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All good points. I'll add that the company that wanted to charge me tens of thousands to put in all those features were saying it was a groundwater issue becau

All good points. I'll add that the company that wanted to charge me tens of thousands to put in all those features were saying it was a groundwater issue because they wanted to make money, but they were lying to me. They were essentially salespeople, and they didn't get paid unless they did work. The home inspector, meanwhile, who I paid and who wasn't beholden to any construction interests, gave me the correct diagnosis. There's an important lesson here that's especially apt for construction; always get independent advice. The few hundred it'll cost you is absolutely worth it because the typical cost of construction is so much more. As for code compliance -- like pretty much all houses in the area, it was built in the 1950s, so it didn't have any of that stuff per code. It had been substantially renovated recently by people who clearly were not following code and/or the permitting process and who fucked all sorts of things up (including the grading of the foundation; they had actually made it worse while doing unrelated landscaping). I also had some "fun" issues with unpermitted electrical work. If I had to guess I'd say that it could be over half of all work that isn't done correctly. So definitely don't trust it. Have someone who reports only to you looking over everything (if you don't have the knowledge yourself).

sumtechguy 6y ago
I usually get at least 3 quotes. A detailed quote is a good sign they know what they are doing. An open ended quote is a good sign they dont. This does not work 100% of the time. But a good diagnosis goes a long way. Someone I know wanted a bit of electrical and sheetrock work done in their house. The dude gave her a piece of paper with 1 number on it, how much. No detail/swag of material, no detail/swag of hours, nothing, just a price. What is interesting is I (and this is just luck) I seem to always get one awful, one medium, and one good. Just kind of worked out that way. The nice thing is once you find a decent contractor they can recommend others or do the work themselves. But finding a decent one can be a pain.
- CydeWeys 6y ago
  Getting quotes will help you if you already knew exactly what work you needed performed, but if I had talked to 3 water infiltration mitigation companies I would have just ended up with 3 quotes in the tens of thousands of dollar range. None of them did landscaping, which was what I actually needed. So I wouldn't rely on quotes when there's any ambiguity in the problem. I would rely on quotes if e.g. I needed to replace my entire roof, or replace all my windows. Those at least are narrowly scoped.
mcguire 6y ago
"I also had some "fun" issues with unpermitted electrical work." Ca. 2004, we bought a house in a new-ish subdivision of Cedar Park, north of Austin. Built in the mid '90s, it wasn't extremely high-end, but it also wasn't the lower end with the failing drywall joints that were very common. Later, I was replacing a light fixture in a bathroom and discovered that none of the fixtures had electrical boxes behind them---the fixture was attached to the drywall with Romex just going off into the wall. My current house was built in the 1950s and subsequently remodeled and added-onto at least twice. The custom oak kitchen cabinets by a previous owner are pretty nice. The custom wiring and plumbing less so. Back when I was trying to use ethernet-over-power, I had a fun game of, "Will this outlet get signal?" We had a plumber install a new kitchen faucet and he had to re-do the drain and supply lines in the cabinet---he took the "Device", the prior drain piping, back to the shop to show the rest of the guys.
- bleepblorp 6y ago
  Incompetent electrical work can be "fun." I've encountered: Permanent lighting fixtures wired up using lamp cord. A light switch mounted directly to drywall without an electrical box. 14 fixtures, including receptacles, on a single circuit with a wire length of >100 feet. A 40 amp continuous load connected using wire rated for 32 amps in continuous duty. A 60 amp breaker "protecting" a wire rated for 30 amps. Indoor-only, dry-location, cable used outdoors where exposed to weather. Indoor-only, dry-location, cable buried underground. Receptacles connected using 10 AWG wire despite the fact that the connecting screws are only capable of securely connecting 12 and 14 AWG wires. Building ground consisting of a copper wire buried in a deep hole instead of connected to a ground rod. Neutral wires from four 15A circuits connected to a single 14 AWG pigtail in the service panel. Multi-wire branch circuits wired with both hot wires connected to the same leg at the service panel. Illegal, and very dangerous, as heavy loads can overload the neutral wire to twice its rating without tripping any breakers. Worst of all, the most dangerous work was done by allegedly qualified electricians who were trained to know better.
  - kls 6y ago
    My house was destroyed by Hurricane Irma and I had to gut the interior. I found an area where, I am assuming the previous owner repaired as I cannot in my wildest dreams imagine a licenced electrician would do it, anyway the area, was an area where the romex did not reach the other side of the romex, so the person took speaker wire twisted them together, to be about the size of the romex wire and linked the two stands of romex They did not strip the plastic shielding from each strand of wire, just joined them at the ends. So I had 120 running thru basically a single strand of speaker wire.
ntucker 6y ago
This is a great observation about the home inspector being more likely to give you an impartial diagnosis. There's an old guy who's a semi-retired home inspector down the block from me and it makes me think I should hire him for consultation when thinking about big projects.
- CydeWeys 6y ago
  Definitely do it. I got easily 20X the value out of my home inspector than what I paid him. Not just here on the drainage problem but on other stuff as well. I paid him $800 in total to inspect two homes, he gave me detailed reports for each one plus all sorts of useful insights during the several hours each inspection took, and then he answered a bunch of questions via email for free after I ended up closing on the second house and discovering the various problems with it. And for consultation on just a single issue I'd expect you'd pay a bit less than $400.

sumtechguy 6y ago

I usually get at least 3 quotes. A detailed quote is a good sign they know what they are doing. An open ended quote is a good sign they dont. This does not work 100% of the time. But a good diagnosis goes a long way. Someone I know wanted a bit of electrical and sheetrock work done in their house. The dude gave her a piece of paper with 1 number on it, how much. No detail/swag of material, no detail/swag of hours, nothing, just a price. What is interesting is I (and this is just luck) I seem to always get one awful, one medium, and one good. Just kind of worked out that way. The nice thing is once you find a decent contractor they can recommend others or do the work themselves. But finding a decent one can be a pain.

CydeWeys 6y ago
Getting quotes will help you if you already knew exactly what work you needed performed, but if I had talked to 3 water infiltration mitigation companies I would have just ended up with 3 quotes in the tens of thousands of dollar range. None of them did landscaping, which was what I actually needed. So I wouldn't rely on quotes when there's any ambiguity in the problem. I would rely on quotes if e.g. I needed to replace my entire roof, or replace all my windows. Those at least are narrowly scoped.

mcguire 6y ago

"I also had some "fun" issues with unpermitted electrical work." Ca. 2004, we bought a house in a new-ish subdivision of Cedar Park, north of Austin. Built in the mid '90s, it wasn't extremely high-end, but it also wasn't the lower end with the failing drywall joints that were very common. Later, I was replacing a light fixture in a bathroom and discovered that none of the fixtures had electrical boxes behind them---the fixture was attached to the drywall with Romex just going off into the wall. My current house was built in the 1950s and subsequently remodeled and added-onto at least twice. The custom oak kitchen cabinets by a previous owner are pretty nice. The custom wiring and plumbing less so. Back when I was trying to use ethernet-over-power, I had a fun game of, "Will this outlet get signal?" We had a plumber install a new kitchen faucet and he had to re-do the drain and supply lines in the cabinet---he took the "Device", the prior drain piping, back to the shop to show the rest of the guys.

bleepblorp 6y ago
Incompetent electrical work can be "fun." I've encountered: Permanent lighting fixtures wired up using lamp cord. A light switch mounted directly to drywall without an electrical box. 14 fixtures, including receptacles, on a single circuit with a wire length of >100 feet. A 40 amp continuous load connected using wire rated for 32 amps in continuous duty. A 60 amp breaker "protecting" a wire rated for 30 amps. Indoor-only, dry-location, cable used outdoors where exposed to weather. Indoor-only, dry-location, cable buried underground. Receptacles connected using 10 AWG wire despite the fact that the connecting screws are only capable of securely connecting 12 and 14 AWG wires. Building ground consisting of a copper wire buried in a deep hole instead of connected to a ground rod. Neutral wires from four 15A circuits connected to a single 14 AWG pigtail in the service panel. Multi-wire branch circuits wired with both hot wires connected to the same leg at the service panel. Illegal, and very dangerous, as heavy loads can overload the neutral wire to twice its rating without tripping any breakers. Worst of all, the most dangerous work was done by allegedly qualified electricians who were trained to know better.
- kls 6y ago
  My house was destroyed by Hurricane Irma and I had to gut the interior. I found an area where, I am assuming the previous owner repaired as I cannot in my wildest dreams imagine a licenced electrician would do it, anyway the area, was an area where the romex did not reach the other side of the romex, so the person took speaker wire twisted them together, to be about the size of the romex wire and linked the two stands of romex They did not strip the plastic shielding from each strand of wire, just joined them at the ends. So I had 120 running thru basically a single strand of speaker wire.

ntucker 6y ago

This is a great observation about the home inspector being more likely to give you an impartial diagnosis. There's an old guy who's a semi-retired home inspector down the block from me and it makes me think I should hire him for consultation when thinking about big projects.

CydeWeys 6y ago
Definitely do it. I got easily 20X the value out of my home inspector than what I paid him. Not just here on the drainage problem but on other stuff as well. I paid him $800 in total to inspect two homes, he gave me detailed reports for each one plus all sorts of useful insights during the several hours each inspection took, and then he answered a bunch of questions via email for free after I ended up closing on the second house and discovering the various problems with it. And for consultation on just a single issue I'd expect you'd pay a bit less than $400.