So, You're Saying My House Sucks, Or, Inspectors Say the Darndest Things

As I mentioned, I got in late this morning because I had to await the visit of the Special Possumblog Guest who was coming over to check out my leaky chimney.

Several weeks ago, we noticed a brown spot on the wall below our great big 1854 engraving of New York that hangs above the mantel. I didn't think too much about it until it seemed to be getting worse, so Reba and I managed to get the huge heavy picture down without killing ourselves and there was the sickening sight of a long horizontal crack right at the bottom of where the picture frame was--stained, paint and drywall compound peeling off. Bad news. For all the evil inherent in my former boss, the one thing he was right about is that water is the number one enemy of buildings.

It was pretty evident that I had a leak up in the chimney cap or somewhere in the siding that was channeling water all the way to the interior. From the way it was cracking, it looked like there was no flashing in the wall over where the fireplace insert penetrated the interior wall, allowing water to sit there and seep through. Of course, that's only my professional opinion as a registered architect. Little did I know...

So I called a while back to the warranty department of the developer and never heard anything, then called again yesterday and got another fellow who was very nice and said he could come out this morning before I had to take the kids to school. Wow. It was hard to believe, especially after the first call was so firmly ignored. In any event, we settled on a time and I told the kids to be sure and get up and get dressed so as not to be running around naked when he got there. And last night I decided to make sure I was up on my Code of Alabama Title Six, Chapter Five, Article 13A. Never can be too careful with some folks--not that any homebuilder would ever do anything underhanded or try to get out of fixing stuff they did wrong.

Anyway, I got the kids up early so they would be dressed and quietly eating breakfast when our guest arrived, rather than undressed and yelling at each other, and made a final pass back through the den to hide Barbie dolls, sneakers, unmatched socks, and assorted junk. Doorbell rings and I am in the very middle of pouring a cup of milk so Catherine decides to take off and go unlock the door. "Hey, sto...come back in here...hold this cup...COME 'ERE YOU LITTLE RAT!"

"HAYLOWWWWWWW!" I get there as she is letting the compete stranger in the house and send her back to her bowl of grits as I shake the guy's hand and show him the wall and mantel. "Hmm."

Yeah, that's my reaction, dude.

"Let me go take a look outside." And, of course, here comes Catherine again. "I wants to go outside with you, Daddy!" "No, Daddy's doing business right now--go eat your grits." "But I WANT to!" "Go in yonder and EAT--we've got to leave in a minute after I get through and if you don't go back in there your kitty will eat your grits and anyway it's raining and you can't go out in the rain so go EAT RIGHT NOW--and you two get back in there right now, too and eat just like I told your sister!" ::sigh:: If I was trying to get them go outside, they would flat refuse.

Anyway, we squish out to the side of the house--"Hmm. Ahhh. I see those corner boards have a crack in them. That probably needs to be caulked. You're probably getting some wind-driven rain."

Well, the corner boards weren't cracked--it was just the joint between them. Yeah, it needed to be recaulked, but the corner boards are really more for decoration than anything else. That water is coming in somewhere else. And it's more than some occasional blown-in rainwater.

"Well, that sure does seem like an awful big crack and stain for just some wind-driven rain. I mean, it would have to penetrate the siding AND the sheathing and then go through the wall." Which is that silly professional side of me sneaking out.

"Oh no, you see, we build these houses real tight, and when they get a little hole or somethin', it just goes right in, 'cause they're so airtight, it's like the water is just sucked right in."

He said this without the slightest trace of irony. I stood there for a moment, stunned in every possible sense of the word. It was then I knew this is going to be a very long period of wrestling with a contractor. ::sigh:: Rather than try to detail just exactly how incredibly moronic he was, I just asked, "Well, how are you going to fix it?" "Ahhhh, well, I'll get the painters out here and caulk it up, or I might even get the ladder and do it myself. It shouldn't take long." "Mm-hm. And what about the damage on the wall on the inside."

This one got a pause. I'm not sure what he was thinking, but finally the wheels and knobs stopped and the bell rang, "Well, let's be sure we have that leak stopped before we fix that wall." Uh-huh.

In any event, it will be interesting to see how the company handles this. Right now, they don't know that I know a bit more than the average customer, or that I particularly enjoy the fine competitive thrill of urinary output tournaments. My initial suspicion is they will slap some pookie on there and say it's fixed, then never get back to fix the wall.

Poor contractor.
posted by Terry at 11:52:00 AM