Why aren't bathrooms encapsulated?

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cgilley said:
Just to be clear, I appreciate your unfiltered opinions. :)

True story time. Plumbing is involved, bear with me.

  1. So in 2000, I need more room in the house. I added 2 bedrooms with jack and Jill bathrooms, extended the kitchen, added a school room (we homeschooled our children). I'm an electrical engineer, working his a$$ off to pay for this, I don't do construction. Since we're sort of on the topic of "inspections."

    The footers are dug, the rebar is in... time for inspection. And we wait, and wait... and it starts raining 4 days straight... inspector shows up on day 4, fails the inspection because of "water in the footings." What a waste of oxygen. The GM and I had a good laugh, what are you going to do?

  2. Rough framing is up, need an inspection - inspector hears dog barking, refuses to inspect, signs off without looking at anything. Hmmm.
  3. 4 months later, it's time for plumbing inspection. Fails because the new washer connection is 3 inches too low. Talk about all of the stupid **** inspectors do. This is when I learned that if the sub isn't from the county area, he is screwed.
  4. Final inspection - failed because I have a garage door with glass in it (inspectors have been walking in and out of my addition for 7 months now).

    If you are an inspector, sorry, you are useless ****s.

I get the price thing. I work by contract as well. But I would urge all homeowners to develop relationships with trades people. Send them cards and happy nothing gifts. You people get crapped on so often...
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I agree that government inspectors are trash.

I have a few customers that slip me $20-$100 extra after I give them the invoice. These people get service first and they get a return call within minutes any day of the week or holidays. Right or wrong or that’s how the cookie crumbles.
 
cgilley said:
Just to be clear, I appreciate your unfiltered opinions. :)

True story time. Plumbing is involved, bear with me.

  1. So in 2000, I need more room in the house. I added 2 bedrooms with jack and Jill bathrooms, extended the kitchen, added a school room (we homeschooled our children). I'm an electrical engineer, working his a$$ off to pay for this, I don't do construction. Since we're sort of on the topic of "inspections."

    The footers are dug, the rebar is in... time for inspection. And we wait, and wait... and it starts raining 4 days straight... inspector shows up on day 4, fails the inspection because of "water in the footings." What a waste of oxygen. The GM and I had a good laugh, what are you going to do?

  2. Rough framing is up, need an inspection - inspector hears dog barking, refuses to inspect, signs off without looking at anything. Hmmm.
  3. 4 months later, it's time for plumbing inspection. Fails because the new washer connection is 3 inches too low. Talk about all of the stupid **** inspectors do. This is when I learned that if the sub isn't from the county area, he is screwed.
  4. Final inspection - failed because I have a garage door with glass in it (inspectors have been walking in and out of my addition for 7 months now).

    If you are an inspector, sorry, you are useless ****s.

I get the price thing. I work by contract as well. But I would urge all homeowners to develop relationships with trades people. Send them cards and happy nothing gifts. You people get crapped on so often...
Click to expand...
Glass in your door ? Entry door or car door ? And why would either be against code ? I don't remember that in the code book (but then my code book is from 1984. (When I got my general contractors license , in Fort Mill, which is now a nightmare of developments)
 
My wife wanted our master bath remodeled in our previous house a number of years ago. I tried to stay out of it. She hired a contractor. The tile installer didn't install the linear drain in accordance with the manufacturer's instructions. The frame was supposed to be set in thinset. Installer tried to tell me just dropping it in the cutout it was an alternative installation method. The manufacturer said no. They were also not supposed to use quick setting thinset, but did anyway. Never had a problem with it, but get mad whenever I think about it.

The shower was supposed to have a certain depth seat. It is 3 or 4 inches to short, and useless for sitting on, all because the knee wall on the side was too short. Rather than reframe the knee wall, they reduced the size of the seat.

Apparently, the building inspector did not go in the crawl space to inspect the plumbing, as I later discovered the plumber failed to insulate the water lines in the unheated crawl space, as required by code. It's not like it would be that difficult to check, as the crawl space is about 4 feet tall.

Later, when I was having my tank cleaned, I discovered that the painter flushed paper towels down the toilet into my septic tank. Unfortunately, we were away from home when most of the work was being performed.
 
Ludington said:
Glass in your door ? Entry door or car door ? And why would either be against code ? I don't remember that in the code book (but then my code book is from 1984. (When I got my general contractors license , in Fort Mill, which is now a nightmare of developments)
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Entry door from the garage, and I have no idea why it was against code. :)
 
Ludington said:
So why can you have glass in your car garage door ? Makes no sense to my old head.
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A lot, maybe most, of the "glass" in garage doors is Polycarbonate plastic (AKA Lexan AKA Plexiglass, like a car headlight). If real glass is used it must be tempered and it will be heavy. In some places maybe laminated glass is allowed too?

Twowaxhack answered your question, but what about the corollary, why can a garage door be made of cheap thin and/or hollow material and the entry door from the garage cannot? Same reason: there is a fire standard, and the door has to hold off the flames for a defined amount of time. I don't recall what the actual test specifies, but a cheap hollow wood door will not pass the test.
 
some of the problem i see for water proofing the floor same as a shower pan .
1) you would need a curb at the door to keep in the water .
2) how do you make a perfect seal around pipes that come through the floor like toilet drains, bath drains , bidet drains ect
3) you would need to slope the floor to a floor drain so that there is no water sitting in the sand mix. in a shower this is easy but imaging a large bath room with two sinks shower, bath bidet and toilet.
 
I'm just thinking of two specific conditions:
pasadena_commut said:
A lot, maybe most, of the "glass" in garage doors is Polycarbonate plastic (AKA Lexan AKA Plexiglass, like a car headlight). If real glass is used it must be tempered and it will be heavy. In some places maybe laminated glass is allowed too?

Twowaxhack answered your question, but what about the corollary, why can a garage door be made of cheap thin and/or hollow material and the entry door from the garage cannot? Same reason: there is a fire standard, and the door has to hold off the flames for a defined amount of time. I don't recall what the actual test specifies, but a cheap hollow wood door will not pass the test.
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agreed. In my case it's glass - double pane in a steel door. My neighbor across the street had a wood door with single pane (house is as old as mine). My only issue was that the noticed it on the day of the final inspection. I still have the door.
 
arctic bill said:
some of the problem i see for water proofing the floor same as a shower pan .
1) you would need a curb at the door to keep in the water .
2) how do you make a perfect seal around pipes that come through the floor like toilet drains, bath drains , bidet drains ect
3) you would need to slope the floor to a floor drain so that there is no water sitting in the sand mix. in a shower this is easy but imaging a large bath room with two sinks shower, bath bidet and toilet.
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I get you need to control water. I'd start with just keeping it in the damn bathroom. Put a water alarm in there and Wala, reduced ceiling damage :) I can bring in a shop vac.
 
cgilley said:
I get you need to control water. I'd start with just keeping it in the damn bathroom. Put a water alarm in there and Wala, reduced ceiling damage :) I can bring in a shop vac.
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Water alarms are so easy to wire in, but as twoaxe said, homeowners are idiots. :)

Growing up in the 60s, ALL of our sinks had overflow holes. I did an addition in 2000, put in two bathrooms and I did not even think about overflow holes. Who the hell would make a sink without one? Wellllll, turns out Home depot will happily sell stuff like this. So, yahoo 4 yo daughter decided to play in the sink and forgot to turn off the water. Sigh...

15 years later, same bathroom, but shower cartridge started leaking behind the wall... Stain # 346.

Getting back to my original question - it amazes me how we don't consider "this is going to frigging leak" what will I do to minimize the damage?

Anyway, all is good.
 
Ludington said:
I dont think id ever want a slab, I like my basement so it's easy access to all plumbing and electrical.
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Let me tell you a story :) It ends with don't ever listen to your mother in law unless she has cash in hand.

So, back in 94, I moved from middle GA to northern GA. I could not afford a basement. My MIL <sarcasm>wisely</sarcasm> urged me for a crawlspace and wood windows - "they are warmer." I went from a single floor ranch on a slab with 6 children to a two story crawlspace house with drafty windows. It was like moving into a kettle drum. The windows are all replaced now, she knows I think she is an idiot, and we both don't get too close to each other.

As for your basement, and I know this is a Segway from my op, do you just have a single floor above you? Basically a ranch with a basement? I'm in a two story colonial where they put the upstairs HVAC in the attic. If I were in a house with a basement, I'd want as much equipment as possible in the the basement.
 
cgilley said:
Let me tell you a story :) It ends with don't ever listen to your mother in law unless she has cash in hand.

So, back in 94, I moved from middle GA to northern GA. I could not afford a basement. My MIL <sarcasm>wisely</sarcasm> urged me for a crawlspace and wood windows - "they are warmer." I went from a single floor ranch on a slab with 6 children to a two story crawlspace house with drafty windows. It was like moving into a kettle drum. The windows are all replaced now, she knows I think she is an idiot, and we both don't get too close to each other.

As for your basement, and I know this is a Segway from my op, do you just have a single floor above you? Basically a ranch with a basement? I'm in a two story colonial where they put the upstairs HVAC in the attic. If I were in a house with a basement, I'd want as much equipment as possible in the the basement.
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You made me smile, (that's hard to do)
Yes, 1 story ranch over drive in basement.. everything in basement. Even the wiring goes from point to point under the floor joists, no wiring through the walls. Not sure exactly why I did that, but it has come in handy. Only thing in attic is vent pipes and wires for the lights.
But, I wish the south was a bit more educated when I built. I wanted poured walls, no one and I mean no one had a clue how to put up forms and pour a wall, stuck with cement block walls. I hate those things.
 
beer - for the smile.

In 94 in Atlanta, they were pouring walls but it was new, special and out of my price range. Build a house that needs a basement? Basement is a feature $20k. Now we have "crews" (better learn spanish) that have figured it out. If you are Hispanic and read this, don't take it the wrong way - I love burritos, and if you want to have a fight, I'll bring cilantro. God's gift to most recipes.

When I moved up here I really liked a house with a HUGE back yard (bunch of kids - toss them outside). 1+ acres. But the basement slab was poured on a boulder. And he completely botched the basement. I-beams are useful. He was offended when I pointed out the boulder in the basement - the sucker actually smoothed the concrete around it.

You cannot fix stupid. Ron White, I love you.
 
cgilley said:
beer - for the smile.

In 94 in Atlanta, they were pouring walls but it was new, special and out of my price range. Build a house that needs a basement? Basement is a feature $20k. Now we have "crews" (better learn spanish) that have figured it out. If you are Hispanic and read this, don't take it the wrong way - I love burritos, and if you want to have a fight, I'll bring cilantro. God's gift to most recipes.

When I moved up here I really liked a house with a HUGE back yard (bunch of kids - toss them outside). 1+ acres. But the basement slab was poured on a boulder. And he completely botched the basement. I-beams are useful. He was offended when I pointed out the boulder in the basement - the sucker actually smoothed the concrete around it.

You cannot fix stupid. Ron White, I love you.
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I built in 84, no one knew anything, anything passes inspection..
In SC.
 
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