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America's Large Homebuilders Shift the Cost of Shoddy Construction to Buyers

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Re: America's Large Homebuilders Shift the Cost of Shoddy Construction to Buyers

#41

Post by AngryData »

codelikeawolf wrote: post #29

I feel like shoddy construction/craftsmanship isn't limited to new home construction. My wife and I just wrapped up a 6 month renovation of a >100 year old house. I used to work in industrial maintenance, so I knew how to do a lot of stuff already (electric, natural gas lines, drain lines, etc.) We had to farm out a couple of jobs to contractors we didn't have time to do ourselves. With the exception of one guy, they…

Its a race to the bottom in a lot of trade jobs and why a lot of people who are skilled and attention detailed left trades if they can't get into a union. It is hard to compete doing a good job when they guys who do a crappy job out number them and will bid on the same jobs making the same claims that they are skilled and good. But only after the money is spent do people find out whether the guy they hired can back those claims up. And even if they do more have money to fix it later with a different guy, the botch job made the fix even harder and they usually have less money to spend to fix it.

Re: America's Large Homebuilders Shift the Cost of Shoddy Construction to Buyers

#42

Post by ruicraveiro »

thr0w wrote: post #30
codelikeawolf wrote: post #29

I feel like shoddy construction/craftsmanship isn't limited to new home construction. My wife and I just wrapped up a 6 month renovation of a >100 year old house. I used to work in industrial maintenance, so I knew how to do a lot of stuff already (electric, natural gas lines, drain lines, etc.) We had to farm out a couple of jobs to contractors we didn't have time to do ourselves. With the exception of one guy, they…

> I feel like we as a profession generally don't like sloppiness Thanks for that, needed a deep guttural laugh.

He was referring to software engineers, not vibe coders.

Re: America's Large Homebuilders Shift the Cost of Shoddy Construction to Buyers

#43

Post by codelikeawolf »

AngryData wrote: post #41
codelikeawolf wrote: post #29

I feel like shoddy construction/craftsmanship isn't limited to new home construction. My wife and I just wrapped up a 6 month renovation of a >100 year old house. I used to work in industrial maintenance, so I knew how to do a lot of stuff already (electric, natural gas lines, drain lines, etc.) We had to farm out a couple of jobs to contractors we didn't have time to do ourselves. With the exception of one guy, they…

Its a race to the bottom in a lot of trade jobs and why a lot of people who are skilled and attention detailed left trades if they can't get into a union. It is hard to compete doing a good job when they guys who do a crappy job out number them and will bid on the same jobs making the same claims that they are skilled and good. But only after the money is spent do people find out whether the guy they hired can back t…

Yeah this is a totally fair point. I suppose it's indicative of a greater trend I've been noticing as the years have gone by: standards have lowered because the highest quality work has become prohibitively expensive. But the thing that bothers me with the trades is that it doesn't actually _cost_ that much more to do a better job. I don't really know what the solution is, because it seems like this is societal. When I was an industrial electrician, the quality of my work was unaffected by my hourly rate. I took pride in what I did, I wanted to be good at it, and I strived for quality because it made me feel good to do a good job. I still feel that way about what I do. I guess I'm a little bummed out that it's hard to find people like that, especially since I'm willing to compensate them appropriately.

Re: America's Large Homebuilders Shift the Cost of Shoddy Construction to Buyers

#44

Post by codelikeawolf »

phil21 wrote: post #35
codelikeawolf wrote: post #29

I feel like shoddy construction/craftsmanship isn't limited to new home construction. My wife and I just wrapped up a 6 month renovation of a >100 year old house. I used to work in industrial maintenance, so I knew how to do a lot of stuff already (electric, natural gas lines, drain lines, etc.) We had to farm out a couple of jobs to contractors we didn't have time to do ourselves. With the exception of one guy, they…

> I can't be the only one out there that's happy to pay a little extra if they know they're not getting garbage. Not the only one, but there is just not a large market for it. And it likely would not be a “little” extra either. I’ve tried to find local contractors who will just take pride in their work and get it done right (or overkill I suppose by my standards) the first time. Even old mainstays that are regularly…

> That said I just had my floors refinished and the contractors we lucked into finding for that 2 week job went above and beyond even my level of attention to detail.

It's funny you mention this, because I also have generally had good luck with flooring contractors.

> I’ve tried to find local contractors who will just take pride in their work and get it done right (or overkill I suppose by my standards) the first time. Even old mainstays that are regularly double the cost of everyone else have been slipping lately. Companies I used to single bid for jobs knowing I was overpaying but didn’t care since I didn’t have to come behind them to audit or fix anything. They have all devolved.

You nailed it. I think most of the higher bid folks these days are deliberately quoting an inflated price because they either don't want to do the job or are trying to charge commercial rates. I'm sure the commercial jobs are much more lucrative and you won't get people complaining about a crooked pipe. They generally don't care, as long as everything works

Re: America's Large Homebuilders Shift the Cost of Shoddy Construction to Buyers

#45

Post by codelikeawolf »

alexgaribay wrote: post #33
codelikeawolf wrote: post #29

I feel like shoddy construction/craftsmanship isn't limited to new home construction. My wife and I just wrapped up a 6 month renovation of a >100 year old house. I used to work in industrial maintenance, so I knew how to do a lot of stuff already (electric, natural gas lines, drain lines, etc.) We had to farm out a couple of jobs to contractors we didn't have time to do ourselves. With the exception of one guy, they…

I’ve renovated many parts of my house myself. I hired out 1 time to a contractor and regretted doing so. Similar to your sentiment, I feel contractors don’t have the same care as I do. I’ve come to the realization that no one else will put in the same care as I would nor care about the small details as I would. Also similar to you, I feel I could become a licensed electrician and start that as my fallback career.

If you ever decide to switch careers, please reach out! We're living in weird times and it's nice to know there's other folks out there exploring similar options.

Re: America's Large Homebuilders Shift the Cost of Shoddy Construction to Buyers

#46

Post by codelikeawolf »

thr0w wrote: post #30
codelikeawolf wrote: post #29

I feel like shoddy construction/craftsmanship isn't limited to new home construction. My wife and I just wrapped up a 6 month renovation of a >100 year old house. I used to work in industrial maintenance, so I knew how to do a lot of stuff already (electric, natural gas lines, drain lines, etc.) We had to farm out a couple of jobs to contractors we didn't have time to do ourselves. With the exception of one guy, they…

> I feel like we as a profession generally don't like sloppiness Thanks for that, needed a deep guttural laugh.

I was speaking from my own experience. I feel like we are generally required to _accept_ sloppiness given certain circumstances, but I have never worked with an engineer that actually _likes_ sloppiness. How cool would it be if you were given the freedom to do your highest quality work?

Re: America's Large Homebuilders Shift the Cost of Shoddy Construction to Buyers

#47

Post by raincom »

AngryData wrote: post #41
codelikeawolf wrote: post #29

I feel like shoddy construction/craftsmanship isn't limited to new home construction. My wife and I just wrapped up a 6 month renovation of a >100 year old house. I used to work in industrial maintenance, so I knew how to do a lot of stuff already (electric, natural gas lines, drain lines, etc.) We had to farm out a couple of jobs to contractors we didn't have time to do ourselves. With the exception of one guy, they…

Its a race to the bottom in a lot of trade jobs and why a lot of people who are skilled and attention detailed left trades if they can't get into a union. It is hard to compete doing a good job when they guys who do a crappy job out number them and will bid on the same jobs making the same claims that they are skilled and good. But only after the money is spent do people find out whether the guy they hired can back t…

It is like consulting/offshoring business: one competent person, with 10 underlings who can add 80 billable hours a day. That's what happened to trades too: one really competent with many underlings.

Re: America's Large Homebuilders Shift the Cost of Shoddy Construction to Buyers

#48

Post by margalabargala »

danaris wrote: post #38
margalabargala wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> unprecedented levels of open corruption where nobody seems to feel the slightest amount of guilt as long as they get away with it. Historically speaking, current levels of corruption in most of the world are either low, or completely precedented. In the US specifically, corruption may be higher the last decade than in the couple of decades precloud, but certainly is not as high as 120 years ago.

I'm sorry, at what point in the late 1800s was the President of the US actively enriching himself at the taxpayers' expense, openly taking bribes from foreign countries, and threatening the families of members of Congress who he felt were not sufficiently supportive of his agenda?

Grant was already mentioned, but Warren Harding most certainly deserves to be alongside Grant and Trump on any list of "most corrupt presidents".

The general amount of corruption in local politics was also greater pre-depression than now.

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