Goofs, accidents, and omissions (Part 1)

I'm so sure that I'll make more mistakes that I'm just calling this part 1. I thought it might be useful to post a round-up of the things I wished I'd thought of and mistakes that could have been avoided if I were paying very close attention. Things that cost me money or time. And maybe a few things that didn't cost but are just a little quirky.

I have a few categories, and I'll also tag this to particular projects so you can go right to the mistakes most relevant to your interests.

In tech we have something called a retrospective. Atlassian makes a good guide for it, and there are a few key rules for how to approach a retro. I like to use these when trying to solve any problem.

• Don’t make it personal, don’t take it personally
• Listen with an open mind
• Everyone’s experience is valid
• Set the time period you’re discussing (last sprint, last quarter, entire project, etc.)
• Focus on improvement, rather than placing blame

So with and open mind and a focus on improvement, let the goofs begin! (or in Retro terminology, "What we could do better.")

Errors of ignorance

Look, if you know me in person, you might think I think I know everything. But I know I don't. Or I'm at least 85% sure I don't know everything. I'd say 15% of any of the things we think are facts at a given time are false. That's a bullshit number right there, but you know what I mean.

This is why if you're building a place, your new hobby is Learning About Building X Type of Home, and you should bring up your project to every person you meet and listen to every old codger's horror stories and synthesize that information into your knowledge set. So gather round, children, and listen to this old codger talk about...

Solar

Hey, there's a whole article coming on Solar, but I wanted to get this one out there in case you are considering it. TALK TO THE SOLAR PEOPLE DURING HOUSE DESIGN.

Here's my error of ignorance for solar power. Wiring from the utility room to the electrical box needs to be put in place, and the type depends on the type of installation you're getting. 

You may even want to extra conduit from the house to the meter on the street if you're planning to sell back to the grid, and it may affect how you set up the power. Talk to the electrician at your solar panel installer and find out exactly what needs to be added to your plans. Even if solar is in your future and you're not doing it right now, get that info and build the wiring into your house.

Goofs of inattention

Sometimes one or the other of us didn't pay attention to a measurement or requirement and things went awry. Here's a few.

Stairs

Building code has a whole section specific to stairs. Min and max height for the hand rail, each tread and riser, and the guardrail (or wall if you have a half-wall running beside them) are all specified.

Here's a good stair code primer with pictures, but you'll want to look for local guidance to make sure. There will be a state building code, but in some states the town can add amendments to the state code. 

Our goof: after the stair wall was built, the landing was extended by a few inches to create more room for the washer and dryer behind that, which resulted in the stairs moving out past the wall and no longer hitting the minimum 36" clearance for the guardrail.

How it could be prevented: Could have been avoided in a couple different ways. Either (1) not moving the landing and dealing with the shallower laundry area by having smaller appliances, or (2) redrawing the plans when the decision was made, so it would become clear that the guardwall was affected.

The best practice takeaway I have from this is that any change should be added to the plans so it flags up via the planning software if the change creates a code issue.

Shower height

The rain shower is about 76" height from the base. One of the humans who will be living in the house stands about 77". If I had been more of a fiend for measuring things and asking questions about heights, it could have been caught earlier. For now, Tall Human will have to use the hand shower, and we may end up uninstalling the rain shower if it gets too annoying. We'll let it be for now and see how it is.

Recessed medicine cabinets rough opening

What's a 1/4 inch between friends? Well I'll tell you, friend, it's the sad and mournful look on your carpenter's face when you tell him he needs to saw out 1/4" of wood from the framed in recessed medicine cabinets because nobody measured to make sure they were done precisely to the measurements of the medicine cabinet rough opening you sent. 

How can this stuff be avoided in the future?

Just get a measuring tape and go around measuring everything you can think of. Make it a fun project - measure walls and recesses and heights and then write them on the plans you have and then go check whether they match the things you expect to go into those spots.

If you have kids you could get them to do the measuring, and then rank your kids from favorite to least favorite based on how accurate their measurements are. If one of them complains, just tell them they don't measure up. Har-har.

Communication Gaps

Communication gaps were caused by different expectations, or trying to do this all remotely. I think there are only a few ways this could have been improved, but more frequent visits during key times and more formal or regular contact points (a weekly check-in call, maybe) may have helped.

Conduits

One conduit was omitted by accident when the conduits were run for power and cable. There was supposed to be a phone line conduit (probably would actually have been used for fiberoptic cable later) but it was forgotten, and I wasn't on-site during the dirt work to count them and so it wasn't discovered until after the backfill was done.

Trees

Look, I'm not going to talk about the trees or how I became a sexy Tim Curry villain in Fern Gully because I already feel bad enough, but if you're having trees removed, you should hang around while they do it and make sure you're happy with what's being removed.

This is all I have to share right now, but I'll post more as I think of and discover them. I hope they save you (or maybe future-me!) some trouble.