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lucleb
Registered Users
Posts:13
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| 08/20/2001 7:44 PM |
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| My ICF contractor finished pourring my walls 2 weeks ago. My carpenter came in this morning. He's asking me if normal that walls are out of plumb a bit, not perfectly align and corners not perfectly square. Can we expect ICF walls having all those imperfections. He's also expecting some comments from the drywall contractor. I might have some fun if I install a corner cabinet. Is all this normal with an ICF construction or it's normal with all type of construction? Thanks |
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icfbiz
Registered Users
Posts:6
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| 08/20/2001 11:16 PM |
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HOW FAR OUT OF PLUMB AND SQUARE. WALLS MIGHT HAVE TO BE REPLACED.
FAMILY BIZ INC.
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panelbuilt
Registered Users
Posts:52
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| 08/20/2001 11:33 PM |
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It's too human nature for one trade to want to nit pick another trade, carpenters are notorious for believing they are perfectionists and typically want to pick apart everyone else's work. When he's all done see if he builds to the same standards that he's holding everyone else to.
I do have to say that in this day and age that there is no reason for any building system to be more than 1/4 inch out of plumb, square or level. We have the technology and the tools to make it near perfect. You would hope that most builders work to 1/8 of an inch but normal is within 1/4 of an inch for most.Anything more than a 1/4 and the person you hired wasn't much of a craftsman.
Which leads into another whole topic. How a homeowner goes about choosing their builders.
Just because one has a contractor's license or told you they're been doing their particular area of expertise for some time doesn't mean they know what they're doing. If a homeowner chooses their builders based soley on the lowest price, they immediately ask for trouble.
I've said it one hundred times if I've said it once. Homeowners spend more time researching and choosing a car verses the time spent researching and choosing their builders for the biggest investment they will make in their lifetime, their home.
There are many reasons that can contribute to poor workmanship.
Jim Crowley
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Fortress Builders
Registered Users
Posts:6
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| 08/23/2001 11:52 PM |
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lucleb, I agree with panelbuilt, it IS possible to build ICF buildings as plumb, square and level as our competitor's, but I'll mention another aspect of construction besides our great tools and technology. TIME. As you should already know, time is money. There is an old quote in drag racing "How fast do you want to go?" The answer is "How much money have you got?" If this is your first or only ICF house, you'll probably have to live with the results your contractor provided. If you have future ICF work planned, include some form of quality standards in your contract. That may not guarantee a better project, but it should help weed out those who can't perform and give you a basis for redress should things go awry. Also remember, this concrete home construction business isn't any different than any other construction trade. Murphy lives in all of our lives, so expect the best, prepare for the worst and know how to fix what needs fixing to keep the project moving.
Terry Sumter |
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Ian ICF Builders
Registered Users
Posts:612
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| 08/25/2001 9:07 PM |
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Just to add to the comments above:
How did the footing/slab contractor do? If the footing or slab is out of level, then I would hazard to guess that your carpenter wouldn't custom cut each stud for your home....consequently, the wood frame walls would tend to lean to the perpendicular of the slab...which equates to wavy out of plumb walls....go to a subdivision nearby, eyeball one corner of a house against another house....I doubt that you find many corners that line up...go into the model homes, eyeball the door frames to the corners of walls, typically the trim man tries to hang the door plumb, square and level, so you will see the results. Look for wallpaper with vertical lines, then check for the "realignment factor" as it approaches a corner (the wallpaper people have to try to hide imperfections) In short, I would hope that the ICF contractor did the best they could do, but as Terry says, would you be willing to pay for the ICF contractor to rectify any imperfections of the slab? True, the ICF contractor should stop work as soon as poor work by others is noticed and ask for advice from the general contractor, or at least notify of such discrepancies. To avoid these problems, we try to have the walls checked prior to concrete placement by the owner or contractor, agree on tolerances, then place concrete and let the differences be our problem. Once concrete starts flowing, and the weight of the concrete is in the wall, sometimes it is the judgement call of the ICF contractor to either deliver a straight wall that may have areas that are out of plumb, or go with the level and forget about a straight wall....Most will go with straight wall and let the 1/4" out of plumb go by the wayside. Putting up ICF walls is not like building the spaceshuttle, neither is anything else in the residential construction world. The least the ICF contractor should try to do is layout the walls correctly insuring all walls are square....The least that the owner or contractor should do is go behind the subcontractor and check the work....after all, the builder will be making much more $$$ on the house than the sub will make, make the builder do the job that they should do....buy your builder a tape measure, Framing square and a level....Most of the builders we build for don't even have a tape, instead they ask to borrow one....That guy will never general a house for me. The ICF portion of the structure is a small piece of the home building puzzle, the ICF installer cannot possibly be the only subcontractor that is perfect...that's the framer's role...Oh, and the plumber's pipes missed the interior wall "those concrete guys must have kicked the pipes" doubt it, but did the owner or general check the pipe locations BEFORE the slab was poured?? doubt it. If building a home was as easy as it is cracked up to be, what would Ford, Chevrolet and Dodge do without all of those builders cruising around in nice pickups without a tool one to show for the trade except a cell phone? In short, the sub no doubt gets on the job with good intentions, the builder's responsibility is to check the work...not after the sub is gone. |
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