31 hilariously funny building mistakes contractors made

I'd be interested to know the stories behind some of those pictures. :lol:
 
Reba said:
I'd be interested to know the stories behind some of those pictures. :lol:
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In #6 you can uses the stairs for a fire escape , just break a window and jump onto the stairs. :lol:

I had s client you just moved into a new senior housing apartment and my client had to keep all her dishes on the floe in a box b/c she could not reach the bottom shelf in the cabinet . The cabinets were installed so high none of the residents could use , I am 5'6 "1'2 and I could barely get a dish on the bottom shelf and when I tried to put my client silverware away I could not open the drawer b/c it was blocked by the fridge . The contactor think not stop to think that elderly people would not be able to climb on step ladder to put their dishes away , I think when contactors are going to be building ramps or hosing for elderlies they should talk to they first b/c able bodies men do not get it what it like to be old or in a W/C.
 
I have what is almost the reverse kind of story from the days when I worked as a bookkeeper for a construction/real estate group.

We had a gal that was a young women but in a wheelchair as a tenant in one of our buildings. The only thing we did there was take the bathroom door off and also build a ramp to the front door (each apartment has their own outside door). When we were planning to build another building they asked her about what would be the best adaptions. All she came up with besides the ramp to the outside door was to use a regular passage door to the bathroom (they are sightly wider that what was then commonly used to bathrooms - I do not know if this practice has changed since then). She said that normal upper cabinets are useful for things that are used rarely but useful to have on hand. She said that she had never lived anywhere where neighbors would not help in getting them up and down (that included the city of Chicago). She was nimble enough to use some of the lower shelves in the upper cabinets regularly by boosting herself up to sit on the counter and reach higher that way.

She did wind up in one of those units some years later after having moved away and then come back to town. Even later I wound up in that same unit and found no problems for an able bodied person living there.
 
whatdidyousay! said:
In #6 you can uses the stairs for a fire escape , just break a window and jump onto the stairs. :lol:

I had s client you just moved into a new senior housing apartment and my client had to keep all her dishes on the floe in a box b/c she could not reach the bottom shelf in the cabinet . The cabinets were installed so high none of the residents could use , I am 5'6 "1'2 and I could barely get a dish on the bottom shelf and when I tried to put my client silverware away I could not open the drawer b/c it was blocked by the fridge . The contactor think not stop to think that elderly people would not be able to climb on step ladder to put their dishes away , I think when contactors are going to be building ramps or hosing for elderlies they should talk to they first b/c able bodies men do not get it what it like to be old or in a W/C.
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Thankfully, more builders are incorporating universal design and ADA requirements into new construction for residences and hotels. Not enough yet but an improvement. When my daughter and son-in-law had their new house built a couple years ago, they had modifications made to the house plans for a few things to make it safer for him to get around with his amputation. For example, in the master bath, instead of having a soaker tub and stall shower, they have one large walk-in shower that can accommodate his walker and a bench. It also has grab rails installed.

People can now get kitchen cabinets with pull-down shelves.

I'm barely 5'3", so I totally understand about not being able to reach things.
 
fun! :D

there are some here too. but buildings are much larger ...

I will mention one example horrible : a bridge and road to a city in Sicily. This construction began in 1989 .... :eek3: :tears:
 

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Contractors only build what the plans tell them to build or what the inspector tells them how he/she wants it done. A building inspector in Portland OR told a friend of mine he wanted the electrical grounded to the pipe in the basement, not the ground rod they had grounded it to, so they grounded it to the pipe and got the electrical signed off. The problem with the pipe was it wasn't connected to anything and was suspended in mid air, after the inspector left they moved the ground back to the ground rod.
 
Reba said:
Thankfully, more builders are incorporating universal design and ADA requirements into new construction for residences and hotels. Not enough yet but an improvement. When my daughter and son-in-law had their new house built a couple years ago, they had modifications made to the house plans for a few things to make it safer for him to get around with his amputation. For example, in the master bath, instead of having a soaker tub and stall shower, they have one large walk-in shower that can accommodate his walker and a bench. It also has grab rails installed.

People can now get kitchen cabinets with pull-down shelves.

I'm barely 5'3", so I totally understand about not being able to reach things.
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I had clients that got all excited when they saw how tall I was and I really don't think I am that tall. My clients wanted me to do cleaning jobs but I was a health aide and we were not allowed to climb on chairs to dust off shelves that were over 6 feet high. That was how high a shelf was in the new senior housing . I know what you mean about needing a walk in shower , a lot of my clients used their bathtub to storage thing b/c they could not climb into it.
I had to call the city b/c one of my client ceiling had huge cracks and I was afraid it fall out and hit my little old lady client. She was a sweetheart.
 
seb said:
Contractors only build what the plans tell them to build or what the inspector tells them how he/she wants it done. A building inspector in Portland OR told a friend of mine he wanted the electrical grounded to the pipe in the basement, not the ground rod they had grounded it to, so they grounded it to the pipe and got the electrical signed off. The problem with the pipe was it wasn't connected to anything and was suspended in mid air, after the inspector left they moved the ground back to the ground rod.
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Yeah but I would hope contractors had enough common sense to point out that the kitchen cabinets are going to be too high for elderly people living in senior housing . This was a brand new building and my client was the first person to live in it. She was so excited about that and it was a let down to see she could not reach the cabinets and had to keep her dishes on floor in a cardboard box.
 
I get the feeling that most of those are on the other side of the world......
 
Wonder how many of those are "reconstructs". Like putting a wall or ceiling where there used to be space/door/window.
 
whatdidyousay! said:
Yeah but I would hope contractors had enough common sense to point out that the kitchen cabinets are going to be too high for elderly people living in senior housing . This was a brand new building and my client was the first person to live in it. She was so excited about that and it was a let down to see she could not reach the cabinets and had to keep her dishes on floor in a cardboard box.
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Most contractors that I have met have common sense, and we even laugh at what we are building sometimes. The problem is if the contractor has a signed contract he is obligated to build whatever he has been contracted to build to the plans that were provided and signed off on. So yeh, they can question what they are doing but they have to build it as is, unless a change order has been provided and signed.
 
seb said:
Most contractors that I have met have common sense, and we even laugh at what we are building sometimes. The problem is if the contractor has a signed contract he is obligated to build whatever he has been contracted to build to the plans that were provided and signed off on. So yeh, they can question what they are doing but they have to build it as is, unless a change order has been provided and signed.
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Yeah , I know contractors has to follow the blueprints but I really think when it came to installing kitchen cabinets in apartment for seniors housing the contractors should had made it clear they were too high. I just could not believe one person did not pick up on that.
 
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