Time to plant tomatoes, and the biggest house I've ever built...

[greenthumbomaha]

That is cool. I didn't know we had a gc on board. The "prairie" design is very popular here. Was that a completely custom design?

We have Design Basics, a company that makes plans, here in Omaha. I looked through their plans 20 years ago. A lot of custom builders use them. They have a website if you want to get home ideas.

[charley]

The 12 by 12 post on the front porch are going to be super heavy I just got done building a 8000 square foot house with them.are you the builder or Frammer.

[Worth1]

So I have a question or two.
Are you guys general contractors framing contractors or what?
The other question is what and or who do you have for the work as in the carpenters roofers plumbers and so on.
Are they from Mexico and south or what.
This is about the most polite way I can put it.
By the time I was going to graduate from high school I had made my mind up I was going to build houses.
By that time I knew how to wire houses do plumbing frame roof, lay stone and brick and foundations.

In the senor annual they put down the prediction I was going to own a construction company.

I went in the marines and when I got back went in the oil field.'After that I moved to Austin to be a carpenter.
All I was working around was meth heads and low life's so I ended up in a cabinet shop making raised panel doors and setting up and running the wood molder.
Pretty much had the run of the place and was more or less a mill wright
My biggest job was I built over 300 raised panel doors for one house.
The pay just wasn't there so I moved on and now I am in fire protection and low and behold the same thing is happening with it as is the other trades I have been in.
There are very few non Hispanic whites in any of these trades anymore and the wages have dropped considerably.
Even then I make twice as much per hour as many of the people I work around due to being inadvertently or unwillingly put in lead positions.
I would give anything in the world to build again but it isn't going to happen here in Texas or at least I dont think so.
The quality of the work is so bad it makes me sick I cannot compete with it.

Last week I had to have my work inspected before I went on.
Both buy the GC and my boss.
Both of them replied on two separate occasions Wow fantastic ^&*%ing Wow is all of your work like this?
Yes I replied it is the only way I will do anything.
All it was, was my exposed conduit runs and mounting door mag hardware.

Worth

[pmcgrady]

Originally Posted by greenthumbomaha

That is cool. I didn't know we had a gc on board. The "prairie" design is very popular here. Was that a completely custom design?

We have Design Basics, a company that makes plans, here in Omaha. I looked through their plans 20 years ago. A lot of custom builders use them. They have a website if you want to get home ideas.

It's a custom build designed by an architect in Colorado. I'm not the GC, I work for him.

[pmcgrady]

Originally Posted by Worth1

So I have a question or two.
Are you guys general contractors framing contractors or what?
The other question is what and or who do you have for the work as in the carpenters roofers plumbers and so on.
Are they from Mexico and south or what.
This is about the most polite way I can put it.
By the time I was going to graduate from high school I had made my mind up I was going to build houses.
By that time I knew how to wire houses do plumbing frame roof, lay stone and brick and foundations.

In the senor annual they put down the prediction I was going to own a construction company.

I went in the marines and when I got back went in the oil field.'After that I moved to Austin to be a carpenter.
All I was working around was meth heads and low life's so I ended up in a cabinet shop making raised panel doors and setting up and running the wood molder.
Pretty much had the run of the place and was more or less a mill wright
My biggest job was I built over 300 raised panel doors for one house.
The pay just wasn't there so I moved on and now I am in fire protection and low and behold the same thing is happening with it as is the other trades I have been in.
There are very few non Hispanic whites in any of these trades anymore and the wages have dropped considerably.
Even then I make twice as much per hour as many of the people I work around due to being inadvertently or unwillingly put in lead positions.
I would give anything in the world to build again but it isn't going to happen here in Texas or at least I dont think so.
The quality of the work is so bad it makes me sick I cannot compete with it.

Last week I had to have my work inspected before I went on.
Both buy the GC and my boss.
Both of them replied on two separate occasions Wow fantastic ^&*%ing Wow is all of your work like this?
Yes I replied it is the only way I will do anything.
All it was, was my exposed conduit runs and mounting door mag hardware.

Worth

Four old carpenters (including myself) and my 35 year old stepson are building it. One of the carpenters is the GC. Basement was subbed out, we are doing all the framing, widows, doors, siding, cabinets, trim etc. Metal roof, stone work, HVAC, electrical, and plumbing all subbed out. Just got 6-8" of rain, will be a muddy mess tomorrow. We do quality work, and work well with each other. Basement is framed, floor joists on first floor installed and sheeted and half the walls are framed and up... I've got about 60 hours of labor in it so far, it's going up quick.

[Worth1]

Nice to hear it going on some place, not here though in many cases.
I have picked up brick mortar you could crush between two fingers.
Studs so far out of plumb one side swaps with the other from one end to the other.
Worth

[pmcgrady]

Originally Posted by Worth1

Nice to hear it going on some place, not here though in many cases.
I have picked up brick mortar you could crush between two fingers.
Studs so far out of plumb one side swaps with the other from one end to the other.
Worth

There is a saying around here... " We're not building a watch... We're building a box to put the watch in,"

The crew I'm with is old school, we still build the watch.

[Worth1]

Strong, accurate, square cuts and joints make strong homes.
Trim and caulk doesn't it is like lipstick on a pig.
You simply cannot start out with mistakes in framing it will haunt you to the very end and get worse.
My neighbor found that out when he built his mini barn.
Worth

[kurt]

Our motto in our family of builders follow the "the three little pigs story and the Wolf" we built our uncles home out there in California,out of concrete block ,all standing seam roofs(aluminum),all the eaves we used metal lath and plaster,went as far as HOLLOW METAL DOORS AND FRAMES,all glazing were impact resistant as per our South Florida Building Code.We paid a engineer that was with the "Qualifier" or the stamp man for us out of townerswho need a permit that requies bonifide GC local license.Everyone laughed at us with our metal stud walls,all conduit electric(no romex)all seal tite electric below grade.About 5 years later the whole neighborhood caught afire,so did all those Mac mansions,with the majestic columns of 100 year old primo logs,and those shake custom cedar roofs,my oh my kindling galore.Uncles place got scorched,some shattered tempered glass from heat but had more than the steps and fireplaces left on those smoldering ruins.

[pmcgrady]

I help build a ICF house about 4years ago. ICF stands for insulated concrete form, they are like Legos stacked with rebar every course then filled with concrete. These houses are pretty much bomb proof. Well anyway the carpenter running the job, knew it all... Telling me he specialized in hanging doors, he just got off a union job hanging 550 outside doors at a housing project... He took it upon himself to hang every bi fold closet doors in the house... Upside down. I fixed them all and finished the job... He didn't. Then about a month later I was reading the paper and it said the company he worked for and the architect, were being sued for installing 550 interior rated doors on the exterior, all had to be replaced.

[Worth1]

I caught a GC knocking one of my horn strobes out of level one time just so I would have something on a punch list to give me.
I said to him, really you are gong to stoop that low.
That was the job from hell and I was the only person to pass inspection from the Fire Marshall the first time around.
That SOB wanted to hit me with liquidated damages for his BS it was killing him.
The same general contractor on an other government job wanted me to hide part of the unfinished building from the Fire Marshall he even went as far as putting up a fake wall.
The company isstill around but I will not put their name up here.
If you want to know you can ask me off line.

Worth

[dmforcier]

Originally Posted by pmcgrady

Then about a month later I was reading the paper and it said the company he worked for and the architect, were being sued for installing 550 interior rated doors on the exterior, all had to be replaced.

Funny you should mention it. Everyone of the 400 units here has outside storage and every door is cheap interior-rated. Although the doors are covered, they replace them regularly. Some idiot put reverse-bend metal weatherstripping on mine. Excellent for metal doors. It sealed nicely, meanwhile ripping the door apart.

[kurt]

Just to clarify,I will tell you these items cause I have a lot of experience with watching items literally disappear in our infamous Hurricane Andrew here in S Fl.At the time largest monetary damaged reported etc.Old timers tell us the storys,all the mid westeners know about the tornadoes,lightning storms.At least now we have some advance warning,for us days maybe for everyone else minutes or less.Just doesn't make sense for us to see the same thing over and over,the same mistakes.So we got into demolition after Andrew,finally got back at the big usurers(insurance giants).Everybody wet their beaks for years.But I did learn more in the demo aspect than the building part.So Ill pass anything along that makes some sense,that is correct,legal,any most of all safe.Keep em coming,good info.

[dmforcier]

I saw the results of Andrew very shortly after it happened. Maybe a nuclear bomb would have added fire, but the net results would be very similar. Never want to see that again.

[charley]

We are currently building a 13000 square foot house for the architect that did the Atlanta Falcons stadium here's a picture of part of it