OT Home construction rant

[OldRedFord]

Poking around the garage walls after noticing a rotten baseboard behind some cabinets that I rearranged the other day I discovered a few things about how my parents house was built. The first floor is below grade by about three feet in the front and at grade at the back. The remaining five feet in the front of the house has a brick veneer. The brick is over half inch thick styrofoam sheeting. This stuff isnt the nice blue Dow sheeting either. This stuff flakes off little foam balls if you cut it. You would think there would be plywood behind the brick.

Then this same foam sheeting covers about 95% of the rest of the exterior of the house. With the exception of the corner of the walls. Where at each corner there is one sheet of OSB on each side of the corner. Guess they think that will provide enough structural rigidity. Then over all this the siding.

Now what really blows my mind. The garage is finished but unheated and uncooled. Above the garage is living space. The ceiling of the garage is only insulated with R11 fiberglass. Thats right, just R11.

What ever happened to using J bolts to anchor walls to concrete? Just used hand driven masonry nails every two feet.

[67mann]

Sounds like an early 90's "wham bam thank ya man" product. Did your parents have this house built or did they buy it? Sounds like someone dropped the ball at inspection time.

Now what really blows my mind. The garage is finished but unheated and uncooled. Above the garage is living space. The ceiling of the garage is only insulated with R11 fiberglass. Thats right, just R11.[/color]

What blows my mind here,(let alone the Rvalue)is that you've got no fire code down there We've got a code(in NY)that requires at least a layer of 5/8 sheetrock..if not 2 layers seperating a garage from living space

[cowbay]

Sounds like an early 90's "wham bam thank ya man" product. Did your parents have this house built or did they buy it? Sounds like someone dropped the ball at inspection time.

Now what really blows my mind. The garage is finished but unheated and uncooled. Above the garage is living space. The ceiling of the garage is only insulated with R11 fiberglass. Thats right, just R11.[/color]

What blows my mind here,(let alone the Rvalue)is that you've got no fire code down there We've got a code(in NY)that requires at least a layer of 5/8 sheetrock..if not 2 layers seperating a garage from living space

You are correct on that. On long island and the rest of the state in a garage attached to a living space the code is a 2 hour rating which is 2 5/8" sheetrock plus the door must be 2 hour fire rated with a tag on it. Also new foundations must be a minumum of 8" above grade primarily for termite and pest resistance. Also OSB board is not a sturctural material. It can only be used as a sheathing material not as a roof material. I am not a big fan of OSB myself since the earlier material would expand and degrade when it got wet. But I remember when it hit the market here in the 80's it was the wave of the future which soon petered out. But that being said it reminds me of the house built around here in the 70's and early 80's where oversite was not so good and the builders were get the most bang for their buck.

[basketcase0302]

Tim,

Not possible for anyone to quote building code for a municipality that doesn't live or work there where you live without a lot of research. I know this as I've been into building code "interpretation" my entire life. Also, any fire code for any given city/county/state is set by that districts governing council, (this will differ from city to city /county to county /and state to state). What would be code in N.Y. would never be code down here-it just doesn't work like that-never has-never will, sorry guys! You can't simply take building code from one state and apply it to your municipality.
Reason why?
There are simply too many factors that come into play here such as permafrost / 100 year floodplain / municipality fire record and many other driving factors. Your municipality has made the code for your area due to a very good reason-they-(the local council of building officials-made up entirely of local folks usually) know the area as well as it's reoccurring weather / chances of fire / and many other things that factor their decision on code making.
One ultimate code driving factor is here where I've been a member for many years now in the capacity of commercial building management:
http://www.nfpa.org/

Now...you can take all the info you get from the NFPA applicable code and drive down to your local county building department to find their version of the local code-only to argue with the building inspector, (my case the fire marshall as well) on their interpretation of the code that is written for your area, (I've had two different inspectors make me do the same building process two different ways in the same county before)! Their interpretation is the bottom line-as well as how much coffee the guy had in him-as well as how cold it was the day he arrived for the inspection-as well as how heavily the contractor "padded" the county's pockets with "donations".
Agreed on the R-11 in between the floor joists and upstairs though-I'd stuff some R-30 into it first chance I got. But first check with your local power company as well as The State of Georgia as most have some good rebates that will apply to your improvement of insulation, (if you follow their guidelines).
Hope it helps.

[Ranchero50]

Well, compared to the '40's balloon construction with newspaper insulation it's not terrible...

[MaxKlinger]

Well, compared to the '40's balloon construction with newspaper insulation it's not terrible...

...and galvanized plumbing, and knob-and-tube wiring, and plaster-and-lathe walls...

[flyboy2610]

Well, compared to the '40's balloon construction with newspaper insulation it's not terrible...

...and galvanized plumbing, and knob-and-tube wiring, and plaster-and-lathe walls...

I gutted and remodeled the upstairs of the house we used to live in. Plaster and lathe walls. Knob and tube wiring. Balloon construction. Never found newspaper in the walls, though. I found that the easiest way to get plaster down off the lathe was to smack it with a hammer held so that the edge of the head, not the face or the claw, was hitting the plaster. This would break the 'key' holding the plaster to the lathe and it would come down in large sections. Wear safety goggle and a canister type air filter, though. You don't want that stuff in your lungs!

[fireguywtc]

afaik and I have studied this some, modern building construction has to meet minimum standards whether it be NFPA life safety code or uniform building code UBC, etc. Of course you parents hous had to meet whatever was modern when it was built. State and local governments can adopt equivilant or stronger but never less. I would have to check into that. This sounds like more of a failure of building inspectors provided there was any enforcement at all.

[OldRedFord]

Sounds like an early 90's "wham bam thank ya man" product. Did your parents have this house built or did they buy it? Sounds like someone dropped the ball at inspection time.



What blows my mind here,(let alone the Rvalue)is that you've got no fire code down there We've got a code(in NY)that requires at least a layer of 5/8 sheetrock..if not 2 layers seperating a garage from living space

Interesting on the two layers of sheetrock. The walls are 5/8. The ceiling is 1/2." Now where the hot water heater and furnace are (both gas fired btw) There is no sheetrock on the ceiling in the closet they reside in. My parents bought the house new.

From working in the remodeling field it seems like it was standard practice around the time our house was built to sheath the exterior walls of houses like ours was done. When homes were going up like crazy around here about 1998 they were using rigid foam and regular plywood. Houses with brick veneer were getting plywood behind the brick.

i kind of like the old plaster and wood lath. Except when it cracks everywhere.

[PhantomoftheBumpside]

I despise cheap and lazy contractors, and lax rules.

I was visiting a friend the other day, he recently had his entire house re-sheathed and sided, quality work to replace the card board and paper-maché like chipboard and masonite that it was built with... The house is a split on a hill... so.. kind of a garage and half-basement on the bottom.. This time I go in through the garage and look up, noticing the floor boards of the living room above... no insulation, no sheet rock, nada.. I also notice that there is flex pipe run for the gas furnace upstairs through the joists all the way from at least inside the exterior wall... hmm... I stop by the utility room/bath on the way in... hmm.. no ceiling here either... and there's the flex pipe making it's turn up through the floor.

Now... where I am from, hard pipe would probably have been required for that whole run, if not at least through the exterior wall.

I don't see how any community, or half way conscientious inspector could allow something like that to pass... but his is just one of about 100 similar houses in this particular neighborhood that were obviously built at the same time by the same people... I did notice this trip that two of them in the area are freshly condemned, however.

[sargentrs]

We didn't even HAVE building inspection in Pickens County until 2002. Started my house in 2001 so it was kinda grandfathered in. Fortunately, the contractor was from another county that have fairly strict codes so the house built to their standard. I added a garage with an upstairs apartment a few years later and subbed it out myself. The inspector did come out and make me add tornado straps and concrete anchors on the bottom plates of the walls, and sheetrock the inside adding 5/8 type X to the ceiling (I did have R30 up there). Then he gigged me for not having a drop down attic access in the ceiling. I called him up and asked him..."Are the flight of stairs, going up to the door in the back, insufficient for that access?"

HouseBack.JPG

He said..."Oh, I didn't look out the back door of the garage. Yeah, you're fine."

[67mann]

[quote="basketcase0302"] their interpretation [quote]
I used to go through this(1layer or 2 of 5/8)with alot of inspector's when I was hanging new houses and remod's,because it affected my sqft $ and there were allways different interpertation's

[Mancar1]

My home was built the year I was born. A few years back, 1949. Bought it in 96, had no insullation, original wiring, and windows. wind blew through the south walls Since buying I have insulated, rewired, upgraded windows, sided, ect. Now it is a nice cozy place. Man our 1st winter here was very cold. We slept in our Union Suits Good insulation makes a world of differance
Here is a before and after.

[Ranchero50]

Mine is a 1906 vintage mini brick victorian. I doubt there were codes back then, the brick is very soft and the mortar falls out when you blow on it. The only good thing is the brick walls are 15" thick but the inside was just horse hair plaster and latheboards. It's been rewired several times and replumbed at least twice. Now it has several new cracks in the walls from the earthquake this summer. At one point I was going to gingerbread it but now I'm just happy enough to keep the rain on the outside. Oil fired radiator haven't been used in ten years, wood heat is good enough.

Our city is very strict with codes, when the electrical inspector was checking out the breaker box in the basement he flipped out about all the romex just hanging and had a hard time believing it was run professionally for the PO's.

Jamie

[69rangerf100]

well mine is a mid 80's crap build i have found so many things wrong since buying this house in 2005. on my most recent project i found that the sheetrock was installed with nails. what a joke. still have to install insulation in the garage since there was never any put in