Best Lowball Hack Building Technique You Have Seen

Mike Finley

What's some of the lowball hack things you have witnessed in construction?

I just looked at a bathroom in a 1.2 million dollar home, she took me into a guest bath that she had done last year. She said her "architech" did the work himself.

I looked closesly at the walls and said, WTF? The guy had bought those gold foil seals you see at an office supply store and stuck them over any holes that were in the drywall and painted over them. You could plainly see the serated edges of the seal, as I looked around more carefully they started showing up all over, I counted about a dozen.

silvertree

Never heard of that before, and I've been wasting my time with 3 coats of joint compound.

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rbsremodeling

Basement rental unit in DC. Home owner ran out of money. Duct work was ran for Central air. He sat a 10kbtu window unit in the wall and connected the duct work to it.

We still joke about it to this day. Ended up being one of my best customers to this day.

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WisePainter

I was slow and an ad in the paper was looking for a salesman for a painting company. They are in the Angie's list so I felt good about applying. I got the job and began selling contracts, little did I know that the company hired any painter that was hungry enough to work for 45% of the contract amount while the company took 45%.
I got 10% for my troubles which were many!!!

So I sealed a deal for a simple repaint, same color and all. I get a call from a painter who was sent by the company that claims that he is the most awesome painter ever and I need to give him all the jobs I can.
I met the guy...he was 300 lb. and a complete mess.
So far, not good but whatever I really needed the $200.00 that I am going to make.

I call this guy to give him directions and end up talking to his Mother that claims she owns the business and her boys are better than God himself (I already know the truth though). After 30 minutes of listening to this woman brag, we finally hang up.

All is okay so far.

I am attending a home show for the company (not paid) in order to boost leads when I get a frantic call from the HO.

HO: "Your painter just fell off the ladder and dumped paint everywhere!!!"

ME: "I am on my way!"

...now I am making 7% of the contract...

When I arrive I learn that the 300 lb. son had his 400 lb. Mother up on a ladder over some stairs without a foot block to level the feet.





She was up on the left cutting in while her Son held the side of the ladder. This is my set up to level the ladder:



The HO was very worried that the Mother was going to sue, but I assured them that we were insured.
The next day the painter arrived with his mother and they applied 2 coats of eg shel in one day









I get a call from the HO screaming that they would call the police if the painter ever set foot on their property again and they want the walls fixed NOW!!!

...now I am making 2% of the contract.


The owner of the company begins to blame me for using the painter he provided, I was not given a choice, ever.

I told him that I would fix it for the same price as he was going to pay the original painter...he asked me if I enjoyed getting leads.
Being the person I am I took the $12.00 an hour he paid me to fix the problem ($250.00), while still paying the original painter ($1500.00).


I walked away with 5 leads that turned out to be very profitable for my company.
Burn me will ya'?

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My advice: Hire a real painter to do it.

ContractorPete

LOL holy crap

GregS

Now if he just did them in a regular pattern he could have sold his advanced paint texturing technique to Debbie Travis!

dubz

I thought about the possibility that he put them there as "texture" and tacked on a couple grand.

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neolitic

$1500 to screw it up, $250 to fix it.
Sounds like a solar company I worked for.
......or Wall Street bonuses.

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SLSTech

Extension cords ran for lighting - an entire basement

Wires from fixture simply pushed in where the prongs go

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woodworkbykirk

there was a guy on another board who was trying to preach hanging drywall with a pheumatic stapler and instead of taping the joints just use white silicone. this thread turned into roughly 450 posts, half of them were by the original poster trying to say how much more effiecient this method is, and how its superior to screws and 1 coat of bond then the 2 coats of mud. every reply basically was telling the guy hes a complete moron, he'd come back and say how the inspectors on the habitat for huminity houses he did this on loved his new method and he should try to get it regulated etc etc.

anyhow, buddy finally gave up and then went on to get banned from the site

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putting down subfloor with glue and screws, well i saw dr. smith and the robot too , i had a martian burger and a sonic shake

PA woodbutcher

That's a lot classier than the "old painted duct tape trick" Seen lots of the others. Radiator hoses for drains, garden hoses for feeds and extension cords for wiring. We also have the old railroad ties for a foundation trick going here in my neck of the woods. Once had a customer ask me if I could fill milk cans with concrete and build his addition on those. Told him that I didn't think that we would get along very well if he was that interesting saving money.

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rbsremodeling

This is absolutely genius do you think He would mind if I use this method

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orson

Yeah, they're all in my house

Seriously though, the people we bought this house from did some doozies.

The basement partition walls had no top plates and were nailed through anything...including heating ducts.

Where the first floor joists meet the stair header they are notched around a 1x3 that has 2 8penny nails every 16", there are no fasteners whatsoever in the joists.

I could go on but I'll close with a picture, it doesn't really do any justice of how bad this is, but it's too cramped to get any decent pictures:

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Mike772

Shingles stapled on, not with the roofing stapler, I'm talking the duo-fast hammer tacker. This was done on a very expensive home to boot. The roofers could barely speak english, so that probably tells you a lot...

If they do that enough times, there will be another inspection we'll have to have.

Just this fall, while getting my insulation inspection, the inspector said that there is a new code. I asked what it was. He told me that the wording printed on the batt insulation has to be facing the room so he can read it. I should have left it at that, but I had to ask (knowing why codes become codes) why is this a code now? He chuckled and said the he personally busted builders putting R-11 in 2x6 ext. walls. He said that has happened enough times at the state level so it is now a code.

Greg Di

How about the "Wall without studs". You ever seen one of those?

Tearing out old basement finishes is always an educational experience. "Wow, I never knew you could use masonite scraps to build walls," or "Gee, they must have woke up one Saturday morning and said, 'Let's finish the basement today' but forgot to go to the lumberyard and still finished the basement THAT day."

Did you know you can attach a deck ledger with only nails?

Did you know you can take a 4x4 and put it on top of a 2" thick patio block resting on grade and use that as a footing for a deck?

I also found out that it's OK to take installation sheets for products and throw them away before reading AND installing.

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tgeb

??Are you trying to get banned?

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Mike Finley

I saw a deck together will all screws, drywall screws, I believe the logic was screws are better at holding stuff together than nails right?

Homeowner finally new something was wrong when he kept thinking somebody was firing a gun off under his deck. After awhile he finally figured out the sound was the deck shearing apart.

Bodger

Enclosed porch. Framed the walls with 2 X 3, covered with greenboard on interior AND exterior. No insulation. Redwood battens in and out, then painted.

Amazingly, it held up to the weather for several years.

silvertree

Kitchen full of nice cabinets all cabinets and crown molding fastened with 16P cement coated sinkers. The guy was a lawyer, he told me he would pay me $15 an hour to clean it up. Wasn't that long ago.

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rbsremodeling

You probably refused the job didn't you?? ungrateful bastard

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