Nightmare Pics

arichard21

Okay, here are some pics of my house from when (if i dare call him) a contractor did work under a HUD grant...

scary stuff.

Click on each pic to elnarge...

Service and Panel




He obviously didn't like using seperate romex connectors


Good thing this wasn't live...

arichard21

old 60AMP service "just hanging out"


open box in closet (used to be location of light)


another closet


for the smoke detector on the other side of the wall

arichard21

buried jbox in wall


2 more in here, and they didnt even hve covers or romex connectors

arichard21

and some other misc stuff...


nice window install


that is my finger BEHIND the moulding


and this we discovered when we gutted our bedroom...

and this...

badgerbrian1974

quality work -you have his number?

chris75

I dont know the whole story, but alot of that work looks pretty good compared to what he had to work with, IMO, you cant make a cupcake out of cat ****, so let me walk you thru with what I saw from your pics,

Most RX connectors allow more that one cable,
Its not required to remove old unused cables,

The buried boxes is a no-no, and looks like missing supports for some of the cables... Other than that looks like any other old house.

Stubbie

About the only thing I will agree on is the two cables in one clamp for those 14 and 20 amp cables. This would never have passed an inspection, I'm not even sure he would have went by that panel before wanting to speak with the contractor. Though I will agree this is typical older home work if done by homeowner or landlord. But inspected work no way......

Chris

Would that service entrance be compliant? Looks like it is unsupported and sch.40.

Alpha Kennybody

Looks like a top shelf job to me

mdshunk

A HUD grant? Well, you got what you paid for. You're getting welfare to fix your home, and you cry about it? I might suggest you work a bit harder and hire your own tradesmen with your own money. Maybe you should have taken some of the money you spent on the digital camera that took these pics and the computer you used to post them and put it toward fixing you own home?

chris75

Not picking a fight, and definitely not my kind of work, but, other than some missing supports and some blank plates, and I already stated the buried stuff a no-no, I really dont see what else you could fail it on...


Here is a picture of the last service I did...

Stubbie

Chris

Hey, that is some sweet work. Very nice locating the transfer switch and generator panel.

Hope you didn't think I was picking a fight, wasn't my intention at all.

And I agree that is typical. Are HUD contracts just overlooked by inspection ? Those unsecured cables hanging from the panel would never fly. I didn't stop to think about HUD being the root cause.

I'm simply pointing out that it is lousy work no matter who did it. But I'm probably overreacting now that I think about it.

However MDshunk probably has hit the nail on the head as to why it is so poorly done.

arichard21

Did you notice the cable that came down to the box at an angle?

Yes, it is an old house. The contractor took waaay too many shortcuts, and overall the job was never inspected by anyone.

The service entrance was NOT compliant. He had to move the whole panel. The conduit was about 15 feet into the building before it hit the panel with no disconnect.

I am insulted by your welfare comment. I am a working class guy, who needed some repairs done and our town was offering a "housing revitalzation" grant. IT IS NOT WELFARE. This was a $20,000 job overall. I have spend MUCH of my own money fixing up this house. I work on this house EVERYDAY. We could not afford the big sum to have the roof, windows and doors, electrical and a few other things done that needed to be done. How dare you talk down to me for getting a grant! Shame on you!



Alot of these pics aren't about legal or illeagal, like the dead wires hanging there... its about quality fo work. This guy is walking around getting job after job doing work like this. Yes, it is GREAT for the REAL pro's... they get lots of work cleaning up after people like this. But me, well I can't afford to pay Goose or MDShunk or anyone else to come over and clean up.

I know that if I can't do a job correctly, I won't do it. The work I do is always up to standard and is alot better quality than this guy. I have only been learning about this stuff for about 2 years now (this guy actually inspired me to learn about it after seeing him make all these mistakes).

I know that I am not a pro, and have never said I was. This guy is dangerous. When we called in an independant inspector, he left with 4 pages of violations from this guy. EVERYTHING he touched was not up to code.

Stubbie

MDshunks avatar does say 'world class jerk'.....


Many tradesman frown on people who take pictures of poor workmanship and post them for the public to scrutinize. Likely knowing that there is more to the story than meets the eye.

I didn't think the service entrance would work but heck I've seen some stuff that I thought was junk but was ok maybe not quality but nothing that would fail an inspection. If you look at Chris's work you can see what a person that hires a professional should get. It just isn't aways the case.

As for MDshunk I'll let him speak for himself I am sure he is quite capable.....

LawnGuyLandSparky

I don't think a contractor has to, under HUD, bring a house up to code. I'm with MdShunk on this in that you sound like the welfare mommy complaining that the wait is too long at the free clinic.

arichard21

Not once did I say he had to bring the house up to code. This was all work he did that was not up to code.

He installed the new panel with new service.

He left jboxes open in closets.

He buried jboxes in the walls.

He created all these violations by not doing the work correctly, then fell off the face of the planet leaving me to clean up the mess, and at the time I knew nothing about electrical, nor did I have the money to pay someone to fix it. I learned what I had to do to fix it, and my house currently has a clean bill of health.


It is nice to see that Lawnguylandsparky and mdshunk are so awesome that they have never needed any help at all... they work by themselves with no other employees and are able to complete any job single handed no matter how big and that they were both able to pay for their houses and cars with cash and not have to borrow from a bank to get them.



It's nice that in a comminity like this when someone shows what happened to them when they get dealt a bad contractor the homeowner gets called a welfare mommy and is overzelous because they didn't pay for it by themselves. How dare I expect a handout AND that it be acceptable and not put my familys safety in jeopardy.