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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   3019 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for November 10, 2023

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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I want to bitch about the blue collar middle class here for a second: Contractors are all liars and thieves, or thieves and liars.

Was doing some maintenance on one of our properties, in this case a leaking water line near a wall from god knows when; but was on the plans and part of the original construction. Fuckers ran that shit 100 feet through a slab and instead of spending an extra 50 bucks on fittings and labor to put a t to a hose bib for hose bib and draining purposes; they did four pipe bends to bring the whole fucking thing into the air, ran it into the wall, then back into the fucking slab. Turned a 30 min. solder job into a 8 hour hell march (admittedly because I didn't restock on slip to street couplings and wide radius 90s. Oh well) because I can't just tell the resident "lol i cut the water pipe no water till the grainger truck arives lol".

This a couple days after I went to replace a failing range hood to find it was venting through dryer vent (NOT TO CODE BIG FIRE HAZARD HOURS) and the dryer vent was venting into a cavity in the ceiling, and was actually not even connected to the range hood that had never had the plug removed so it wasn't venting at all.

I go to fix this, and find that the complete shitbags that did previous owners kitchen remodel installed a 3 layers of drywall and a 2*4 below the galvanized vent pipe that goes to the roof. These motherfuckers turned a 30 min. job into me having to cut a 2 foot access hole into the fucking kitchen ceiling because they also ran a ton of vents to a gas heater 100% blocking the crawl space; all in service of scamming their customer out of thousand(s) of dollar(s) and maybe burning their house down.

All this to say: Never trust a contractor. Never trust a tradesman older than 36 but younger than 68. I've never worked with one in that range that didn't try to cut corners or steal from their customers on the quote end.

How do you find trustworthy contractors?

You can't. They don't exist. They are like unicorns. You can do 100 jobs with a contractor, and that won't stop them from fucking you on the 101st. Ask me how I know!

For real though: don't trust reviews, and try to either get a personal friend who is a contractor to do it or have the personal friend contractor find you one that he knows to not be a total shit.

For Real For Real: Become your own contractor. Hire tradespeople directly, let them know before they quote you will get the materials they recommend yourself and keep any spares, only pay the full amount on completion, and stand over their shoulders the whole fucking time they are working.

For the REALEST: do what I did and become and omnitradsman, capable of doing everything except sparky shit on your own to a semi-expert level and then suffer eternaly.

get a personal friend who is a contractor to do it

A contractor who is a personal friend or a relative is the worst option, IMO. You won't be able to call them out if they do something wrong because you don't want to sour your relationship.

Yeah, there's a lot of space for horror stories here: the contractor-friend doesn't even have to be intentionally screwing you over. Just getting pushed out of their comfort zone or area of expertise to help can lead even good contractors into deep fuckery.

try to either get a personal friend who is a contractor to do it or have the personal friend contractor find you one that he knows to not be a total shit.

This depends on your friend circle. I doubt many people have direct ties to contractors, especially those living in cities.

The more realistic answer is doing your own due diligence using word-of-mouth recommendations from neighbors, non-contractor friends, and other acquaintances.

The 'For Real For Real' no longer works so well, at least in my area. Any "good" contractor has enough other work to do that they won't play by custom terms of scrupulous project managers.

Re: "For the REALEST", I was on my way to this before having a few kids. The time evaporated to the point that it's no longer practical. Unless you're willing to make that your job, your spouse is willing to not see you in the evenings, or your spouse is willing to live in an endless construction zone, it's just not an option imho.

I've simply excepted the dao of construction. I can turn my head a look at a stack of 2*4's right now.

become and omnitradsman

What resources did you use to acquire your current understanding and expertise? I hang on 4chan /diy/ sometimes and I suppose I’d just keep searching YouTube if needed.

I worked in the field for quite a while, but even before that I was simply extremely poor. The choice was learn how to plumb or have no water, because the landlord wasn't gonna do shit.

This applies to you too! Use your common sense here, but most things aren't that bad if you fuck them up. (excepting gas, electric, and non ground floor plumbing, those can be bad. be careful). Worse comes to worst, you have to do the call of shame and have someone clean up your mistake.

There is such a thing as best practices, you can usually get good specific advice on youtube and reddit, and be mindful of common safety failures. Eg, read the warning labels on everything, climbing on roofs is taking your life into your own hands, never trust an angle grinder (or any tool that spins faster than you can pedal a bike), etc.

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