# Best low ball hack you've ever seen?



## digiconsoo (Apr 23, 2012)

CO762 said:


> Buyer beware should not be an excuse for criminal fraud, intentional or not.



Criminal fraud can not be unintentional. 

That is a completely different animal than poor workmanship.


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## CO762 (Feb 22, 2010)

digiconsoo said:


> Criminal fraud can not be unintentional.
> That is a completely different animal than poor workmanship.


True, but sometimes negligence is criminal. Same with indifference. Intent isn't always a requirement for a criminal act.

This can get legally complicated, which will mean increased costs for when this needs to be addressed. So, once again, the first line of defense is the person that says "OK, do it". It is they themselves that need to do their due diligence rather than operate on caveat emptor when giving someone their OK to work on their house. 
If they don't, the snowball will start down that hill and they will be involved no matter what.


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## digiconsoo (Apr 23, 2012)

CO762 said:


> It is they themselves that need to do their due diligence rather than operate on caveat emptor when giving someone their OK to work on their house.


CO762,

I'm not quite following..... I may be misinterpreting your words above, if so, I apologize.

What you have just said, I believe, with clarification added in parentheses :



CO762 said:


> It is they themselves (homeowners) that need to do their due diligence (exercise caveat emptor) rather than operate on caveat emptor (?) when giving someone their OK to work on their house.


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## TaylorMadeAB (Nov 11, 2014)

AGullion said:


> They ll drive a Mercedes, live in what looks to be a nice house (up close, its done cheap) and own rental property ,etc. What they want in a contractor is a bottom feeder.



What this comes down to is that if the contractor is driving a nice vehicle, has a nice house, nice things, he is charging too much. "We are blue collar workers and don't deserve to have the same things that they do."


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## j_sims (Jul 5, 2007)

builditguy said:


> I believe, with the new onslaught of home flippers, we will see more and more unbelievable things.


I've got one right up the street from me ....It's become my morning laugh driving by it. Things have hit a stand still though. I'm pretty sure they didn't realize it was going to be some involved. $$$$$$ :no:


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## CO762 (Feb 22, 2010)

digiconsoo said:


> What you have just said, I believe, with clarification added in parentheses
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I think we might be talking about the same thing--ish.
The homeowner, in doing their due diligence, is reducing a lot of the unknowns in the buyer beware. Knowing more reduces the unknowns, so there is less to be aware of. My wanting to involve HOs in the process is to make them more than a check writer for work or profit recipient for later sale. I want to make them responsible for the choices they made, especially when their choices impact other people, for example the next owners.

There is outright fraud done by contractors, one where the knowingly use the wrong materials/do incomplete work/bad work. There is intent there as their actions clearly aren't to industry standards.
But a contractor or handyman or relative or homeowner can also do the same substandard work and not know it--or claim they didn't know, were unaware.

So we can punish a thief that has intent to steal. We also can punish a person that's too careless, indifferent, or just too lazy to find out the correct way to do things and the correct materials to use.
If this is the HO, then any money they made from the sale to the next owner they should lose in some manner, suffer financial punishment, just like the new owners and their newly incurred costs.

For the drunken relative, well, that would fall under the HO jurisdiction as they invited the slob to hack up their place.

For the contractor/handyman, as a 'professional' it's our responsibility to know or if we don't find out....then do it the correct way. So this is where the person swinging the hammer should get sued.

And if the job was inspected, then it _shouldn't_ be a problem, so none of this took place. But the homeowner should have pulled the permit, or the contractor pulled the permit, and with that, all of the information is down as to who did the work, what work was done and whether or not it passed.
If the permit wasn't pulled, both the HO and whoever did the work should be sued when damage is discovered.

On those rare occurrences when govt is involved and approve the process, then legal action should be taken against that inspector that signed off on that. This is where professional training comes in on the inspectors part. That's his job, so he should do it and if not, get sued and hopefully fired. (I do realize it's government though  )


Two basic operating principles of consumers are fear and greed. A lot of HOs will take craigslist/lowballers out of greed. Nothing's free.
If we increase the fear factor to the HO, they will start to pay more attention as they are part of the chain of responsibility.


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## Metro M & L (Jun 3, 2009)

BucketofSteam said:


> You'd be surprised at how useful a hatchet can be.


Zombies, delimbing felled timber, kindling. Yes.

Chopping a hole in sheet rock? No.


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## 66 Shelby (Jan 11, 2009)

I just tore out a shower in a 2 year old house and the tile was glued to regular rock (not even green board) with what looked like Liquid Nails and the 'Pan' was 30# felt. The HO's figured something was _really_ wrong when she bumped the side and the wall caved in.



TaylorMadeCon said:


> What this comes down to is that if the contractor is driving a nice vehicle, has a nice house, nice things, he is charging too much. "We are blue collar workers and don't deserve to have the same things that they do."


I seem to get that attitude more from people with 'Money' than I do from people who actually work for a living.


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## AGullion (Apr 19, 2015)

There will always be people stupid enough to want it cheap, and those stupid enough to do it for them . For a lot of us, those just aren't the kind of people we work for . When you first start out, you can't see all this , but boy it becomes clear later on.


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## 3bar (Jan 14, 2011)

AGullion said:


> We see showers with no pans occasionally, boy, those work well. Here's one ...lady asks me to do a tile shower , my specialty. Labor quote $850. I'm almost hysterical . my base price is 2500 plus supplies , for something simple , and most go 5-10/k


i had a couple who hired a friend to do a full tile shower and tile the floor of the bath. the guy barely used any screws on the hardibacker on the floor, with no thinset underneath of course. and no pan in the shower. just a piece of hardibacker on the subfloor. lol and water was leaking onto the floor in the next room, and into the basement.


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## 91782 (Sep 6, 2012)

DIY from the 50s-60s:

Home has a rear porch that's been enclosed. Steel siding outide, luan back paneling inside. Customer says window sagging. Get there, window - entire sash is dropping at one side. Grab & shake - the whole wall moves in & out.

Carpenter ants or termites I say.

Grab Sawzall, commence to dismantle, outlet goes dead. Not a bad fuse - oh well. Grab a longer cord and plug in elsewhere.

Get everything stripped, and sure enough, carpenter ants have eaten every sq inch of every stud, leaving the paneling.

Here's the DIY part: That dead outlet? There were 4-5 outlets around the walls. They were wired by using lengths of zip cord rescued from old table lamps, bared ends wound together and wrapped with the old style cloth tape.

The wire opened right at a nice pile of charred wood powder.

Oh, and there was a window AC unit plugged into one of the outlets.
:whistling


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## hdavis (Feb 14, 2012)

No sense in letting perfectly good wire go to waste...


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## CO762 (Feb 22, 2010)

SmallTownGuy said:


> Here's the DIY part: That dead outlet? There were 4-5 outlets around the walls. They were wired by using lengths of zip cord rescued from old table lamps, bared ends wound together and wrapped with the old style cloth tape.


I love it when their relative/handyman gives them under cabinet lighting. He's got tools so he cuts off the plug and fishes it down the wall and into wall box, where he just piggy backs that cord onto the receptacle. That takes skill and not just anyone can do that.


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## cwatbay (Mar 16, 2010)

There is a LOT more to this story, but that would take too long to tell, so here's the basics. 

Was called out on an emergency to find out why a propane back up generator was making noise, and, that half the lights were out on a multi-million dollar custom house in the middle of nowhere. 

There was too much stuff in the way and way too dark to do much of anything, so I disconnected and powered down the generator .....it was actually the interface with the HO's electrical system that was making the noise. But that didn't matter, the back up wasn't doing anything anyway. 

Came back the next day with a couple of my guys to see what exactly was going on. 

The house was built by a corporate lawyer with the help of a GC that he knew. How it ever passed inspection is anyone's guess. 

Anyway, apparently the lawyer had done the electrical. What I found was: All the receptacles had been wired backwards, many of the outdoor lights were somehow wired to switches we couldn't find or trace out........the biggie though was: four sub-panels wired off the main panel (100amp) using 12awg wiring that were wired in series from one set of main lugs to the other set in each panel. 

When the guy ran out of wire (in mid span), he would simply wire nut on another wire in a different color. Since these panels were spaced along a 20ft section of basement there were a lot of wire nuts and different colors (red, black, blue, orange, green, yellow). None of the wiring was in a straight line or tacked down either. 

The wiring in the room with the interface panel was like waking into a crazy spider web with low voltage and high voltage wiring everywhere. 

Once I got a good view of all this, I told my guys to stop inspecting the rest of the system and get in the truck, NOW. I gave the HO back her deposit check and told her "we were never there", and, took off. 

The HO had pleaded poverty on this whole affair and didn't want to pay more than a couple hundred dollars to fix everything. I got back to her later that week with an initial estimate that would require a deposit of $10, 000.00. Funny, I never heard back.


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## 91782 (Sep 6, 2012)

CO762 said:


> I love it when their relative/handyman gives them under cabinet lighting. He's got tools so he cuts off the plug and fishes it down the wall and into wall box, where he just piggy backs that cord onto the receptacle. That takes skill and not just anyone can do that.


Which do you find more "special": when the HO/DIY wraps the multi-strand around the spare screw lugs - or when they twist the bare end into a nice, straight pony tail and stab it into the backside?

It is amazing to me how many of my new home owners would take on under cab lighting as their first project after closing, do exactly as you describe, and then call ME, complaining my "faulty, undersized panel" is tripping the breaker.

And when you get there, you find that one or two strands have strayed onto the adjoining screw lug, leaving a tiny blob?

I call it "burning off the fuzz".

Oh, forgot to add: Under-cab lighting/above cab is a buyer option, so an outlet was always prepped above the cabs.

Guess which outlet they use?

Yup, the dedicated microwave circuit.:thumbsup:


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## masterofsome (Jun 21, 2015)

*Hacked all the way around.*

2x4 rafters with a 1x4 ridge, 3/8 plywood and ceiling joists running parallel to the walls.


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## AGullion (Apr 19, 2015)

Man, that s a scary roof.


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## masterofsome (Jun 21, 2015)

AGullion said:


> Man, that s a scary roof.


I think the shingles were holding it together...

Sent from my XT1526 using Tapatalk


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## nunya01 (Mar 25, 2012)

*Bad stuff.*

I shut down my business last month. I went back to school last year and got back into I.T.
I enjoy reading these stories. Like most of the other people here on this site, I was (am) one of the "best of the best". I'm not going to say "the" best, because as soon as you do, somebody better pops up. I'm very particular about electrical work. Some would say obsessive. I'm very proud of the work I do (did). 

I've made a lot of money over the years fixing other people's B.S. Here are a few "gems" I've found over the years.
I blame: TV shows, Lowe's Depot Menard's, and (most of all) the 'Handyman' for most of this crap work.


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## 91782 (Sep 6, 2012)

masterofsome said:


> 2x4 rafters with a 1x4 ridge, 3/8 plywood and ceiling joists running parallel to the walls.


Just how one of the additions to my house was done.:thumbsup:

No shortage of hefty collar ties tho.

That slight swayback helps accelerate snow sliding off the roof...

... like a skateboard ramp:jester:


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