Monday, August 3, 2009

THE CONTRACTOR'S TEN COMMANDMENTS

originally posted 7-30-01

I've reworded this a few times when posting it on specific jobs, but you get the idea.

Twenty five years in construction has given me a great deal of insight inside both the contractor’s and the homeowner’s minds. I’ve come up with a set of guidelines that get posted on all major jobs, and if the homeowners don’t laugh at least once, I know I’m in trouble. Here they are, followed by brief, but useless explanations:
1. THAT’S EXTRA. I won’t raise my prices during the job if you won’t change your mind again.
2. PAINTERS WILL FIX IT. You expect carpenters to know something about joinery? Of course caulk is structural.
3. THAT’S NOT CODE. This gives us the chance to catch up as you and the architect go crazy making changes (see #1) to remain legal. In Eureka, it should go “That was code according to the LAST inspector.”
4. YOU WON’T SEE THAT. We’ll fix it, or it’ll be covered with sheetrock, or some such nonsense (see # 2). The further up it is, the less we have to worry about how it looks.
5. IT’LL HOLD. All we had were six penny finish nails to attach the roof, so we used superglue. Or, “liquid nails never fails!”
6. OF COURSE WE’VE DONE THIS BEFORE. If the whole crew shows up with brand new tools and spends all morning reading instruction booklets, you’re in trouble.
7. PERMIT? WHAT PERMIT? Sometimes goes “License? What license?” Often coupled with # 8,
8. WE ARE OUR INSURANCE. A very dangerous situation, especially when they show up with wooden ladders and circular saws that have the blade guards removed.
9. I AM NOT YOUR COUNSELLOR. If you and your spouse haven’t worked out your architectural differences yet, just keep #10 in mind.
10.DEER SEASON STARTS NEXT WEEK, WE’LL BE BACK IN FEBRUARY. Usually followed by, “Kin we git a ad-vay-unce?”

QUICK FIXES FOR THE CHEAPSKATE

originally published 7-29-05

Dear Old House Doctor,
While hiding behind my house to see who was parked illegally, I noticed that the wood trim around my windows had separated at the corner joints. It’s only been five years since my painter charged me eight hundred dollars to paint my trim. Should I sue?
Signed
Worried on Hillside

Dear Worried,
My my. Suing a painter for wood movement five years after the fact is like blaming George the Lesser for doing what Karl Rove tells him to; it’s to be expected.
Wood is a porous substance, and it shrinks and swells with the weather, usually moving radially (it moves sideways). The hot temperatures in summer cause shrinkage through moisture loss, and this is most noticeable at exterior wood joints. It goes without saying that after five years, this is likely. Then, you ask, why did I say it? Because this paper pays me a lot of money for such witticisms. Ha Ha! Just kidding! They don't pay me anything. In fact, I owe the editor BIGTIME, so she roped me into this crappy little... oh, sorry! Didn't know you were listening.
The next time you’re playing Gladys Kravits, put down your telescope and pick up a caulk gun. Using Dap’s “Alex Plus” (it’s a latex caulk with silicone for added elasticity), caulk the cracks and work it in with a wet finger (oh my!), smoothing as you go. After drying, paint the corners with an oil-based primer and touch it up with new paint.
Now, at this point, you’ll notice your new paint looks brighter than the surrounding trim. This might be caused by the cheap paint you insisted on using (see if you can sue your parents for your upbringing), or your trim might be dirty (sue God: She could use a good laugh and has extra thunderbolts lying around for twits like you). If dirt is the culprit, I have a weird remedy.
Simply rub your hand over the dirty parts of the trim and rub it onto the new paint after it cures. It’s weird, but it works.
And if there was really justice in this world, you can hire Karl to do the job after he’s fired. But he’ll likely charge you more than eight hundred dollars.
BACK FROM THE ABYSS

"Well, I'm back."

Does anyone recognise this quote? It's cool, I'll wait.

Hum de dum de dum....

Oh, alright, I'll tell you. It's the last line from J.R.R. Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings." Spoken by Samwise after returning from the Grey Havens.

I have also returned, or at least, my computer has. While writing the first posts to this VERY blog, my cursor started opening everything it touched, then all things went snappy. My hard drive went to the Great Technologique Museum in Lyons, France, and I was without. Now I'm within.
The first two posts (the ones before this one) are examples of the most recent incarnation of OHD, and now I'm going to embark on reprinting some of the famous Lovely County Citizen colulumns. At three hundred fifty words, they are brief, informative, and manage to make fun of everyone in Eureka Springs Arkansas, where The Citizen is published.
I will be editing each one for some content, though, as the myriad readers of this blog (all none of you, heh heh) will have any idea why the jokes are so funny. Neither did anyone in Eaky Spings.
But no matter how much I make fun of the old hippies, artistes, and foaming-at-the-mouth nosy neighbors (a sanctioned competition sport in Eureka), I urge you to go there, walk the town, buy art and jewelry, and discover the wonderful food, libations, entertainment, and boffo characters the town has to offer. A mix of San Fransisco (architecture), Arkansas (hills, local flavor and forests), Greenwich Village (lifestyles and art), Switzerland (topography), and Disneyland (everything you were and weren't expecting), it's a ton o' fun. Write me and I'll give you the gory details.

Enough!!!
Back to the show, which is already in...progressssssssss........zzzzzZZZZIP!
clack
Snapple

POP!

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