Travis Johnson
Member
- Messages
- 2,369
This sub-forum has been kind of dead lately so I thought I would ask this question...what is the craziest carpentry you have ever seen?
Mine had to be a guys house located near me. My ex-wife worked with this woman and she said her husband was having some carpentry problems. I say...I show up to find him putting sheathing on his house. The rafters are spaced 22-28 inches on center...ish. Nothing was plumb, straight or level.
He did not even have a septic system, instead doing business in an outhouse. After 4 years of this, I finally had enough. I told him, you save your money and buy a septic tank and I'll put in your leach field. It won't be right, but it will work. So he bought a tank and we used my tractor to dig a single pipe leach system. We added some crushed rock and covered it over and finally after years he was able to have running water in the house. That was because at the same time, we used my tractor to bury some well lines from an old hand dug well. Before he had them running over the ground...which worked pretty well 6 months out of the year when it was above 32º!!
Some other areas of crazy carpentry was a window he put in. He wanted a narrow, but tall window by his kitchen cabinets, but they were to high to fit between the top of the counters and his wall. Not to be dissuaded, he took out his sawsall and cut a chunk out of his top plate. Oh he redid the plate...by making a bridge up and over his window!! Yep this was in the corner of his house too, and on one of the walls his rafter tails were nailed on to. It was like a 40 foot wall with nothing holding it together.
To add even more scariness to the project, he decided to use a cathedral ceiling. Since he never cut his studs down, he has a 4 inch seem all the way around his room. Well since the walls are bowing out so bad from the pressure of the roof settling down, the walls are being pushed out. This cracked that seem. He has puttied it twice, but it opens right back up because the walls are spreading apart.
Some other areas of concern are in the bathroom. When he cut in for his staircase, he just cut one of his second story floor trusses. He never added a header, just used screws through the subfloor to keep the sub end of the floor truss from falling down. Well one day he wanted to put in his old clawfoot cast iron tub. Sure enough this landed right over the stairwell.As we set it down,the entire floor settled by an inch or two with this big "ummphhh" sound.And that was before any water was added to the tub.
There is more to this crazy build, but I must head to work. This story is as scary as it is unending. I can honestly say its the only house I know of that will collapse at some point. There are just way to many structural deficiencies not to.
Mine had to be a guys house located near me. My ex-wife worked with this woman and she said her husband was having some carpentry problems. I say...I show up to find him putting sheathing on his house. The rafters are spaced 22-28 inches on center...ish. Nothing was plumb, straight or level.
He did not even have a septic system, instead doing business in an outhouse. After 4 years of this, I finally had enough. I told him, you save your money and buy a septic tank and I'll put in your leach field. It won't be right, but it will work. So he bought a tank and we used my tractor to dig a single pipe leach system. We added some crushed rock and covered it over and finally after years he was able to have running water in the house. That was because at the same time, we used my tractor to bury some well lines from an old hand dug well. Before he had them running over the ground...which worked pretty well 6 months out of the year when it was above 32º!!
Some other areas of crazy carpentry was a window he put in. He wanted a narrow, but tall window by his kitchen cabinets, but they were to high to fit between the top of the counters and his wall. Not to be dissuaded, he took out his sawsall and cut a chunk out of his top plate. Oh he redid the plate...by making a bridge up and over his window!! Yep this was in the corner of his house too, and on one of the walls his rafter tails were nailed on to. It was like a 40 foot wall with nothing holding it together.
To add even more scariness to the project, he decided to use a cathedral ceiling. Since he never cut his studs down, he has a 4 inch seem all the way around his room. Well since the walls are bowing out so bad from the pressure of the roof settling down, the walls are being pushed out. This cracked that seem. He has puttied it twice, but it opens right back up because the walls are spreading apart.
Some other areas of concern are in the bathroom. When he cut in for his staircase, he just cut one of his second story floor trusses. He never added a header, just used screws through the subfloor to keep the sub end of the floor truss from falling down. Well one day he wanted to put in his old clawfoot cast iron tub. Sure enough this landed right over the stairwell.As we set it down,the entire floor settled by an inch or two with this big "ummphhh" sound.And that was before any water was added to the tub.
There is more to this crazy build, but I must head to work. This story is as scary as it is unending. I can honestly say its the only house I know of that will collapse at some point. There are just way to many structural deficiencies not to.
Last edited: