Last week at this time I was busy buying the paint. The remodel recipe included the best paint (Behr Premium Plus in Satin and Full Gloss for the trim) and best flooring (Armstrong Best Series Luxe Plank with Quiet Comfort Premium underlayment) I know about, which I personally obtained before the project began, and both look great in application. At night, even with the hallway light turned off, the hall can have an delightful glow from lights reflected from the master bedroom or computer room. There is a shine from the flooring also. The rounded corners give a stately effect like being on the QE2. I like to think of my home as sailing through time.
Some of the workmanship, however, was a bit below par. The worst was the installation of the saddle thresholds on 3 of the doorways, the computer room, the laundry room, and, worst of all, the hallway bedroom. By good luck, one threshold is OK, and that's the one that bridges to the Queen's Room which uses the exact same kind of flooring and shouldn't need to be changed for a lifetime now. On that one threshold the screws are close enough to the edges, and the strip unbent, to be solid throughout and not likely to get kicked up by accident. The others could easily be kicked out of shape.
The lousy threshold are loose at their ends, and somewhat bent around the middle screws. At the ends, you could catch your shoe or cut a toe if barefoot. This was particularly true of the threshold for the hallway bathroom, so I filed down the sharp pointed ends and covered everything dangerous with white Tyvek tape. That whole threshold needs to be replaced, IMO. A half-hearted attempt was made to hold the metal strip firmly at the doorknob side with an oversized phillips screw. Even that didn't work, the screw has no grip whatever, and the oversized screw head sticks up from the metal where it could scar a passing bare toe.
Only the bathroom threshold has that extra attempted big ugly screw. On the other thresholds, Darren didn't bother, he just left the ends somewhat loose. Loose enough that they should be done over, IMO, but not urgently. Possible the two others (laundry and computer rooms) could simply be held down with extra screws (if, unlike the bathroom doorway, the floor doesn't need to be patched first).
Quite possibly what happened is that Darren learned that screws near the door jambs are likely to fail because the concrete has already seen too many screws. So after his first attempt with an oversized screw failed, he just didn't bother any more. What really needed to have been done would have been to patch the floor with hydraulic cement, and let the patch cure (24 hours) before installing the thresholds. But on the last day, Darren was eager to get the project done and get final payment. So you can see the motivation to skip the last detail, and get the job done without doing it correctly.
This is not the approach of anyone committed to quality. Darren probably knew he wasn't doing this right. The oversized screw just shows it. Rob did some similar things, and I would say neither has shown the commitment to quality I have seen before (in San Diego, I had a truly wonderful builder named Mark, who always did everything the best way, may he rest in peace) and hope to find again.
Darren did a superficially nice job of cleaning up, better than some others. But inside the apparently cleaned garage, on the garage floor, I found one small nail and one drill bit, which could have punctured tires if I had rolled in the car without checking. I also found one nail in the entry hallway that I stepped on in bare feet several times before getting really annoyed.
The most annoying thing was the nails in the recycling bin. After the second day of construction, I found that Darren had left broken concrete (from the master bedroom doorway) stuffed in the recycling bin. I pointed that out and he emptied it out by hand to my declared satisfaction. (I wasn't actually satisfied.) But the next night, I found he had dumped more than a dozen nails in there. He also dumped nails and other construction debris in the trash can.
On Sunday, I methodically cleaned out both cans. All the visible nails near the top were removed first. Then every piece of recyclable material was removed from the recyclable bin and checked. Finally the recyclable bin was dumped out into a small trash can with a liner. At the end, the can was turned entirely upside down to be sure everything was removed. This was done in the far back corner of my lot near the power transformer, and far way from the driveway. Only then were the recyclable items put back into the recyclable bin. I didn't actually dump out the trash can, but tested it for the sound of nails by shaking (no sound) and packed the one big plastic bag strategically so that nails would fall into the leaves before falling into the garbage truck, rather than bouncing off plastic.
After the garbage was taken on Monday, I checked the street and the driveway and the sidewalk for nails. I saw no nails but picked up a few small stems. Two houses up street, I straightened out the trash and recycling bins of a neighbor who recently vacated leaving a house for sale. Bags of trash were left in the street. I packed all the trash I could into the trash can there, and neatly lined up both cans by the neighbor's house. Unfortunately the recycling bin was also stuffed with stuff including styrofoam which is not recyclable here. I will take care of that later. I took one extra paper box to my own recycling bin in order to get everything to fit. In front of the neighbor's house, I also looked for stray nails, and I found one long carriage bolt.
Whenever nails are put into the trash, they should be enclosed in another bag in such a way as to make it impossible that they would puncture that bag. I often put nails inside juice containers and seal them up, then put those containers in plastic trash bags. In no account should loose nails ever be put into outside cans without such containment or left on driveable surfaces.
Some of the workmanship, however, was a bit below par. The worst was the installation of the saddle thresholds on 3 of the doorways, the computer room, the laundry room, and, worst of all, the hallway bedroom. By good luck, one threshold is OK, and that's the one that bridges to the Queen's Room which uses the exact same kind of flooring and shouldn't need to be changed for a lifetime now. On that one threshold the screws are close enough to the edges, and the strip unbent, to be solid throughout and not likely to get kicked up by accident. The others could easily be kicked out of shape.
The lousy threshold are loose at their ends, and somewhat bent around the middle screws. At the ends, you could catch your shoe or cut a toe if barefoot. This was particularly true of the threshold for the hallway bathroom, so I filed down the sharp pointed ends and covered everything dangerous with white Tyvek tape. That whole threshold needs to be replaced, IMO. A half-hearted attempt was made to hold the metal strip firmly at the doorknob side with an oversized phillips screw. Even that didn't work, the screw has no grip whatever, and the oversized screw head sticks up from the metal where it could scar a passing bare toe.
Only the bathroom threshold has that extra attempted big ugly screw. On the other thresholds, Darren didn't bother, he just left the ends somewhat loose. Loose enough that they should be done over, IMO, but not urgently. Possible the two others (laundry and computer rooms) could simply be held down with extra screws (if, unlike the bathroom doorway, the floor doesn't need to be patched first).
Quite possibly what happened is that Darren learned that screws near the door jambs are likely to fail because the concrete has already seen too many screws. So after his first attempt with an oversized screw failed, he just didn't bother any more. What really needed to have been done would have been to patch the floor with hydraulic cement, and let the patch cure (24 hours) before installing the thresholds. But on the last day, Darren was eager to get the project done and get final payment. So you can see the motivation to skip the last detail, and get the job done without doing it correctly.
This is not the approach of anyone committed to quality. Darren probably knew he wasn't doing this right. The oversized screw just shows it. Rob did some similar things, and I would say neither has shown the commitment to quality I have seen before (in San Diego, I had a truly wonderful builder named Mark, who always did everything the best way, may he rest in peace) and hope to find again.
Darren did a superficially nice job of cleaning up, better than some others. But inside the apparently cleaned garage, on the garage floor, I found one small nail and one drill bit, which could have punctured tires if I had rolled in the car without checking. I also found one nail in the entry hallway that I stepped on in bare feet several times before getting really annoyed.
The most annoying thing was the nails in the recycling bin. After the second day of construction, I found that Darren had left broken concrete (from the master bedroom doorway) stuffed in the recycling bin. I pointed that out and he emptied it out by hand to my declared satisfaction. (I wasn't actually satisfied.) But the next night, I found he had dumped more than a dozen nails in there. He also dumped nails and other construction debris in the trash can.
On Sunday, I methodically cleaned out both cans. All the visible nails near the top were removed first. Then every piece of recyclable material was removed from the recyclable bin and checked. Finally the recyclable bin was dumped out into a small trash can with a liner. At the end, the can was turned entirely upside down to be sure everything was removed. This was done in the far back corner of my lot near the power transformer, and far way from the driveway. Only then were the recyclable items put back into the recyclable bin. I didn't actually dump out the trash can, but tested it for the sound of nails by shaking (no sound) and packed the one big plastic bag strategically so that nails would fall into the leaves before falling into the garbage truck, rather than bouncing off plastic.
After the garbage was taken on Monday, I checked the street and the driveway and the sidewalk for nails. I saw no nails but picked up a few small stems. Two houses up street, I straightened out the trash and recycling bins of a neighbor who recently vacated leaving a house for sale. Bags of trash were left in the street. I packed all the trash I could into the trash can there, and neatly lined up both cans by the neighbor's house. Unfortunately the recycling bin was also stuffed with stuff including styrofoam which is not recyclable here. I will take care of that later. I took one extra paper box to my own recycling bin in order to get everything to fit. In front of the neighbor's house, I also looked for stray nails, and I found one long carriage bolt.
Whenever nails are put into the trash, they should be enclosed in another bag in such a way as to make it impossible that they would puncture that bag. I often put nails inside juice containers and seal them up, then put those containers in plastic trash bags. In no account should loose nails ever be put into outside cans without such containment or left on driveable surfaces.
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