5 ms·

Don't forget settling foundations. I'd be amazed if someone could find a single perfect right angle anywhere in my 1880's victorian.

pantaloony 6y ago
Don’t worry, every time we’ve had to or chosen to do anything to the newer houses we’ve owned it’s been a constant series of discoveries about how out-of-square everydamnthing is. We level something perfectly and... it’s nowhere near matching what’s already there. Even the doorways go out of alignment in a just a few years, if they don’t start that way.
- FireBeyond 6y ago
  Don't even start me on the new construction (thankfully rental) that my last home was. The stairwell landing was so badly off that there was skirting running up the side, and on the landing, they actually had _two_ layers of skirting (one atop the other). It looked ... ridiculous. And within months, every door had squeaks and sticks, because the frame would be off by as much as 1/4 inch.
- Gibbon1 6y ago
  When you realize the laser level and plum bobs aren't really very useful because anything made square looks off. As in reframing a closet door plumb and finding the floor isn't level. So now it looks crooked.
CalRobert 6y ago
Or just... no foundation. Ca. 1800 thatched cottage and the rocks are just sitting on clay soil.
TYPE_FASTER 6y ago
I was down in the basement one day while it was raining, and watched a small piece of mortar fall out of the foundation onto the dirt floor, followed by a perfect stream of water about an inch in diameter start pouring in. Then I learned about french drains. My dad grew up in an old farm house that had been a dorm for the school house next door at one point. After they had been living there a while, they jacked it up, dug the blocks out, poured a new foundation, and lowered the house back onto it. We looked at an old house, maybe from the mid-1600's or 1700's. Ship "stairs" that were almost a ladder. The corners of the rooms were probably six inches higher than the middle. It was amazing, super cool house. We passed, but eventually somebody fixed it up over the course of a year or two and flipped it.

pantaloony 6y ago

Don’t worry, every time we’ve had to or chosen to do anything to the newer houses we’ve owned it’s been a constant series of discoveries about how out-of-square everydamnthing is. We level something perfectly and... it’s nowhere near matching what’s already there. Even the doorways go out of alignment in a just a few years, if they don’t start that way.

FireBeyond 6y ago
Don't even start me on the new construction (thankfully rental) that my last home was. The stairwell landing was so badly off that there was skirting running up the side, and on the landing, they actually had _two_ layers of skirting (one atop the other). It looked ... ridiculous. And within months, every door had squeaks and sticks, because the frame would be off by as much as 1/4 inch.
Gibbon1 6y ago
When you realize the laser level and plum bobs aren't really very useful because anything made square looks off. As in reframing a closet door plumb and finding the floor isn't level. So now it looks crooked.

CalRobert 6y ago

Or just... no foundation. Ca. 1800 thatched cottage and the rocks are just sitting on clay soil.

TYPE_FASTER 6y ago

I was down in the basement one day while it was raining, and watched a small piece of mortar fall out of the foundation onto the dirt floor, followed by a perfect stream of water about an inch in diameter start pouring in. Then I learned about french drains. My dad grew up in an old farm house that had been a dorm for the school house next door at one point. After they had been living there a while, they jacked it up, dug the blocks out, poured a new foundation, and lowered the house back onto it. We looked at an old house, maybe from the mid-1600's or 1700's. Ship "stairs" that were almost a ladder. The corners of the rooms were probably six inches higher than the middle. It was amazing, super cool house. We passed, but eventually somebody fixed it up over the course of a year or two and flipped it.