Hi beenthere, get this, in this part of Tennessee we don't need no stinking Codes. Don't have code officers and don't have inspectors for buildings. All they check is the electric and septic. Other than that anything goes. But I don't plan on doing anything stupid. I demanded Code or better from our builder. I tried to watch as best I could the construction of this building. living 800 miles away in New Jersey made it hard. We have some real horror stories of screw-ups happening when we weren't here and although we asked our builder to keep us informed and to keep the project on track he proved incapable of doing it. What a joke! Glad we elected to build the garage with apartment above first and not do the main house until we move down here. So in the case of the ducts I had told the builder Not to do anything with the heating system till he got me some specs. from the HVAC guy. I couldn't get them to do a Schedule J to prove why they wanted to put this big expensive two stage heatpump in or get any duct CFM calculations. We come down here on our next scheduled visit and the HVAC techs have just finished installing all the ducts and have the unit mostly in. Ask the builder what is going on and he says the HVAC guy had some free time and the builder gave him the go ahead. Been a nightmare. Ask for cathedral ceilings as per the plan and am told they didn't build the roof trusses strion enough so I have to have flat ceilings to carry the weight. Earlier in the construction the sight for the garage was on a small mound so i said to the builder can you please cut down 18 incher to two feet for the footings so the garage isn't so high. Says sure, we put it in writing and sure enough on the next visit down we see that they put the footing directly on top of the soil and built up. Yes my garage floor, thank God they hadn't poured it yet was set to be five blocks high up off of the ground. I ask him what is going on and he says they found rock. I look in the area next to the footing and find no rock. I use a pinch bar and find no rock. Look in the massive pit created by the walls and see no rock. Best I can figure is my builder just told his excavator friend to build him a foundation and the guy did. Had to have them remove a couple of rows of block at my expense so the garage was lower. Still going to tons and tons of dirt at tne garage doors so we can get the car in. Talked to the builder about putting steel in the floor for strength. Promised he would. Instead of rebar or wire mesh in the bottom he used fiberglass concrete and put one long piece of rebar on top of the block row by the doorway entrance. Almost forgot, specifically asked for a broom finish because they love to do a slick concrete floor around here. As you would expect the floor is perfectly smooth and is slippery when wet except for the spot where the concrete has a major crack running through it and is slowly separating! Oh how I love a professional job. I have a million of these stories. I can honestly say that nothing and i mean nothing he touched or one of his buddy's did was done properly.
