#41
political car tune
Post rating: ~

Makeshift_Swahili posted:

sewage pipes should just be above-ground. imo


but my aesthetics

#42
"Jpg." - Hank Hill
Post rating: ~
my grover minecraft house is one of the greatest things i've ever done
#43
political car tune
Post rating: +
#44
Post rating: ~

ilmdge posted:

I do think it's pretty impressive that he basically built a multi-story house w/ electricity and plumbing all by himself, even though it's a death trap. I'm not very handy.



other than being really ugly it's not that bad for diy... probably about average. i've seen stuff that's pretty close to that bad done by professionals, and most renovations done before the 90s, diy or professional, were completely insane hack jobs

he's probably just getting a hard time from the inspectors cause he is doing it diy. if you seem professional and cooperative, the building inspector will basically pass anything.

#45
Marxsplainer
Post rating: +
i dont know what kind of construction jobs youve worked at or where.. but if an inspector around here saw something that bad at a professional job he'd fail you and close down the site out of scorn more than anything
#46
Post rating: ~
Cool well, if an inspector around here saw a job like that they'd give the contractor extra money to do it over with no penalty at all because functionally it's all a scheme designed to take federal money first and maybe build things second. But an inspector around here wouldn't see a job like that because I'm pretty sure grover has his P.E. stamp and can approve his own work.
#47
Mike Nelson here.
Post rating: +
i can clear up some of the confusion. grover didn't know what he was doing. he also greatly exceeded his reno budget and then had a bunch of additional costs. what additional costs? one was redoing the plumbing in his house because he used pipes that could only handle two uses of water at a time. another was when his poorly fit outdoor pipes burst and flooded everything with sewage. another was when he put his barbecue directly against new siding and the wall melted and he had to pay to redo the siding.
#48
Mike Nelson here.
Post rating: +
at the time someone asked grover how he valued his reno. this is his reply:

WAY more! Of the $80k, about $70k is in materials. Rule of thumb is that labor is about as much as the materials- so, figure $160k. Then add on 30% for the general contractor- $210k. Added onto our last $145k appraisal gives a total of $355k, which is on the low end of what new houses of this size are going for.

One of the intangibles is that adding a 2nd floor REALLY changes the way our house is appraised- as a 1 story, it's compared to the shitty run-down 1-stories in the area that are depressed on price. As a 2-story, it's now compared to the new 2-story houses going in all the big developments. So, adding a 2nd story likely quite literally added about $100k to the value of our house by itself!

At any rate, I've got $170k tied up in a 3200 square foot 6-bedroom/3-bath house, which I think is pretty good

some notes:
- he values the house by adding the estimated market cost of his renovations to the former appraisal.
- he values the estimated market cost of renovations not as his price (since he provided the labour) but at a price a contractor would pay.
- the included cost of the renovations also includes all the work that was redone/fixed.

Edited by getfiscal ()

#49
[account deactivated]
#50
Mike Nelson here.
Post rating: +
okay so grover's appraisal of his own house there was $355,000. you might think to yourself, wait a second, are people allowed to tell the bank how much they think their house is worth? not really. they reappraised him at $258,000.
#51
Mike Nelson here.
Post rating: +

Keven posted:

I'm pretty sure grover has his P.E. stamp and can approve his own work.

that's true. but he got it later in the renovation, and because they failed him so many times he was fed up with them. one of the problems was that he wanted to put outlets all over the place so that it'd be convenient or whatever, like above cabinets. and he wanted to cheap out on the wiring. and the fire department told him that it was nuts. and he was like, fuck you guys, i'm doing this myself.

#52
Mike Nelson here.
Post rating: +
one last thing for tonight:

Edit: Oh, and the tie-in with the existing house! In my case, I decided it was easier just to put in a 2nd wall, as I would have had to dick too much with the roof to try to tie straight in; the existing footer wasn't really built for a 2-story house, either. This will also allow for the settling in the addition to (hopefuly) be even. I ended up undercutting my foundation and pouring a new footer about a foot deeper than the old footer, which the masons blocked up, with a 1" gap. Wasn't enough- the existing wall bowed in 1.5" which ended up messing with my new walls too, which sucked You can't tell in the finished house, but it was readily apparent when hanging the kitchen cabinets, and it still bothers me that my wall isn't perfectly plumb! The two walls are nailed together at several places, most notably, I nailed the the ceiling in the old kitchen to the header I put on the new wall when I broke the new opening between the two. I placed a 2x6 above the existing joists in the attic, used 16D nails to nail through to the new triped 2x12 header, and put on hurricane straps to support the existing joists. Then I knocked out the 2x4s holding the ceiling up. So, essentially, the ceiling is now suspected by hurricane straps from a board nailed through sheating into the other wall! I hope there isn't much settlings between the walls, heh.

this is a grover post where he explains that his ceiling is held together, in part, by nails in a wall and straps. i think this and something else, plus a tpaine fakepost, is where "load-bearing drywall" comes from. .

#53
Mike Nelson here.
Post rating: +
okay one more: grover had an AC unit in his second level window. the AC unit was hanging out the window. he didn't have a way to wire it so he ran an extension cord. like, outside, hanging from the AC unit, was a loose extension cord that ran to an outside outlet. which is not very stylish.
#54
Kurdt
Post rating: +
I don't understand this haus
#55
political car tune
Post rating: ~
did he ever explain why he chose to insulate the stairs (only the first bend too, and not the main stretch ascending to the 2nd floor) or why he placed a window 2 feet from the thermostat? or why he put that window where someone could fall out after falling down the stairs? the stairs that are clearly not cut to even measurements, and actually appear to have been cut with a jigsaw by hand and not a band saw? Also, the stairs look under-supported, and that they may collapse at weights most stairs can bear. Sure you may not weigh 200lbs individually, but if you and another person ascend at the same time? carrying furniture?

and that's just one picture, i'm not going to get into why you probably don't need 16 above ceiling cabinet wall outlets.
#56
Mike Nelson here.
Post rating: +


"All that was left at this point was to rough the HVAC. First step was to get more money- this ended up being easier than I expected, as the bank happily bumped the value of my house up a great deal based on my word alone and gave me another $50k home equity loan. The interest rate wasn’t as good as the one before, since the rates were rising, but was still pretty good."

~(Soon after)~

Still to do:
* Regrade the side and yard, allowing me to install the outside half of the heat pump.
* Install the air handler and duct in the garage
* Stairs and railings
* floor covering
* kitchen molding
* interior doors
* bathroom sink & toilet
* pretty much all the floor coverings

We've run out of money again, though, so most of this will have to wait until I get my tax refund
#57
political car tune
Post rating: ~
better get an above ground pool just to be safe
#58
[account deactivated]
#59
Post rating: ~

dank_xiaopeng posted:

i dont know what kind of construction jobs youve worked at or where.. but if an inspector around here saw something that bad at a professional job he'd fail you and close down the site out of scorn more than anything



building inspectors aren't atticus finch. regulatory agencies under capitalism aren't exactly well staffed with competent public servants motivated by a passion to serve the public good.

i don't know where people get this idealized image of the construction industry, but when you read some headline like " budget has ballooned from 2.3 billion to 6.5 billion and will take two years longer than expected to complete" it means that a lot of fully trained people fucked up 1000x worse than this guy did. when a mall or an overpass collapses do you not realize that they were stamped by architects and engineers, built by experienced trades and passed by multiple inspectors?

#60
[account deactivated]
#61
Post rating: +
Heres how inspecting government construction works. If you take a test, and the test fails, your boss explains to you that they need a passing test to meet testing requirements, and requests that you go retest. If something is fucked up super bad that means you work together with the contractor to see what the best way would be to pay them to remove the bad work that they did, and then pay them again to do it again. If this process hits a snag, don't worry. You can "play hardball" and hold a contractor to the contract. They don't like this, because it means they have to do the extra work of filing a claim. Once a claim is filed, it will go to your agencies lawyers who will declare they don't give a single shit about it and to settle. However, if possible try and avoid this step as it defeats the point of spending federal dollars on cronyism instead of state dollars.
#62
Post rating: ~
Since maintenance projects are funded mostly from state money enjoy your road or building failing due to inadequate maintenance and an inability to fund large scale refurbishing or repair projects.
#63
[account deactivated]
#64
[account deactivated]
#65
Post rating: +

Keven posted:

Heres how inspecting government construction works. If you take a test, and the test fails, your boss explains to you that they need a passing test to meet testing requirements, and requests that you go retest. If something is fucked up super bad that means you work together with the contractor to see what the best way would be to pay them to remove the bad work that they did, and then pay them again to do it again. If this process hits a snag, don't worry. You can "play hardball" and hold a contractor to the contract. They don't like this, because it means they have to do the extra work of filing a claim. Once a claim is filed, it will go to your agencies lawyers who will declare they don't give a single shit about it and to settle. However, if possible try and avoid this step as it defeats the point of spending federal dollars on cronyism instead of state dollars.


also even if the agency decides to fight they have like one random junior lawyer pulled from the policy pool who's probably only seen a courtroom on TV going against an entire legal team that probably went to school with the judge.

#66
Mike Nelson here.
Post rating: +
i don't find grover funny because of the construction problems in themselves, i don't know anything about construction, i just find it funny because he seems to think he's figured out a lifehack or something and instead he built an escape hatch on his staircase.
#67
Mike Nelson here.
Post rating: +
like years of work and enormous financial outlay taking on large debts and a half-assed job and he's like yup she's a beaut', everyone else in the world is a moron here folks.
#68
[account deactivated]
#69
political car tune
Post rating: ~
i find grover to be an amusing fool because he will act as the apologist for just about any terrible thing as long at it came from a source of authority.
#70
Marxsplainer
Post rating: ~
uh yeah i have no experience dealing with large-scale jobs in a big city, most construction stuff ive done has been single-family residential work and reno jobs in a pretty rural area... most inspectors around here are good ol boys that fail shit more out of redneck stubbornness and glee at making city boy contractors wriggle.
#71
Post rating: ~

getfiscal posted:

at the time someone asked grover how he valued his reno. this is his reply:

WAY more! Of the $80k, about $70k is in materials. Rule of thumb is that labor is about as much as the materials- so, figure $160k. Then add on 30% for the general contractor- $210k. Added onto our last $145k appraisal gives a total of $355k, which is on the low end of what new houses of this size are going for.

One of the intangibles is that adding a 2nd floor REALLY changes the way our house is appraised- as a 1 story, it's compared to the shitty run-down 1-stories in the area that are depressed on price. As a 2-story, it's now compared to the new 2-story houses going in all the big developments. So, adding a 2nd story likely quite literally added about $100k to the value of our house by itself!

At any rate, I've got $170k tied up in a 3200 square foot 6-bedroom/3-bath house, which I think is pretty good

some notes:
- he values the house by adding the estimated market cost of his renovations to the former appraisal.
- he values the estimated market cost of renovations not as his price (since he provided the labour) but at a price a contractor would pay.
- the included cost of the renovations also includes all the work that was redone/fixed.

looks like this checks out according to the LTV

#72
Post rating: ~
cant wait to get into construction immediately.
#73
Dont Mess With Sucess
Post rating: ~
the overall vibe of wife, neighbors and local fire department growing to hate him for his idiocy, is really my favorite thing about grover story.
#74
Mike Nelson here.
Post rating: ~

swampman posted:

the overall vibe of wife, neighbors and local fire department growing to hate him for his idiocy, is really my favorite thing about grover story.

lol. you have some great posts in some of the threads where you imitate Grover being indifferent to his injured wife. Memories...

#75
Post rating: ~
my dream job might be to become a level designer for a game company just so i can spend my days modeling in grover house into every game developed, where any attempt to turn on a light shorts out the electrical circuit and the whole mess burns down killing any inside
#76
Post rating: ~

dipshit420 posted:

you know who else has a masters? that's right:



yeah and he's making at least 70,000 a year, despite being a worthless human and a total piece of shit. at least he lives in his own swamp of shit though

#77
Kurdt
Post rating: +

dipshit420 posted: