had 8-10" on the second floor??!! What are you building a skate park? How did a flat floor stack that much water?