Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire 3 month nightmare help comments or prayers please

I'll admit I lost steam about halfway through the OP - gotta ask, where the fugg was your inspector in all this? Thats the first ass I'd be wearing as an overboot frankly.

If you didn't have inspections, well, hard lesson learned I guess.

One needs to do some serious research and find a proper lawyer. Not a similar issue but a distant friend and his new wife built and paid for house. A year or two later there's a 30K lien on the place because the contractor never paid for materials. The lien locked them out of all kinds of financial doings even though the materials debt was not their responsibility. Thoughts were the title insurance folks should cover such but they balked. About 8 lawyers deep and 6 months later and things were still the same. Eventually he had a casual conversation with a lawyer at the local gym, who said he'd give it look. A week later the title insurance folks came through but with a stipulation that he not publicize the specifics.

Few if any insurance companies cough up coin on first submissions. Two or three rejections will wear most folks out. Stay after them, however, and eventually many will come through. Near all of us avoid exercising our insurance companies as policy costs will go up. I suspect that thought train is the same throughout the construction industry.

Have no idea where one is but building/construction inspectors should also bear some responsibilities. Here in Oregon, their fees are quite high, and it's their job to assure that every aspect of construction is up to code. I just gave them $425 to assure that my new septic tank and 245 ft of drain field are up to snuff. They should earn those dollars.

I'm all for over engineering and tolerating some higher costs on the front end than trying to fix the short cuts later. Some folks use the argument of saving you money, when the real deal is saving them time and effort or a ploy to void a challenge to their expertise.

In a newer neighborhood here, and several houses around us are less than 15 years old. A couple are on their third roof and most are at least on their second. One of those still had the cellophane tape left on the underside of every shingle.

Have a neighbor that's presently building his forever home and he's insisting on meeting Oregon coast earthquake codes even though we're on the east side of the state with 600 ft of basalt as a foundation. His house will not have any structural issues.

Good luck on your end, but at best it's going to be a tooth pulling ordeal with so many contractors and subs involved. Thirty years back, one signed up a contractor and he addressed every aspect of the build. Now days most of those folks are just construction managers and sub everything out.

Do keep us up as an occasional venting might help your mood a bit.

Man, what a tough deal. Hope things work out. Please keep us updated.

any mold issues?

Sorry for your predicament...
The operative syllable in Con-tractor is "con"

There are a subset of them who go out bid a bunch of jobs, and get in over their head. They go over budget then start taking new jobs to stay afloat while slow walking the jobs that they are underwater on. Eventually they just go out of business and start another with a new name. An aqaintence of mine had that happen and was left with a tarp over the roof when rainy season came around long after the job was to have been completed..

Have you looked into whether your contractor was hired as a general contractor with the rights and responsibility of directing both his subcontractors an yours?

This. Wow. BTW, I did read all of it.

Arizona has a registrar of contractors recovery fund paid in by every contractor. The contractor must be licensed through the state registrar, you must seek recovery off his bond first, if denied then file for recovery. Any money paid from the fund, the state will then charge the contractor for times 3.

If he is not a licensed and bonded contractor you are screwed.

Kent

Can you post the picture showing the underground pipes?

That is a real nightmare. It is true that your foundation columns need to be 8 feet OC and not 10 feet. Big mistake. Good luck I don't have any bright ideas.

you have no idea what you are talking about...you are spouting off bullshit ...only thing you have said that is true is" you dont have any bright ideas"......to say you know what the placement of the piers should be based on because thats what you think shows how little you know....bob

Sadly in our State General Contractor dont have to have a license with the State and are not regulated. There are zero inspections out of the city limits other than a final home inspection at the end. which it passed with flying colors. They cant see the pipes that are buried.

We used tripled 2x12 for beams both the architech and engineer said a 10 foot span was 10. There is a couple 10 mostly 9 and a few 8. I am trying to post a picture of the pipes.

That is the code here in North Carolina, Bob. You need to relax a little.

H5farm......listen to your engineer....while it all seems dire your house can be made whole ...fixed....

unless you hired someone on your own your general contractor is at fault......I say this as a general contractor.....he is the one who is responsible for over seeing and ensuring that all the work is done properly......but if you hired and or paid anyone...you just acted as a homeowner/builder.

listen to the engineer........bob

an engineer said it was ok yet you say it is wrong......listen to the engineer.....bob

Lawyer up.

BobMt is on it.

Bob is very smart (so I have gathered from his op-eds on a multitude of topics).

Pics, location, more specifics... and such would be tremendously helpful.

Settling foundations on improperly compacted soil... Oh Boy...

Reminds me of this tower over younder in Italy... small town called Pisa.

All In can do is Pray for you.

Lots of people hate government over reach and think building codes and permits are just for bureaucrats to keep a job with benefits (and it is that too). I worked plumbing in a county that had little code enforcement for years, and many, many homeowner/contractor builds ended up with "fatal flaws." A lot of general contractors spent as much time in court as they did at the jobsite. The upside was a fellow could build a lot of house for less money, but the downside is like the OP describes.

Cash while I appreciate the words of support...I cant help but feel I am being set up....lol thanks....bob

Excess spans don't cause piers to fail. Beams fail due to excess spans first. Based on the write up, I would say the piers are failing. Piers generally fail for a couple of reasons... poured on pour soil or in this case, the drains are causing erosion and or pour soil under the piers.

If the guy doesn't have insurance because he couldn't afford it, then you won't be getting anything out of him any time soon because he doesn't have anything to give. If you can afford it, get your house fixed, hired a great attorney and take the guy to the cleaners later. Take his house or whatever you can, but you need to focus on fixing your house first. the longer you wait the more expensive it will be!