My father died in June. I received a call from his best friend with the news, followed by, your dad’s house was just set today, the final inspection is tomorrow, you will need to be there.
That didn’t suck enough.
My dad’s friend (best friend) owned a construction company and his son works for a rival modular home company from the one my dad contracted. They both loved my dad very much and came prepared to punch holes in the contruction. They pointed out that the shingles where put on wrong, the drywall was wavy, and that the roof flip brackets where nailed though using a gun, instead of using the manufacturer’s preset holes and recommended nails, and the baseboard heater’s where not centered and undersized for the space. I noticed that hurricane ties where not nailed on both sides and that the cabinets in the kitchen where crooked, and a dented front door.
The builder has since stated that the roof is to expensive to fix, the flips are fine, and addressed the other issues.
Since then, with some help from his friend, I have started work on completing the house. His friend is handling the estate for me, and has been helping. Lately his job has changed, and he can’t be there that often. The house is a two hour drive for me, and actually I have’nt been able to actually meet up with him to help with the work for a couple of months. It’s just been me trying to get this stuff done. Besides he does spend alot of time working with the lawyer and the estate bills and stuff. I am in no way complaining about what he has done, just pointing out that the burden of finishing has shifted more my way than I orginally expected.
Since working on the house I have discovered that the wiring is a mess, 1/3 of the baseboard heat trips the breaker, they used 12-2 instead of 12-3 on 220 circuits, all the three switches I tested today return crazy mid range voltages indicating to me that there is voltage leaking between MANY of the lines, the smoke alarms haven’t stop beeping and I sense that this connected with the problem with voltages I discovered today, their are numerous plumbing blunders I am discovering while running the pipes to the fixtures and have paid to fix these from my own pocket, the garage is not set to match the sill, so that doors don’t line up and require a redo of all the door ways, they used single hung windows, and I everything I read in the paperwork for the house references double hung windows, they put holes in the garage for windows but say they are not supposed to supply those, and the house was suspisiously, partly sided.
Me and the executor, although we are on the same page, I believe need more help. I can not fathom trusting this place with the wiring problems alone I discovered today. We had taken this to the state attorney general a month ago about the roof, and the builder told them that it was to expensive to fix, and they would warrant it. Problem with that is, with this kinda of product I don’t expect them to be in business long. We where planning on taking them to a magistrate about the roof, but now I’m not sure what to do in light of the added problems.
My question really is, should I pay for an extremely thorough inspection of this building and try and get it condemned? Can i get it condemned and what would be the repricussions of such an action? I feal with the wiring issues I discovered today that this place is truely a fire trap. Luckily I have had enough sense not to leave any power on when I am not there since I started this project.
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