Well, the saga of two homes in Pearlington continues. The owners of both homes are suffering from what in my opinion is purely thievery by contractors. Perhaps I should not be so harsh with one of them, he may just be uninformed and lacking good sense. How he responds to the recommended repair I obtain will tell the tale.
These two stories show you an ugly side of humanity. They show how easy it is for the trusting soul to be duped and mis-spend a lot, emphasis, a lot of money.
Case 1 is a new home built up on piers, about twelve-thirteen feet. It is a beautiful house partly funded by some of our volunteers. After we returned from Gustav and began inspecting the house with the help of our great New York City team we realized the supporting girders under the exterior load bearing exterior walls are crushing! Why?
A close look shows that the builder, using very strong, engineered truss-girders for the floor, extended them out to where the exterior load bearing beams should be. Rather that using the called out doubled 2x12 LVL's (laminated veneer lumber) for the exterior load girder he just used a single floor truss. On top of that, on both ends of the house, he improperly cut one of the girders which weakens them seriously.
A single girder constructed of 2x4’s is holding the entire load bearing exterior walls, essentially at least half the entire load of the house. Both front and rear girders are crushing slowly. The New York team, bless them, installed a temporary 2x12 support beam under the crushing girders that provides some arresting relief.
I decided not to hazard a self-generated solution but to bring in a PE (professional engineer) for formal assessment and recommendation for repair. While he was there we discovered not only verification of our assessment of the seriousness of the damage, but that the builder had installed some girders upside down with the surface clearly labeled TOP in large black letters facing down!
Afterwards, I received a concerned call from the PE firm asking that we immediately also install some temporary 4x4 piers under the 2x12 along with a second 2x12 until they can provide a formal solution. We will do that Monday or Tuesday, as soon as I get back to the coast.
Talking with the owner I find the builder was not even a licensed contractor, he was using another contractor's number. I think he is in jail now. Great, we will get no relief from him.
I've written a little about Case 2 earlier. Perhaps this situation is even worse. The husband has been quite ill most of the last six months and has not been able even to provide comments.
The wife of the owner has been living on site and engaging various "contractors" to do plumbing, build exterior porch roofs and re-roof the house. I find it hard to describe these “contractors” as any thing more than “good old boys” but even the term “good” tries one’s patience.
A couple of months ago I had visited and assessed the cost to rebuild this home and asked, if not begged the lady not to engage contractors without checking with me until we got the funding situation clarified. Then Gustav came and went. A month ago I drive up and see that she has paid a man to put on a new roof and a local "handy man" to build an extensive porch roof around three of the four sides of the house.
As I looked from the road I saw the newly shingled roof still had a saddleback look, plus the porch roof has such a low pitch the building code (and instructions on roofing) say no way to a shingled roof. On top of that, from the road it is clear that the porch roof on the north side has a negative slope, running water towards the house.
No roofer in his right mind would put a roof on this house in this condition except to bleed money from the home owner. The whole roof is going to have to be removed to repair the damage.
But the problem is deeper. This "handyman" built the roof by attaching the roof rafters to the fascia boards on the existing roof! Furthermore he employed very large spans using undersized 2x6 rafters and joists. The rafters are bowed and eventually the fascia boards will pull loose and the roof will separate from the house.
The problem grows even deeper. As I inspected the gabled porch roof on the south side of the house I realize he has built a gabled roof without employing any truss structure, just pairs of 2x6 rafters span the space, their ends tied into one of the 2x6 rafters that is itself tied to the fasica boards on one end and sitting on an exterior vertical post on the other end. The unsupported gable rafters are opening up laterally by pushing that 2x6 off the post, it has less than another inch to go.
I could ramble on more technical detail about remaining problems associated with this porch roof, the roofing job on the house and the crummy way these two local boy have abused this woman. But I will not. I imagine she has spent more on the house than would be required to build from scratch.
I'm expecting the PE to validate my thinking, the only solution is to tear off the porch roof and the roofing and redo the whole darn thing. I'm guessing it is going to be expensive.
I remember the PE’s question. “What do you guys do down here, go around and fix these kind of bad construction jobs?” I didn’t say yes, but for a lot of our clients that is the appropriate answer. Disaster brings out the best and the worst in people.
It was all I could do to talk to her and her husband about this with the PE after we finished our inspection. I finally repeated what I'd begged earlier, "Please don't let Mr. H do any more work on this house."
Once I have the PE assessment and solution in hand I intend to talk to Mr. H. Then we will see what manner of integrity he has.
I remember an infrequently used, and therefore effectively imprinted usage of my mother. I always thought it a remarkable expression for the context she used it. It is certainly apropos here.
These guys make me so mad I could chew nails.
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