Man the US is like the wild west, why are you guys so forgiving of shit construction??
If the builder missed the damp proof separation layer between the bottom plate and the foundation in my house they would be in for a very expensive and sad time
There are 3-4 different avenues you could pursue that against a contractor here, and all of them would very easily capture a 4 year horizon
I think the shortest of them would be 7? or 10? years that the contractor is on the hook and, for residential work with a private individual as the client...
@Tomfh I was lazy in my reply but his examples are generally on the ends of the walls
Here, the fixing pattern for the plasterboard has tighter spacing on the end stud so those compromised studs would be a PITA for the plasterboard fixers
Hence, I say replace those
Agree that the internal studs...
My dad (45 years as a structural engineer) loves his one-liners
His applicable one here is: "I'm a consulting engineer, and there's a reason that the consulting comes first"
Now, I don't think 'consulting' = 'businessman', but his point was always that we aren't really hired for the strength of...
@Ron247 amazing, a clause like that would never stack up here
It's explicit in our building law that you provide a warranty with your work, can't contract out of it, and can't do non-compliant work
Though if the contractor is out of business you are stuffed regardless
I don't understand this. The contractor said they could do the job and they failed to do so. That would be illegal/non compliant work here and the contractor would be on the hook to fix it. Why was the client the one out of pocket?
The cowboy classic here is to use discrete underpinning pads to side jack an unreinforced rubble foundation (read: contains bricks, stones, and not much cement) on sites with shallow water tables and liquefiable materials at the water table
If the side lift doesn't break the foundation, the...
We have expansive soils elsewhere in the country but not in my city
Here, it's peat (the settlers decided to drain a huge swamp and build a city on it) and liquefiable soils that are the headache
Interesting. It's relatively common here. I've seen it done with both permanent screw piles and temporary ones (lift the foundation off screw piles, grout underneath, disconnect piles)
So many houses are out of level here thanks to the earthquakes that there are a lot of relevelling contractors...
Sounds like you guys are tackling some of the issues there. Installing both sides of the footing would require cutting out the floor though - starts becoming a pretty hefty exercise in that case?
Preferred underpinning here is to excavate from the outside and pour discrete pads to stabilise or...
@jerseyshore yes I agree there are some differences but you still need to be careful even if you're just "securing".
Your assumption has to be that the foundation is point supported at the pile locations as the existing soil has shown itself to be inadequate to provide support (why else are...
@ANE91 not sure about this comment specifically that you've made:
"On the one hand, who am I to tell a contractor what he can/cannot sell? On the other hand, I doubt that I would find much of that work truly necessary. Would getting involved make me party to deceit?"
No one is telling the...
We are involved in a lot of underpinning work here
I would never underpin without a geotech report unless I was very very confident of the soils (and to be honest, the only reason I would have that confidence is because I have 15 years' of geotechnical field testing experience in my region...
Just design it to cantilever? Super easy for single story. Two story would be a bit niggly as you'd need midfloor support on the existing building side - may be tricky to attach. The post fire load here is only 0.5kPa though so they're pretty small loads
Ah yes, lawyers, the exact kind of client Ron was discussing...
Our code sadly does not give "limits" - it gives "recommended limits" which means you can still be sued even if you meet them :)
The plasterboard one is particularly baffling as it's based on H/300 testing data but, if you look at...
Interesting, our Code racking limit is H/300 under a 1/25 year event - significantly more friendly than your limit
I think this is too relaxed personally but that's the world we live in eh
Our beam deflections are L/300 to L/500 depending on the particular case, but I don't think these work so...
Yea basically that - the house is two story but roof over the ground floor extends outwards like a skirt to create some sort of inspired architectural design/expensive engineering headache
I know what you mean about the $$ thing - it is so incredibly frustrating, especially in residential...
