Hey guys I am new here but I wanted to ask and get an opinion on this as we arenāt very handy ourselves.
My fiancĆ©e and I are finishing a lofted apartment area above a garage. We hired a family friendās husband as our contractor and so far we havenāt made it far into the process.
He has torn down the old deck and put up a new extended one, which looks okay from what I can tell. However there are a few points on the stairs, especially the bottom step, that have splits in the wood. I am concerned that this may lead to loose boards or repairs needed later on.
Based on my one wood shop class in high school, I didnāt think this looked good, but like I said I am not very handy so I want a second opinion. Is this something I should have them fix or is this to be expected?
Update:
They are working to replace the busted stringers. I still donāt know who did that work exactly, but it sounds like it was a worker without our contractors supervision. Still not sure why they put the screws in the way they did, but hopefully itāll be done right the second time. It also sounds like they will be anchoring the stringers to the ground when this it is done, which some people were also commented about.
To clarify, when I said apartment, I mostly meant in the size/layout. This will still be my personal residence so I will not be renting this to someone else, nor would I consider it based on the workmanship before I brought this issue up.
Thanks to everybody who responded and I might update this again if depending on how the fix turns out.
What did he say?
If he didnāt notice that when he built it, he was fucked up. Either drunk or some sort of drugs.
If he noticed and didnāt give a shit, thatās just as bad.
But like, thereās no way that acceptable. Itās not safe now and will quickly get worse.
Are you getting permits and inspections? Is he licensed?
Like, Iāve done stuff without permits, I get it. But a lot of my extended family was in construction of some form and we knew what we were doing. These pics are exactly why permits are a thing. An inspector would/will make you tear it down anyways.
Mistakes happen, but just from the angle heās trying to screw in, he has no idea what heās doing.
Depending on how much work removing the old one was, maybe pay him something? But under no conditions let him build anything. Youāre lucky this was obvious.
Quick exit:
Thereās a lot more wrong just in the pic than the screwā¦
But thatās what I mean, you canāt trust anything heās done, it all needs to come out and start over.
I just took a look today and already messaged him about it but he hasnāt responded yet. He is licensed, hasnāt mentioned anything about permits, but my fiancĆ©eās dad is the county building inspector which we have mentioned several times directly to him so he should know what to expect in that regard.
The angle of the screws was one of the things that threw me off the most, didnāt make sense why they were put in that way.
We already paid 60% under the contract requirements for ordering materials/beginning work. I feel like we might need to look at some other options based on what we have seen so far though.
Thanks for taking a look!
So are the two pictures from two attempts?
Why are the runners different?
The last two pictures are from the first and third stringers, both have splitting. Sorry not sure what you mean by runners, I am a total amateur, just learning that all these parts have names lol.
Yup, one more in concurrence. Someone whoās used an electric screwdriver and watched ~10min of YouTube videos would be able to avoid many mistakes showing here.
It honestly might be AI?
Like the top pic and the bottom pic donāt add up. Either the pictures are of two different attempts or neither are actually realā¦
I have no idea why OP would bother faking it tho.
But the top pic only has the sideways screw on the left, the bottom pic has it on the middle. Unless OP did it himself and the top pic is before they put in the middle screw?
Itās just all around weird
Quick edit:
The wood grain on the middle edge flipsā¦
If itās not AI then itās two attempts complete with different runners.
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Then why does the bottom picture have one to the right of it?
And why do you delete every comment you make?
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Picture two has stringers 1 and 2 and picture 3 is the third stringer. The grain lines up correct per picture 1.
Hey, its not AI, I am just a total amateur and I only grabbed a few pictures. The first and third stringers from the left have splitting occurring, although both have a screw going in diagonally that seems to have caused the splitting.
While I am here, Iāll go ahead and say fuck AI, and thanks for being skeptical :)
Yeah, I wondered that briefly as well. One reason I didnāt bother to elaborate on the problems, if it is an AI image Iām not going to help train it.