Large dip in my yard

[invalid unparseable]

People see you walking around the yard, they say, "There is that dip in the yard."

[invalid unparseable]

Reminds me that builders often bury wood construction waste which ends up causing holes.

[gfretwell]

In the bad old days that was the practice but these days most places won't let them get away with it. They require dumpsters on the job and you need to disclose what you are throwing away. (Recycling thing)

[rbowman]

That's what the builder I worked for did. Dig a hole and bury the trash. Fill it in, rake the soil and seed annual rye grass for a quick green lawn. He also put in fireplaces and hardwood floors. The rest of the construction was shoddy cheapest way possible stuff, but the gomers didn't notice.

The leach fields were something else. Ever try to build a leach field in a swamp? Speaking of which there was also a free koi pond in the cellars every spring. Must have had something to do with thinning the waterproofing compound with diesel so all it did was stain the foundation black.

I learned a lot...

[invalid unparseable]

I learned a lot from the guy that built my house when things started failing soon after we moved in. Learned a lot about the corrupt county government and law at the time too.

[hubops]

... in the news, here, recently - forged inspection documents - discovered just-by-chance :

John T.

[gfretwell]

I often wonder how many "engineers of record" actually review the plans that get stamped. I suspect most of the time a plan tech, maybe an engineer, maybe not, does most of the work. These things are pretty much boiler plate anyway for most buildings. When I was putting on my addition I used my CAD program to draw the plans, using the details from other plans I had access to. I was failed at intake because the plans were not stamped. I hired an engineer. He redrew the plans twice and I got failed twice on his plans. The third time his tech put my original plan on his big copier with his detail rings and logos, the tech stamped them and I passed.

The concrete guy I had, questioned the rebar the engineer had on his detail. I ended up adding two # 7s to the two 7s and two 5s I had. It just didn't look like he was used to doing things so he questioned the plan. It was good because the inspector wanted to see that rebar too, no matter what was on the stamped plan. It made me skeptical of engineers. I know on electrical, I enforced the code, even if the plan didn't. The sparkys were the same way. Sometimes they would even point it out to me.

[invalid unparseable]

My builder built a house for a banker and with each cash advance was forging the subcontractors release of liens. He could have gone to jail for this but his lawyer talked the banker into getting settlement otherwise. I don't know how much but lawyer said if builder went to jail banker would get nothing.

[Clare Snyder]

One REALLY pissed off inspector/engineer too - appears it was a former enployer?? so the fact he had left not being common knowlege, they got away with it for quite some time. Has not been confirmed but that's what the "grapevine" is saying.

Apparently on re-inspection nothing was found to be deficient - whether it was ACTUALLY inspected or if they just got lucky is still open to conjecture