Boise BCI 450 Joists sitting in the rain, problem?
Earl Wallace
the afternoons and evenings. The BCI Joists were delivered over a
week ago and have been rained on about 4 of those days. Heavy
downpour a couple of times. Then the sun comes out and dries it off.
These Joists are not under any cover, they are just sitting out there
on the property.
Because these Joists are fiberboard-like in construction, and Boise
says not to store them where they'll get wet, should I be worried?
I'm not the Builder. We have a local Builder who's building the
house.
Bob Morrison
Earl:
Boise Cascade's storage instructions state that the joists shall "be
stored in a vertical and level position and protected from the weather."
Anything less can compromise the warranty and might make it impossible
to get the damaged ones replaced. If your contractor doesn't follow the
recommended procedures then you may wish to consider replacing him. This
early in the job it does not bode well that he is careless about the job
materials.
However, before you do anything drastic I would first explain your
concerns and see if does anything to correct the problem.
--
Bob Morrison
R L Morrison Engineering Co
Structural & Civil Engineering
Poulsbo WA
Earl Wallace
Yep, good plan. This Builder wants to build high-quality homes (so he
says anyway), but has so many houses being built that his supervisors
can't seem to keep up with the subs. The subs appear to be running on
their own for the most part. Our contract with the Builder is such
that we would have a difficult time breaking away from him, so we are
trying to work with him so we are both reasonable happy.
Next time we'll use a Lawyer so the contract isn't so one-sided...
North
And in the mean time, it might be a good idea to cover the material in
plastic,to protect it from further weathering.
When I built my house, I bought all the lumber back in Dec, to save
money. In fact I saved over $10,000 by doing so. To keep it 'fresh', I
placed a 2 inch layer of gravel down then covered the gravel with
6mil, next I layed out some cinder blocks, then stacked the lumber on
top of the blocks, after that I placed a whole bunch of ant traps on
and under the lumber and finally covered the lumber with more 6mil.
__________6mil____________
^^ant trap^^ ^^ ^^
[][][][][][][][][][]lumber][][][][[][][][][][
[][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][
][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][[
[ ] [ ] Block [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]
^^ ^^ ^^ ^Ant trap^
_______6mil_____________
************************************
*********Gravel*******************
************************************
My lumber sat in piles all over my yard stored in the above fashion
all winter and spring. I have no trouble whatsoever, YMMV.
North.
tonyg
tonyg
----------
In article <45780b32.0408...@posting.google.com>,
Mark & Shauna
Earl,
While the manufacturers recommendations may state otherwise (insert
"covering their asses" here) I dont think there would be a problem with
them getting wet for a week, or two, or more. It wouldnt be uncommon in
any area of the country for a frame to sit exposed but not yet weather
tight through a week of rain. If the material were so fragile as to not
be able to withstand a mere week of rain I surely wouldnt want to build
my home, or one for a customer, out of it. Frames have sat through wet
spells far longer than a week through the history of home building.
I have some TJI 250's that have sat out for many months (left overs)
and they look the same as the day they landed on the job and I wouldnt
hesitate to use them if I had to.
Aggrevating your builder with such an issue is a waste of your time,
and even worse, a waste of his.
Mark
Earl Wallace
> Earl,
> While the manufacturers recommendations may state otherwise (insert
> "covering their asses" here) I dont think there would be a problem with
> them getting wet for a week, or two, or more. It wouldnt be uncommon in
> any area of the country for a frame to sit exposed but not yet weather
> tight through a week of rain. If the material were so fragile as to not
> be able to withstand a mere week of rain I surely wouldnt want to build
> my home, or one for a customer, out of it. Frames have sat through wet
> spells far longer than a week through the history of home building.
> I have some TJI 250's that have sat out for many months (left overs)
> and they look the same as the day they landed on the job and I wouldnt
> hesitate to use them if I had to.
> Aggrevating your builder with such an issue is a waste of your time,
> and even worse, a waste of his.
>
> Mark
Mark,
That's been the problem - trying to determine what's important enough
to bring to the attention of the Builder, and what you just let slide
by with your mouth closed. When the Builder tells me he's going to
build a high-quality home, I know that really just means "standard
construction quality". No one could build a "high-quality" home that
could meet my standards without it costing 10 times what I'm paying,
so I understand if shortcuts are made to keep cost under control. But
how many of these shortcuts are a serious problem?
The Foundation was designed by a licensed Professional Engineer. It
is required here by the Building Dept. because of the soils we have
around here. Our house sits on sandy and clayey soil, so following
the PE's specs is a good idea. The Builder probably followed about
half of those specs from what I can tell by looking at the site and
the specs. We go out and look every day (and take lots of pictures).
When they poured the concrete, it was thick and had a difficult time
spreading evenly throughout the Foundation Forms, so we have lots of
huge voids. The Builder told me that this is no problem because they
used "2 bag" 3,000 PSI concrete when they poured the 8" walls. They
expected these voids and it tells them the concrete was thick enough.
Well, I'm not a concrete expert, so maybe there's some truth to this,
but when you see all those voids, you can't help but wonder if there
are massive voids inside the walls too. I let this one slide because
I figured it would be very expensive to rip it all out and start over.
They didn't kept the concrete wet. Never put any water on it at all.
When backfilling, instead of compacting the soil in 6" lifts using the
suggested equipment in the PE's specs, they just used a backhoe,
tossed the soil in and packed it down hard and fast. Sat there and
watched him do it (would have said something, but our contract states
we are not allowed to talk to the subs). This was actually spelled out
in the PE's specs as something NOT to do. We now have one wall in the
basement now that is bowed in enough that you can see it clearly. The
Builder said they expected this too and was no problem.
We came out to look at the concrete slabs (basement and garage) 10
hours after they were poured and didn't see any water on the slabs,
but did see cracks everywhere. 1/8" or more wide by 12' long in some
cases. I was taking pictures of all the cracks and finally gave up
because there were so many. I have never see concrete look so bad in
my life (we use to live in a 1922 house with a basement too). I'm in
a rental house a few miles away with about a 1,000 houses in the
development and have not seen hardly any cracks in the basements,
floors, sidewalks or streets. Why is this Builder so unable to lay
concrete slabs without massive cracks? My guess is that they did not
compact the soil as required, and maybe not keeping the slabs wet
contributed to the problem?
We have 38 acres on this property and the house sits on top of a hill,
so they could install the Septic system just about anywhere they
wanted. We told them just don't put it right outside the basement
walk-out, so guess where they put it? Right in front of the basement
walk-out.
This is a "Custom Home", yet we are not allowed to have the Blueprints
because they used their in-house designer and consider the plans
"proprietary". That is a little strange since we drew the basic plans
ourselves and took it to them, and then worked with them to make the
designed changes. They did the hard stuff however, like the
Foundation, Roof, etc. and I imagine they will offer these plans to
future customers so they probably didn't charge us the full design
costs. I'll never know because they didn't itemize the contract.
What things cost is anyone's guess.
Have I stepped in some do-do here? Probably. But they are a small
Builder family and seem truly interested in building a good house, and
they respond to my questions and I guess if I wanted to pay extra
bucks, I could get to make the changes. So I think the root problem
here is the subcontractors not being supervised as much as they
should. This Builder family has taken on too many projects I think,
and maybe they are falling apart at the seams?
Bob Morrison
> to bring to the attention of the Builder, and what you just let slide
> by with your mouth closed
>
Earl:
After reading through your post I came away with the impression that
your builder is incompetent. Or at least the subs he his hiring are,
which almost amounts to the same thing. This builder has severe quality
control problems and needs to get his subs under control.
I don't expect construction to be perfect -- it never is. The concrete
was obviously too thick to be placed properly, an/or he didn't vibrate
it properly. Quality concrete has very few if any voids ("rock
pockets"). This problem can be partially corrected by "parging" the
surface.
Slabs will crack. The trick is to make them crack where you want. I
always spec crack control joints be put in the slab. It still cracks,
but in straight lines at selected locations rather than randomly. It is
also possible to get surface cracks ("alligatoring") if proper curing
procedures are not followed.
One of the things you could do is have your engineer come to the job
site, review the quality of the construction, and issue a report. Tell
your builder you are concerned about the quality of the work and that
you are going to have the engineer look at the foundations and
earthwork. Tell him to not do any more work until you get this resolved
to your satisfaction. Do this before the engineer visits the site.
The engineer should disclose any possible conflicts of interest, i.e.,
does he work for this builder regularly. Work with your engineer to
determine which problems must be corrected.
Remember, you still have a big hammer: you can withhold payment for
work under dispute. I wouldn't do this without cause and I would
certainly give your builder time to correct the problems. If he is a
"quality" builder who cares about his reputation he will respond in a
way that allows a solution that will satisfy you both. For your part
you must be willing to allow him to correct the matters of most concern
to the structural integrity of the house.
3D Peruna
disclose any conflicts, and 2) verify that the foundation in place meets the
specifications. You're paying for the specified foudation, not an "almost
up to spec.'s" foundation.
I've had a client (institutional) require that the entire foundation system
be ripped out and replaced. Why? No required submittals were provided and
the contractor couldn't verify that what was specified was actually what was
in place. It cost the contractor many thousands of dollars to do this. But
the submittals were required. And the contractor knew that the client was a
stickler with regard to doing what was called for in the specifications.
One other thing...if the builder is going to try and tell you that this is
"quality" workmanship this early in the project (including the septic
system), then you're going to have issues with him throughout the project.
It might be time for a heart-to-heart with him. Express your concerns and
be prepared to walk away--it might cost you a little money now.
Just because you don't "know" construction doesn't mean the builder gets to
BS his way into a shoddy job for you.
P
Mark & Shauna
Earl,
While I agree with Bob and 3D's posts about a tact to move forward with
this project I would probably be taking a little more aggressive tact if
I were you. Given what you posted above, and I can only guess there is
more but you figured your post was long enough, I would be looking
seriously into sending these guys packing and persuing a new contractor
and I mean that seriously. Of course you would also have to look into
legal action against the work they have done to this point.
I would be very skeptical about putting much money on top of the
foundation you have described to this point. The practicality of
expecting this contractor to rip out a poured foundation and do it over
is virtually a joke. Even if a court filed a judgement against them for
it in a law suit it is more than likely they would file chapter 11 and
you wouldnt see a dime. As was stated in the other replies, if you are
seeing this level of workmanship (and the level sounds extremely low)
you can only expect the rest to be of equal value or worse.
All of the issues you mention are the "foundation" of the project. Get
out while you can, or at least put the project on hold until you can be
sure you want to go forward with the builder. I cant over ephasize how
cautious you should be at this point and realize that no amount of delay
to rectify the situation or find a new builder will be more costly than
continuing on with one who is willing to accept such substandard work
and try to pass it off as "expected". Dont get caught up here in trying
to be the nice guy and giving multiple chances it the quality is as you say.
It sounds like the joists in the rain are the least of your concerns.
Mark
Earl Wallace
>...
> One of the things you could do is have your engineer come to the job
> site, review the quality of the construction, and issue a report. Tell
> your builder you are concerned about the quality of the work and that
> you are going to have the engineer look at the foundations and
> earthwork. Tell him to not do any more work until you get this resolved
> to your satisfaction. Do this before the engineer visits the site.
>
> The engineer should disclose any possible conflicts of interest, i.e.,
> does he work for this builder regularly. Work with your engineer to
> determine which problems must be corrected.
I think having the engineer come out and inspect is a great idea. The
engineer who did the specs was selected and paid by the Builder, so I
imagine I would need to find another engineer, give him the specs and
let him do the inspection. Thanks for the suggestion!