Integer Homes

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Construction screwups. Learning from somebody else

Construction screwups happen to everyone and normally the cause is someone not taking five minutes to read the instructions. This can lead to some awful problems with no apparent solutions. 

Once evident, the screwup then leads to the blame game where everyone points at someone else and the builder points at whomever is closest.   

The trades and suppliers are experienced at these affairs and like to redirect the responsibility upwards toward the builder.  They do this by having the builder sign off on shop drawings.  This means that the builder has to take responsibility (in theory) for endorsing mistakes in the drawing that the supplier produced.   

Once the mistake is encountered the supplier can avoid responsibility for their own negligent design work by saying the builder agreed to it (as if anyone would knowingly agree to purchase a product with a design flaw).  The problem this 'sign away responsibility condition in the contract' is the builder hired the designer for the accuracy of the drawing and for their ability to follow instructions.     

In this instance the fancy oversized and built in fridge requires a trim kit to fit properly in the kitchen.  Because the builder and designer were negligent in following the instructions (i.e did not read them) the cabinets were made wrong and fixing them is now almost impossible (unless cabinets can stretch).  I was called in as the known instructions reading paranoid person and the mistakes were quickly identified.  Solutions are all invasive and will take serious time and effort (money) to implement.  I'm not sure what will be done to deal with the situation.     

 

the double fridge doesn’t fit within the cabinetry properly, what do do?  I’ve learned a lot about what to do and not to do that will make my life a lot easier in the future as I have a project coming up and intend to specify this fridge.