Post your favourite "Muldoons"

[Malthus]

Some explaination is in order - a "Muldoon" is a neologism a friend of mine invented to describe a lurking home improvement nightmare created by the person who owned your house before you, which you only discovered after you bought the place.

It isn't something merely shoddily done, or a problem sneakily concealed; it is something done in defiance of all logic or reason (or merely with a staggering lack of foresight).

My favorite example: we have hot water heating in our house, and the previous owners had lovingly made a radiator cover for the radiator in the living room - and it looked very nice, quite suited the room's decor.

However, when we started the furnace up in the first winter, we discovered a bit of a problem: there was simply no way to access the radiator to bleed it. There was no access at all.

At first I simply could not believe it - I kept looking for some hidden panel or other which would access the valve. Eventually I had to give up, drill out the screw-heads (they were covered in wood-filler), and undo the whole thing. There was no hidden panel. Which was odd, since they clearly had built the thing years ago - they simply never bled the valve. :confused:

What are your examples?

[BTW the term "Muldoon" comes from the last name of the previous owner of my friend's house - no offence to those with that name out there, but somehow it seems to work and has caught on in my circle. ;) ]

[Caffeine.addict]

We call it pulling a Brandon for a previous owner of the house. Not using primer for the high gloss red paint in the Master. (Although, that made it easier to peel off in places. Painting over the outlet covers, installing the fan in such a way that when you actually used it, you pulled the wires out.

My personal favorite was the cheap hollow door in the back room. Someone had either punched through it or otherwise broken it. What they did, rather than replace it was cover the hole with a cheap bamboo screen and staple it on.

[Anne Neville]

Whoever did the wiring in our detached garage installed an external outlet (labelled as a GFI, but not, according to our electrician) with a dimmer switch on it. The electrician was quite baffled as to why anyone would do that.

And then there were the outlets with no face plates, positioned right next to the buttons you hit to make the door go up or down. If you missed and touched the wrong thing on one of those outlets, the electrician said you could get zapped.

We got all that fixed this summer, when we were having a general contractor replace the garage roof and convert the garage from having two small doors to a single large door.

ETA: Generally the rest of the stuff the previous owners did to the house was done right, which made the garage issues all the more baffling.

[Ichbin Dubist]

The interior stairs in my house have treads but no risers. Well, there are risers, but they were some kind of thin Masonite stuff and were no longer attached to the treads, but only to the three (count 'em) layers of stair carpeting. The Masonite did do a decent impression of wood when viewed from behind, in the basement stairwell.

[Spoons]

Somewhat similarly to those who refer to past owners, we call such things "Another Fine Example of Smith Engineering." (Their name wasn't "Smith," but it's a generic enough name.) In a nutshell, Smith Engineering seemed to involve a bunch of friends, a Saturday afternoon, and a case of beer (or two) in order to complete a project. And I use the term "completion" loosely.

So far, we've found:

-- A coat rack that was held to the wall by butterfly anchors that required drilling half-inch holes in the drywall. These things were big and strong enough to hold a car to the wall, but they only held a light rack, and even a full rack of coats aren't heavy enough to require these things. When we took the rack down, we found these gaping holes and the anchors, which weren't really holding much at that point. What, you couldn't find a stud?

-- Ceiling light fixtures where the mains leads didn't quite reach the fixture leads. So let's just use any old color of scrap wire to make the connection. White to red to green to black on the fixture. Same for the other lead. Add yellow marrettes, and it's a colorful party! And a headache for me, when the whole damn thing nearly shorted out due to a loose marrette.

-- Plastic popsicle sticks connecting the flush lever to the drain plug in a toilet tank. Yeesh.

There were plenty of other minor annoyances, but they were easily taken care of. These were perhaps the worst, though.

[Lok]

The previous owners here built a breezeway from the back door to the garage to make it attached. Unfortunately when they put up the walls, they put the untreated 2x4s directly on the concrete slab they poured for the floor. It is starting to rot nicely now. Which matches the top, where they apparently ran out of shingles up on the roof while working (not in the garage, there is a full bundle there) because they didn't put a cap on the crest. So water has also been rotting the walls. I am pretty much going to have to pull down the entire thing and re-do it. And I can't even afford to fix the garage roof right now. :(

[Una Persson]

A toilet tank with a hideous crack that threatened catastrophic failure at any moment, which had been cemented into place with clear RTV sealer. I replaced the toilet, and posted about it several years ago on here, after the crack started to weep.

[Ed Zotti]

In a nutshell, Smith Engineering seemed to involve a bunch of friends, a Saturday afternoon, and a case of beer (or two) in order to complete a project.I suspect beer played a major role in many of the design decisions at our place. I could list dozens of things - you can read about the decorative beam (http://www.chicagoreader.com/features/stories/barnhouse/)in the excerpt here. Another example, not mentioned in the book, was the aluminum turkey pan suspended just below the (10-foot) ceiling. To catch the drips? (An upstairs bathroom was in the vicinity upstairs, although not directly overhead.) We never quite figured it out.

[Cat Whisperer]

Our basement was finished when we moved in, but parts of it have a very Dr. Seuss look to them - no 90º angle in sight. Then there's the front half of the basement - one huge room, a tiny half bath that you have to go out of to change your mind, and one tiny bedroom. Hmm. Couldn't have divided that up a little better, eh?

[Enright3]

Not really a Muldoon, but a "oh crap" moment just the same.
In the house I just moved out of...
I was very pleased to find hardwood flooring in my daughter's bedroom; so I pulled the carpet up. I peeled back a corner of carpeting from my other daughter's bedroom... and I found another hardwood floor! Woo Hoo! I cautiously pulled up carpeting in the hallway... yep! Hardwoods there too! I was so excited I continued to pull up carpet into the living room...
um yeah, the hardwood ended at the hall! Doh!

Oh well, sez I, I needed new carpeting in there anyway.

[Cheesesteak]

Enright3, when I bought my first place, a small studio apartment, I noted hardwood floors under the carpet. Planning to refinish them, I took up all the carpet and padding, only to find out that a 4'x4' section in the middle of the living space was replaced with plywood.

Not a muldoon either, but the entire second floor of my house is on a single 15 amp circuit, all plugs and lights in 3 bedrooms +1 bath. There are probably 3 plugs on the first floor that are 20 amp homeruns, and they couldn't bother to pull even 1 extra circuit up to the second floor.

[Malthus]

Our basement was finished when we moved in, but parts of it have a very Dr. Seuss look to them - no 90º angle in sight. Then there's the front half of the basement - one huge room, a tiny half bath that you have to go out of to change your mind, and one tiny bedroom. Hmm. Couldn't have divided that up a little better, eh?

Heh, the wierdest I ever saw house-hunting was a tiny furnished bedroom tucked away in an otherwise unfinished basement - with a rather large bolt lock on the outside. :eek:

Perfect I suppose for imprisioning mad relatives in a Victorian romance, but the reasons for having such a room in the modern era remain somewhat obscure - unless I suppose one was in Austria. ;)

[Silver Tyger]

Heh, the wierdest I ever saw house-hunting was a tiny furnished bedroom tucked away in an otherwise unfinished basement - with a rather large bolt lock on the outside. :eek:

I actually have a reasonable explanation for that - I was briefly considering putting one on my room to keep my sister out when I wasn't there. No prisoners required.

[corkboard]

Not a muldoon either, but the entire second floor of my house is on a single 15 amp circuit, all plugs and lights in 3 bedrooms +1 bath. There are probably 3 plugs on the first floor that are 20 amp homeruns, and they couldn't bother to pull even 1 extra circuit up to the second floor.

Unbelievable- while reading your post I was amazed at how similar it sounded to the house I just moved out of. Then I read your location- I just left a 1956 split level in Bloomfield, NJ (just up Grove Street!), where the entire bedroom level operated off of a single 15 amp breaker. Three bedrooms, hall bath, master bath, three ceiling fans, plus attic lights and exhaust fan. Must have been the same builder.

[Malthus]

I actually have a reasonable explanation for that - I was briefly considering putting one on my room to keep my sister out when I wasn't there. No prisoners required.

A bolt lock would be easily openable by your sister, unless she happened to already be in your room. ;)

Maybe I'm using the wrong term for it or something - I'm thinking of those sliding bolt type thingies like this:

http://www.vandykes.com/product/02023132/

I can think of good reasons to have one on the inside of your bedroom door; it is a bit odd to have one on the outside.

[Ichbin Dubist]

I just left a 1956 split level in Bloomfield, NJ (just up Grove Street!), where the entire bedroom level operated off of a single 15 amp breaker.

My whole house ran off a 60-amp panel -- kitchen, furnace, washer, 3 bedrooms. That's the first thing I replaced. I'll bet the lights dimmed if they tried to use the toaster at night. It's not a muldoon, exactly; I guess it made sense in the 1930s.

Planning to refinish them, I took up all the carpet and padding, only to find out that a 4'x4' section in the middle of the living space was replaced with plywood.

I guess that's a little large for a trapdoor, but I would have been tempted. You could put your desk next to it and drop disobedient minions into a pit.

[Silver Tyger]

A bolt lock would be easily openable by your sister, unless she happened to already be in your room. ;)

Maybe I'm using the wrong term for it or something - I'm thinking of those sliding bolt type thingies like this:

http://www.vandykes.com/product/02023132/

I can think of good reasons to have one on the inside of your bedroom door; it is a bit odd to have one on the outside.

I was thinking of the kind you can stick a padlock over. Yeah. That's creepy. The only non-creepy explanation I can think of (and it's really reaching) is if the door didn't stay closed and you wanted to keep the pets out of it. Some critters can do door knobs, right?

[ASAKMOTSD]

We call them "Pulte Features". We live in a house built by Pulte Construction in the 1970's (when they were run out of Michigan for their construction practices). You could see when they were running short of materials for example. The 16" on center for studs became more of a suggestion than a rule. The house across the street from ours had studs that did not all go to the top. They had a heck of a time with finishing their new siding.

[usedtobe]

Heh, the wierdest I ever saw house-hunting was a tiny furnished bedroom tucked away in an otherwise unfinished basement - with a rather large bolt lock on the outside. :eek:

Perfect I suppose for imprisioning mad relatives in a Victorian romance, but the reasons for having such a room in the modern era remain somewhat obscure - unless I suppose one was in Austria. ;)

FWIW -
my old place had a tiny. butt-ugly room and bath down - it was built by "class-concious" "owners" for the live-in "help". NOthing was too cheap or demeaning for the lower-class. There was also a gate to keep her out of the back yard. Nice people, huh?

I got into a discussion about shoddy practices in my Edwardian vs. his Victorian. He won - he is now stuck with a circa 1890 toilet installed in CEMENT (not concrete, not adhesive - real, live cement). Until someone wants to rip up that floor, there will be a succession of poor souls doomed to find replacement parts for a 100+ yr old toilet.

[Spoons]

Enright3, when I bought my first place, a small studio apartment, I noted hardwood floors under the carpet. Planning to refinish them, I took up all the carpet and padding, only to find out that a 4'x4' section in the middle of the living space was replaced with plywood.That's not an ugly and out-of-place section of plywood. Put some colorful lights in the ceiling above, and it's a home disco, complete with small dance floor.

Can you tell I've been speaking with realtors lately? :D

[Cheesesteak]

Must have been the same builder.Well... my house was built in 1903, so it's probably not the same builder. Could be the same electrician though, they sure didn't wire this place up in '03.

[Caffeine.addict]

FWIW -
my old place had a tiny. butt-ugly room and bath down - it was built by "class-concious" "owners" for the live-in "help". NOthing was too cheap or demeaning for the lower-class. There was also a gate to keep her out of the back yard. Nice people, huh?



I've seen similar in Brazil. My parents owned an apartment in Rio which had the servants bedroom and bathroom just off of the kitchen. It was a small dark room because it faced into an inner courtyard. My parents used the room as a storage room and redid the bathroom although no one really used it much.

My parents bought a house in Brazil which the previous owner had started to built in 1999 although they had to finish it. It also had a room off of the kitchen storage area and a separate bathroom. They use the bathroom as where you clean yourself from the pool and the room gets used for storage.

[Cat Whisperer]

That's not an ugly and out-of-place section of plywood. Put some colorful lights in the ceiling above, and it's a home disco, complete with small dance floor.

Can you tell I've been speaking with realtors lately? :D
Heh - I can totally see that now. Or maybe tap-dance practice studio?

[Kaio]

My whole house ran off a 60-amp panel -- kitchen, furnace, washer, 3 bedrooms. That's the first thing I replaced. I'll bet the lights dimmed if they tried to use the toaster at night. It's not a muldoon, exactly; I guess it made sense in the 1930s.

Hee. This reminds me of the rowhouse I lived in, in DC. Three floors, six bedrooms (group house rental), it had been built in the early 1900s (1905? 1911? something like that), maintained pretty well, for all that. We forgot this more than once, but we couldn't run the microwave and the toaster oven at the same time -- it would trip the circuit breaker. Which was unfortunate, because this also turned off all the lights in the (occupied) garden apartment in the basement. Which, IIRC, had no freaking windows at all, except for the one in the door which was underneath the back porch. It was pitch black down there. The breaker box was down there too, so it was a good thing we were on really good terms with our downstairs neighbors. :D

[chela]

My first housse was a 1905ish colonial revival that was in pretty good shape. But none of the doors would shut properly. In the basement we discovered that one of the main uprights that supported the floors was severed for a purpose that I no longer remember maybe something to do with updating of the electric by a previous muldoon.

That house held so many surprises, most of them enchanting, but that discovery was scary.

[Ed Zotti]

I was the "house inspector" for a place on the southwest side of Chicago that my sister-in-law had foolishly signed a contract to buy. If you didn't know much about houses, which my SIL didn't, the place showed well, I'll say that - nicely painted, etc. But every time you looked under the hood, so to speak, you saw something that made you cringe. Two things in particular stand out:

(1) The house, which must have been built in the 1920s, had finished front and rear porches - but the porches didn't rest on proper masonry footings, but rather what I recall as two-by-tens lying on the ground. Worse, someone subsequently had dug out basements under the porches, which meant digging a couple feet below the level of the two-by-tens. They then shored up the earthen walls with a rank of two-by-sixes pounded into the ground. By the time I saw it, the shoring was all rotted and collapsing, and the earth beneath the porch walls was starting to subside. If you looked at the outside of the house, you could see the porches had already sagged a couple inches out of true. I remember there was a vertical crack in the exterior wall where the rear porch met the main house, narrow at the bottom but maybe an inch and a half wide by the time it got to the top of the house.

(2) While looking at the aforesaid crack, I noticed that the electric power line from the alley had the three wires typical nowadays, but only two were connected. Investigating the fusebox in the basement, a corroded hunk of junk, I discovered that all the current for the entire house - a couple with several children lived there - passed through a single 30 amp fuse and a length of 14 gauge wire.

I wrote a lawyerly long letter that got my sister out of the contract, I'm happy to say.

[An Gadaí]

[BTW the term "Muldoon" comes from the last name of the previous owner of my friend's house - no offence to those with that name out there, but somehow it seems to work and has caught on in my circle. ;) ]

I'm glad you explained this because at first I thought it was an allusion to the stereotype of the Irish cowboy builder.

Anyway, when we moved in in 1988 our house looked like it had been wired by a flying spagetti monster. Under every panel there was a mess of wires, loose ends and the like.

[Malthus]

I'm glad you explained this because at first I thought it was an allusion to the stereotype of the Irish cowboy builder.



You in turn have intrigued me. I've never heard of this stereotype. Is it one prevelant in Ireland itself? Here in Canada, as far as I know, there is no particular knowledge of such a thing re building specifically.

There are negative Irish stereotypes, but they are all about drinking and fighting.

[An Gadaí]

I think it perhaps mainly had currency in England. I don't know. There are cowboy builders here too but I think in England and perhaps the rest of Britain, Irish builder became somewhat synonymous with cowboy builder. A lot of Travellers are in the building trade so it might be as much to do with prejudice against them or perhaps maybe Irish builders are generally rip-off merchants. I'm tryna dig up some cites for you. I haven't found much. For example, not proof of anything but there's an episode of Fawlty Towers with an Irish cowboy builder.

http://www.thebestof.co.uk/croydon/news/37070

Googling "cowboy builders", the second link I get is;
MP wants Irish 'cowboy' builders blacklisted (http://www.independent.ie/national-news/mp-wants-irish-cowboy-builders-blacklisted-1359898.html)

From this (http://www.outsideleft.com/main.php?updateID=795) blog:
"In London people get to meet lots of real Irish people. There are Irish-born police, many lower-rung Labour Party activists are Irish, etc etc. We have reputations in liberal circles for being well read, witty, colorful, and astute. These are broad generalizations and no more accurate than the opposite end of the perception spectrum, wherein we're drunken feckless dole-scrounging cowboy builders."

[Malthus]

I think it perhaps mainly had currency in England. I don't know. There are cowboy builders here too but I think in England and perhaps the rest of Britain, Irish builder became somewhat synonymous with cowboy builder. A lot of Travellers are in the building trade so it might be as much to do with prejudice against them or perhaps maybe Irish builders are generally rip-off merchants. I'm tryna dig up some cites for you. I haven't found much. For example, not proof of anything but there's an episode of Fawlty Towers with an Irish cowboy builder.

http://www.thebestof.co.uk/croydon/news/37070

Googling "cowboy builders", the second link I get is;
MP wants Irish 'cowboy' builders blacklisted (http://www.independent.ie/national-news/mp-wants-irish-cowboy-builders-blacklisted-1359898.html)

From this (http://www.outsideleft.com/main.php?updateID=795) blog:
"In London people get to meet lots of real Irish people. There are Irish-born police, many lower-rung Labour Party activists are Irish, etc etc. We have reputations in liberal circles for being well read, witty, colorful, and astute. These are broad generalizations and no more accurate than the opposite end of the perception spectrum, wherein we're drunken feckless dole-scrounging cowboy builders."

Cool, thanks. That I can truly say is something I've never heard of; it's quite interesting - here in Canada stories of crummy contractors and scamming builders abound, but they are not so far associated with any particular nationality - all creeds, nations, races and religions unfortunately co-operate in that venture! :D

Anyway, as far as I know the Muldoons were fine upstanding citizens (I presume from the name of Irish descent) who happened to own a nice house, but had lousy home-renovation skills. ;)

[Anne Neville]

Ever since we bought the house, we've had trouble with the master bathroom sink draining slowly. We put Drano down it and tried one of those tools for grabbing hair out of a drain. Sometimes that would make it a bit better for a little while, but it didn't fix the problem. Dad Neville took the U-trap out, and it was clear. He poked his finger in the pipe in the wall, and said, "There's no opening in here!" Someone had almost completely sealed the pipe shut with plumber's putty at some point (he thinks this was done many years ago). The opening was only about the size of a pencil lead. He filed out a lot of the putty, and now the sink is working a lot better.

when we moved in in 1988 our house looked like it had been wired by a flying spagetti monster. Under every panel there was a mess of wires, loose ends and the like.

The person who did that has since moved to California. S/he moved out of the apartment in Livermore that I moved into in 2002. The phone wires were a similar mess in that apartment, done by some previous tenant. I had quite a time getting home phone service, and that was what made me finally surrender to the 20th century and get a cell phone.

[gonzomax]

The guy who built my house in 1930 made doors of different widths. All non standard. I can not go to the store for a door. Every one is special order.

[MissTake]

Go back into the laundry room - above the dryer is the first electric panel. Look to the left a few feet is another electric panel from when the house was rewired sometime in the 50's. Wander back into furnace room, look 3' off the floor and see another electric panel from the 70's rewiring. Now look up and a little to the left and see the electric panel from 5 years ago.

When the real electrician (aka my brother in law) rewired the house 5 years ago he put the kitchen and family room (now my office) on the same circuit. After a week of living here I made him rewire the basement. I couldn't work on the computer, have a lamp on, and turn the dishwasher on with out popping the circuit.

[pipper]

We live in a two flat and rent out the upstairs (which violates a major rule of landlordship: Always rent below you, as you will eventually rent to someone who doesn't understands the purpose of ankles and stomps around with such force that it convinces you the tenants have been removed and a camel herder and his flock have taken their place). One afternoon I was embarking on a simple project to relocate an electrical outlet in preparation for a new built-in refrigerator. As I cut into the wall at the new location site, I was curious as to why the wood framing and drywall seemed a bit damp.

It was July in Chicago and I was about to write it off as the 100% humidity interacting with cool air moving up from the basement below when that little nagging voice finally convinced me that it couldn't be that simple. Since the wall I was working on was going to be blocked by the fridge anyway, I poked another hole in the wall a bit further up. Uh-oh. Definitely damp. Hmmm, this is the wall that has the main stack in it that services the tenant's bathroom. Let’s go upstairs and check things out. Everything upstairs looks fine- I leave the water running in the sink for about 5 minutes while I inspect all the connections I can see. I flush the toilet and all still seems fine. Heading back downstairs I’m now horrified to see water pouring out of my kitchen wall…..

Fast forward past the hole I cut at the top of the wall in our kitchen, past the hole I cut in the ceiling of our kitchen, past the ripping out of the tenant's vanity, past the hole I cut in the wall behind the vanity and past the hole I had to cut on the other side of the wall behind the tenant’s fridge, all in the name of trying to locate the source of the leak. And what was the culprit?

Apparently the previous owners had decided relocate the kitchen sink. It had inhabited the spot that was on the other side of a wall from the bathroom sink. Located within the wall was a 4 way-tee that handled the drains for the 2 sinks. In the course of the “remodel”, instead of replacing the tee, or capping the tee, or one of a thousand other alternatives that would have made sense, they simply hacked off the connection to the old sink, stuffed a rag into the opening and then drywalled over it. Out of sight, out of mind. It stayed this way for some unknown amount of time until, finally, the drain pipe built up enough gunk that the outflow from the bathroom sink was restricted, and the water backed up the pipe and came flying out of the rag-blocked opening. A $4 expansion stopper cured the problem, followed of course by a whole lot of drywall work.

The other wonderful example of quality work comes from the electricians who at one point switched the electrical system from fuses to breakers. I’m not sure if this was done at the same time as they upgraded from the knot and tube wiring the house was built with or not. But what I am sure of is that some knucklehead decided to either reconnect, or at the very least not disconnect, the knot and tubes, even though some of those wires were simply hanging in the wall voids. That explained why we couldn’t figure out what some of the breaker switches controlled. It didn’t explain, apart from sheer dumb luck, why the house hadn’t burned down.

[Malthus]

Those are some impressive "finds" pipper. I particularly enjoyed the rag-stuffed pipe. :D

Just one small correction: it is not "knot and tube" wiring, it is "knob and tube":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knob_and_tube_wiring

Another impressive muldoon from our house: when we moved it, it had horrible shag carpeting in the basement, a truly obnoxious orange colour and rife with mildew. That was not in itself a muldoon - the muldoon became apparent when we tried to remove it and discovered that the folks had built in a bunch of closets and shelving, right over the carpet - so we had to pull the capet bits out with pliers from under the nailed in components to get rid of all of it. :(

[Ichbin Dubist]

(1) The house, which must have been built in the 1920s, had finished front and rear porches - but the porches didn't rest on proper masonry footings, but rather what I recall as two-by-tens lying on the ground. Worse, someone subsequently had dug out basements under the porches, which meant digging a couple feet below the level of the two-by-tens. They then shored up the earthen walls with a rank of two-by-sixes pounded into the ground.

I looked at a house in Dutchess County, New York, that seemed oddly cheap for the area, the size of the house, and the amount of property. (Warning.) The realtor hadn't seen it, as it was a new listing, but thought that it was "partly gutted." I went to look anyway since I was in the area. Not only was it completely gutted -- every bit of plaster, plus wiring, plumbing, radiators, and furnace -- but they had also taken up enough of the subfloor in an addition to make it obvious that it was built not on a foundation but on pressure-treated 6x6s laying on the ground. Like you would do with a shed.

A friend of mine once delivered a truck full of new windows to a rural property adjacent to a trailer park. The owner of said park was apparently having 2 20-year-old meth addicts built him a "trailer" on top of two flatbed trucks parked parallel. And because of an incline -- the property was at the top of a ravine -- the downhill end of both flatbeds were held approximately level by two 4x4s under each truck that were placed on top of big, flat rocks. Despite this amazing foundation of truck tires and air, the two freaks had managed to frame most of a recognizable house in an oddly incoherent manner (I think he said the rafters were 4 feet on center). They wanted him to bring the windows inside the "house," but he refused to enter the thing.

Oh, and the bottom of the hill was a river. I suppose pieces of this house have drifted to the Hudson River by now.

Another impressive muldoon from our house: when we moved it, it had horrible shag carpeting in the basement, a truly obnoxious orange colour and rife with mildew. That was not in itself a muldoon - the muldoon became apparent when we tried to remove it and discovered that the folks had built in a bunch of closets and shelving, right over the carpet ...

You reminded me of another one in the house I did end up buying -- they put ceramic tile on the kitchen floor, but worked around the fridge and washing machine, leaving two big gaps with the old floor showing through. (And the fridge was blocking the only window.)

[Ed Zotti]

The other wonderful example of quality work comes from the electricians who at one point switched the electrical system from fuses to breakers. I’m not sure if this was done at the same time as they upgraded from the knot and tube wiring the house was built with or not. But what I am sure of is that some knucklehead decided to either reconnect, or at the very least not disconnect, the knot and tubes, even though some of those wires were simply hanging in the wall voids. That explained why we couldn’t figure out what some of the breaker switches controlled. It didn’t explain, apart from sheer dumb luck, why the house hadn’t burned down.I knew a guy who not only had operating knob-and-tube wiring, he had operating gas lighting with gas mantles (which worked remarkably well, I might add). He'd finally abandoned the coal furnace, though, mainly because he couldn't get the coal.

[Spoons]

He'd finally abandoned the coal furnace, though, mainly because he couldn't get the coal.I remember when the last coal dealer in Toronto stopped selling coal--believe it or not, it was the late-80s or early-90s, and it made the news. And if I recall correctly, they still had some customers at that time, but not enough to make coal sales profitable for the company. You can still see some coal chutes on the sides of houses in Toronto's older neighbourhoods, though of course, their heating systems have all been switched over to oil or natural gas. But the chutes remain.

My Dad lives in an older Toronto house that once had a coal furnace. Its chute has been turned into a basement window, but there is an odd little alcove beneath it that once held the coal bin. When I was younger, Dad would often tell me that it was a good thing we had a gas furnace; otherwise, I'd be down there on cold winter mornings, shovelling coal into the furnace like he had to do when he was a kid.

Now that many fireplaces are gas-fired, I suppose that someday, I'll be telling kids how I once carried wood into the house for the fireplace. Right before I tell them to get off my lawn. ;)

[pipper]

I knew a guy who not only had operating knob-and-tube wiring, he had operating gas lighting with gas mantles (which worked remarkably well, I might add). He'd finally abandoned the coal furnace, though, mainly because he couldn't get the coal.

Our house had gas lighting at some point. I know because I discovered that the trusty electricians "re-purposed" some of the gas pipe as electrical conduit.

I also could have supplied some coal to your acquaintance: In addition to some real coal left in the old chute, I must have vacuumed up a couple of shop vacs full of coal dust out of the basement rafters. Despite wearing a respirator, I'm pretty certain black lung symptoms will be appearing any day now....

[Malthus]

I remember when the last coal dealer in Toronto stopped selling coal--believe it or not, it was the late-80s or early-90s, and it made the news. And if I recall correctly, they still had some customers at that time, but not enough to make coal sales profitable for the company. You can still see some coal chutes on the sides of houses in Toronto's older neighbourhoods, though of course, their heating systems have all been switched over to oil or natural gas. But the chutes remain.

My Dad lives in an older Toronto house that once had a coal furnace. Its chute has been turned into a basement window, but there is an odd little alcove beneath it that once held the coal bin. When I was younger, Dad would often tell me that it was a good thing we had a gas furnace; otherwise, I'd be down there on cold winter mornings, shovelling coal into the furnace like he had to do when he was a kid.

Now that many fireplaces are gas-fired, I suppose that someday, I'll be telling kids how I once carried wood into the house for the fireplace. Right before I tell them to get off my lawn. ;)

Heh, I think I know the place - it was on Mt. Pleasant near the cemetery, there was some old silos there that sold coal, I think.

My grandmother had one of the last party telephone lines in Toronto I think - it got so that she was the only person on it.

[Spoons]

Heh, I think I know the place - it was on Mt. Pleasant near the cemetery, there was some old silos there that sold coal, I think.That was it--Dominion Coal and Wood, on Mt. Pleasant at Merton Street. The silos did store coal, but I think as coal sales fell, they were converted over to hold other things Dominion sold. IIRC, there was a move to have the silos declared a historic site--did anything come of that?

[Malthus]

That was it--Dominion Coal and Wood, on Mt. Pleasant at Merton Street. The silos did store coal, but I think as coal sales fell, they were converted over to hold other things Dominion sold. IIRC, there was a move to have the silos declared a historic site--did anything come of that?

I don't really know. Here's an article I pulled off the 'net, dated 1985:

http://www.lib.uwo.ca/programs/companyinformationcanada/dominion.html

I haven't been down that way in years, myself.

[Philster]

Well, my mom just bought a condo that is less than two years old, and is one of the sharpest condos I've ever seen.

Except...

The woman who owned it upgraded everything possible, but when it came to a kitchen tile back-splash, she opted for the most 70's-looking white tile, which has gold speckles that would be appropriate in any ugly public bathroom from the 70's. Yes, it's in the kitchen offset by expensive tan/brown/taupe granite and various earthy tones with a very cool looking contrast of stainless steel appliances...with butt ugly, white public bathroom tile with gold speckles time-warped from the 70's.

Oh, that and all the light fixtures mounted from the ceiling have no electrical boxes. Ya know, what fire ever started because of bad wiring?

[Caffeine.addict]

Oh, that and all the light fixtures mounted from the ceiling have no electrical boxes. Ya know, what fire ever started because of bad wiring?

I'm scared to ask, but what are the light fixtures mounted from?

[Philster]

I'm scared to ask, but what are the light fixtures mounted from?


Most fixtures have screws spaced to screw into the standard electrical box. In this case, they were screwed into the drywall/ceiling with toggles or anchors. Most connections were simply sitting in the attic (upper floor condo) with wire nuts...just sitting on insulation.

Was real fun to retrofit -- real fun.

[Caffeine.addict]

Does that even meet code? How did that get approved?

Did you have to go in and install electrical boxes after the fact?

[MOIDALIZE]

I lived in a newly renovated basement apartment my sophomore year of college. One day in March it got unseasonably hot, so I decided to turn the AC on for the first time. As it's running, I noticed condensation on one of the walls. I only had the AC on for a little bit that day and turned it off the next, so I didn't thing anything of it.

That summer when I turned it back on the wall started weeping, and the drywall got all wrinkled and soggy. I called the landlord. The AC unit was in a closet in the corner of the apartment, and a plastic tube was running from the unit to the outside. He found a hole in the tube, so he had the section of tube spliced and replaced.

I turned the AC back on and water started gushing outside of my apartment through a light fixture in the hallway. Landlord came back and pulled the rest of that tube, which as it turns out was riddled with holes. It seems the builders had turned it into swiss cheese with a nail gun or staple gun when they were installing drywall. :smack:

[usedtobe]

I'm in Sacramento: hot, dry, miserable Sacto.

There are/were modular houses - made of panels of factory-assembled real building materials trucked to jobsite and fastened together - kind of like a huge scale model. These are not "trailers", they are built of real, full-size materials, to code - it's just that it is easier to bang together 2x4's on moving belts inside a warm. dry factory with nail guns than to bang them together with hammers while holding them upright outside...
OK - we have a truck full of wall and roof panels - just need to bang them toghther, and voila (sp), instant house.

Just saw on MLS in southern Sacto:
This house has no foundation.

(jaw-drop smilie here). W...T...F...! somebody just scraped a flat spot on the ground and erected the thing?
And it hasn't been red-tagged by the city?

God, I miss civilization...

[Malthus]

I'm in Sacramento: hot, dry, miserable Sacto.

There are/were modular houses - made of panels of factory-assembled real building materials trucked to jobsite and fastened together - kind of like a huge scale model. These are not "trailers", they are built of real, full-size materials, to code - it's just that it is easier to bang together 2x4's on moving belts inside a warm. dry factory with nail guns than to bang them together with hammers while holding them upright outside...
OK - we have a truck full of wall and roof panels - just need to bang them toghther, and voila (sp), instant house.

Just saw on MLS in southern Sacto:
This house has no foundation.

(jaw-drop smilie here). W...T...F...! somebody just scraped a flat spot on the ground and erected the thing?
And it hasn't been red-tagged by the city?

God, I miss civilization...

Man, that will be fun when it rains. :eek:

[JillGat]

One day I was watering out front and an old man slowed down to peer at our house. I waved him down to ask about his interest and he told me that he grew up in our house, and his dad had built the addition on the back. "Oh, come in and tell me about it and let me show you what we've done!" I said. He obliged.

When we bought the house, the inspector said he couldn't inspect the pipes and everything else under the house because the addition on the back covered the hatch to the crawlspace. I knew this had to be bullshit, but we never could find the access. When I asked the old guy about this, he opened the cabinet under the kitchen sink and showed us how the floor popped up and opened to under the house. Bingo.

He told me that the old rosebush in the back was a "Peace Rose" his mom planted just after WWII. The terracotta cinderblocks the house was built from were manufactured by prisoners in the state prison. All kinds of interesting stuff.

The addition, built in the early 1960s had been a real pain in the neck to us. It was poorly attached to the main house and in fact we could see blue sky where it was cracking away. None of the dimensions were truly square, the windows and doors were oddly non-standard and every fix-it project back there my husband took on created a domino effect of other things that had to be fixed first. A real nightmare.

The old man told us that his father worked tirelessly, non-stop on that addition for months, then, as soon as he finished, he sat down in a chair in the new room he'd built and died. My husband looked at me and mouthed the word, "Good."

[Malthus]

One day I was watering out front and an old man slowed down to peer at our house. I waved him down to ask about his interest and he told me that he grew up in our house, and his dad had built the addition on the back. "Oh, come in and tell me about it and let me show you what we've done!" I said. He obliged.

When we bought the house, the inspector said he couldn't inspect the pipes and everything else under the house because the addition on the back covered the hatch to the crawlspace. I knew this had to be bullshit, but we never could find the access. When I asked the old guy about this, he opened the cabinet under the kitchen sink and showed us how the floor popped up and opened to under the house. Bingo.

He told me that the old rosebush in the back was a "Peace Rose" his mom planted just after WWII. The terracotta cinderblocks the house was built from were manufactured by prisoners in the state prison. All kinds of interesting stuff.

The addition, built in the early 1960s had been a real pain in the neck to us. It was poorly attached to the main house and in fact we could see blue sky where it was cracking away. None of the dimensions were truly square, the windows and doors were oddly non-standard and every fix-it project back there my husband took on created a domino effect of other things that had to be fixed first. A real nightmare.

The old man told us that his father worked tirelessly, non-stop on that addition for months, then, as soon as he finished, he sat down in a chair in the new room he'd built and died. My husband looked at me and mouthed the word, "Good."

Oh, man - I'm probably going to hell for this, but that last sentence made me laugh out loud. :D

I think I'd get on well with your husband ... :cool:

[Nava]

My knowledge of English building vocabulary can not do this justice, but in the 1960s there were a lot of places in Spain built by the people that were going to live in them. Usually, a local priest with his social conscience revved up to HIGH would obtain land or donate some which belonged to his parish; get people who lived in nearby farms/old houses with outhouses, no electricity, no telephone... to form a cooperative; obtain materials from donations (in Spanish we speak of "a monk's dozen" and not a "baker's", because a monk will always beg for more) and toss everything together.

Often the people started out having some knowledge of bricklaying and/or woodwork, but piping? Electrical? Say what?

The flat I own in Spain is a top floor in one of those areas. Specifically, my block of 4 "portales" (each with three floors, 4 flats per floor) was the second one built. The walls are Old House Thick, which makes for very good insulation (I'm sure glad of it when I'm looking at the snow fall outside, you need a bazooka to get a draft in that house). The roof is very well insulated as well. But the wires going from the buzzers at the street door to the actual physical bells in the flats sneaks up inside the wall, to the right of flats A, then goes into flat A, the one for flat A's bell separates, the other three continue into flat B (mine) over the ceilings, then from there to C and D.

When I got in, I needed to get a new wire for the TV antenna in. The antenna guy managed to stick his own wire through the wires for C and D's bells. The electrician I called when C and D complained said there was no effing way the bells wires would be there. Then we looked and yes, they were. He ran one of those electromagnets over the wall and said "I... think I better try to locate the guy who worked in this house." He was able to find the guy and extract, with a lot of patience (the old guy can't draw a wire diagram), schematics of more-or-less where different wires are in each of the five blocks. Apparently they were getting closer and closer to actually being "in code" as the blocks get newer, but there's things like wire moving at head height (the old "electrician" didn't feel like hunkering down) when all the outlets are at ankle height.

I understand the piping is similarly creative, but apparently nobody had the bright idea of placing the wires inside the water pipes. Or maybe they did and the priest was able to disuade them.



My brother works in construction, for the last 3 years as a construction foreman. One of the most common causes of calls to the architect is impossibilities. A very common one is this:
The architect's main draftsman draws the main blueprint, then passes it to other folk to do the electrical, piping and so forth. And you know what? Everybody tries to use the exact same hole in the wall!
So he gets there blueprints which nobody has bothered put on top of each other to verify them, and according to them he has to place the gas pipe, water pipe, fiberoptics and electrical wire all through the same conduit. Riiiiiiite!

[KellyM]

Our house has an addition on the back that was clearly at one time a garage, probably a business garage judging by the number of phone jacks and electrical outlets (not to mention the "No Smoking By Order Of Fire Department" sign we found behind the drywall). There is another room which we think was originally a porch, and then likely the business office. Someone, clearly in the 1970s, had redecorated the room as a den, complete with fake electric fireplace mounted on a wall covered with fake veneer brick. (The fake fireplace was the first thing to go in the house.) But that's not the Muldoon, no, that's just ordinary bad taste.

This room didn't have a door when the fellow who sold the house to us bought it. Because it lacked a door, it didn't qualify as a bedroom. In order to increase the bedroom count in the house (and thus the asking price), he added a door by walling off the entryway to the den, with a very cheap prehung door installed therein. No big deal. However, there was crown molding at the wall-ceiling juncture where this wall was inserted. Rather than cut this out, he chamfered the king studs of the door so as to miss the crown molding. The drywall was also notched to clear the molding. The wall itself was installed entirely with drywall screws (many only into the Masonite paneling); I don't think I found a nail in the entire assembly. The drywall had been neither mudded nor painted. I suspect a hard shove would have popped the entire wall assembly out.

We had planned to merely replace the door with a nicer one and refinish the drywall, but when we realized what he'd done we knew there was no option but to rehang the door. We ended up ripping out the entire wall and rebuilding it. Fortunately it's only a 40 inch opening. A nice side benefit is that the new door doesn't self-close the way the old one did. :)

[Cherry2000]

When I bought the charming little 1935 building that is now my office, there were all kinds of lovely things that the previous tenant had done for presumably cosmetic purposes as well as "renovations"

He had installed crown molding in the main areas. Unfortunately, upside down, and glued flat to the wall. Niiiice...

Jetted tub he installed in the bathroom was also interesting. Had just plugged it into a regular 110 outlet (by monkeying with the plug), and had actually melted the outlet/box in the wall. He had installed some actually very nice tile in there, but never caulked between the tub and the tile on the wall, so you can imagine what that was like. Oh yeah...and greenboard? What's that?

The kicker though is when I was working on the place, and was washing my hands in the bathroom sink. The running water did not sound right at all. And the growing puddle at my feet didn't feel right. Looked under the sink, and the plumbing was attached to...nothing.

I asked my inspector why he hadn't called that little problem out, and he told me that the day he was there they had people over doing work in there, and he couldn't get under that one sink, but never would have expected something like that :rolleyes:

The stories about this place would take me all day to type up.

[Sparky812]

My house if full of "Muldoons", I have alraedy described one in another thread.
This month's mess started with mice, ended with rebuilding an exterior wall and relocating a heating duct, wiring, phone lines, etc.
In short, we had mice, I trapped them all them found where they were getting in. It seems there used to a milk door that someone had widened (probably for firewood) in the back wall adjoined to a storage cabinet outside.
I had to tear it all out and discovered:
1.) No insulation or vapory barrier, obviously
2.) While widening the opening they destroyed alot of the exterior brick and severed several brick ties.
3.) Concealed within the outside cabinet they ran an uninsulated heating duct as well as phone lines and wiring.
4.) To widen the opening they cut away the king and jack studs from the adjacent window! It is an exterior load supporting wall so the weight of the second floor and roof is basically being held up by the window!

I ended up gutting the whole plaster wall down to the exterior brick. I had to shore up the brick then jack up the window lintel and restud. Then I added rigid foam, R-20 batt insulation and vapour barrier. I firred out the wall and relocated the heating duct, wiring etc, to the warm side. This resulted in having to rearrange ductwork then my breaker panel and phone system.

I'm down to the drywalling now but I'm out of time before Christmas.

My wife is convinced we've bought the Money Pit.

[bdgr]

I just bought an historic house built around 1910 or so. This place has seen a lot of neglect, but I got it cheap and am gradually getting it ready to occupy...a few of the things that I've had to deal with

the plumbing...sheesh...

the drain for the house was run on the outside of the house, with much of vents (also on the outside) held togeather with duct tape....When we got into the plumbing in the upstairs (and only) bathroom we found it was pvc held togeather with duct tape as well.....mind you they taped it togeather and put down floor over it.

The house had 11 foot cielings. Some rocket scientist decided to lower these all to 7 foot.....even thoght the windows and transoms between the rooms were all higher than that....so the 1/4 inch drywall drop cieling was run right across windows and transoms and 90 year old ceder mouldings. All of that had to come out.

When we got the cielings all down, we found that they had re-wired part of the house by running wires across the droped cieling...in order to get etween roms they hacked their way throught the walls above the cieling. The walls were 3/4 inch thick ceder plank originally covered by wallpaper, except in the kitchen where it was ceder tounge and groove bead board.

The city had required them to get rid of all the cloth covered and knob and post wiring....so they did....all that was visible. When we got the floor pulled up in the kitchen we found sparking burned cloth covered wiring everywhere.

There was a wall heater upstairs that was supposed to be run off of 220, but they ran it off of two lines of 110 in phase with each outer, rather than out of phase. It didn't work, to say the least. We tore that out.

Someone tried to convert the dining room to a bedroom at one point by adding a half assed closet. To do so they cut the edge off of the mill work around the door.

It's been an interesting project. everything in the house originally was ceder, but much clearer than anything you can get now...including the flooring which was ceder planks where the individual floor board ran 16 feet of more in some places. it must have been something when it was new.

Oh, and the porch....it originally had a covered front porch with ornate columns. I know this because the neighbor told us she saw someone pull into the yard years ago, tie a chain around them, and drag them off causing the porch to colapse.

[gotpasswords]

4.) To widen the opening they cut away the king and jack studs from the adjacent window! It is an exterior load supporting wall so the weight of the second floor and roof is basically being held up by the window!

I ended up gutting the whole plaster wall down to the exterior brick. I had to shore up the brick then jack up the window lintel and restud. Then I added rigid foam, R-20 batt insulation and vapour barrier. I firred out the wall and relocated the heating duct, wiring etc, to the warm side. This resulted in having to rearrange ductwork then my breaker panel and phone system.
What? You don't trust structural glass? :D

[gardentraveler]

Don't know how I missed this thread earlier.

I live in an 800 sq foot 1929 ranch. The basic construction is sound and previous owners had done nice things like replaced windows and installed central air.

The immediately previous owners had a friend do some of the wiring. The inspector was OK with it except that one of the switches in the basement didn't have a cover. The wires themselves are somewhat artistically distributed along the basement ceiling (it's unfinished, so you can see the beams and the hardwood floor that is under the carpet that I've finally started to rip up). Eventually, I'm having the whole thing re-wired because the circuits need to be distributed better and I probably need a couple more of them.

The true muldoons in this house seem to be in the bathroom, where they blocked off the window and installed a one-piece surround at some point. When they installed the fixtures in the shower, they used some type of glue to attach the shower head. :rolleyes:

They also glued the hinges to the under-sink cabinet. It added an extra dimension of fun when I went to paint it. (I've applied paint liberally as all cabinets were dark imitation walnut with some of the ugliest hardware I've ever seen.)

[Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor]

Hmmm..
1)Electrical outlets directly below the only place to put a towel rack in the tiny downstairs bathroom.
2)Failure to complete the outside brick wall. Left a big hole, stuffed it with insulation, & screwed a grill over it.
3)Insanely orange wall paint in the living room.
4)Odd living room layout, that doesn't really leave any good place to put a TV.

[vison]

There was a coal delivery company in Vancouver owned by the Morrow family. "Phone to Morrow for your fuel today" said their radio ad and that was what passed for excitement on Brown Road in South Surrey when I was a kid.

My brother-in-law has been working for 15 years renovating the house he and my sister live in. He has done an A-1 job, everything perfect. Having finished the upstairs, he tackled the basement. He discovered that the previous owner had cut through most of the mid-house load-bearing wall and that the entire upper floor was more or less being held up by a 4 by 4 created from two 2 by 4s nailed together. He said he actually got chills up and down his spine as he removed sheet after sheet of drywall and found they were nailed only to a strip of wood along the floor and a 2 by 4 tacked to the ceiling. No one has ever figured out why the original bearing studs were cut out.

Anyway, it's all fixed nicely now. He also had horror stories about the wiring, but I don't know enough about wiring to repeat them.

[bdgr]

woohoo...more fun today. We found out that the downstairs living room light was knob and tube stuff, which connected to something upstairs. we started exploring and found a small "room"...kind of a dead space under the eaves" that had been walled off since the house was built. we cut a hole and found there was a stack of about 40 or so post cards sitting there in the middle of this dead space, the newest having a postmark of 1910. the oldest about 1905. We started looking into a way into the attic and finally had to cut a hole through the ceder plank cieling. turns out there were two entrances to the attic...both had been sheetrocked over.

we finally tracked down the source of the knob and tube wiring and found that while the 2nd floor was fed by a couple of romex wires those wires were tied directly into the knob and tube stuff. Luckily I have an electrician who will work for barter. The entire 2nd floor will have to be rewired.

[panache45]

My family moved into my house in 1958, when I was 13. The former owner had supposedly been an engineer, and had a unique sense of "home improvement." I remember my father discovering that one of the dining room receptacles wasn't working, so he opened it up, only to discover that it was wired with a simple lamp cord, which disappeared into a hole in the floor. The cord emerged in the basement, and was plugged into an extension cord, which was plugged into another extension cord, which was plugged into a ceiling light/outlet over the basement sink.

To this day, more than 50 years later, I'm still encountering bizarre things that can be traced back to the original owner . . . like the fact that the light over the kitchen sink is on the same circuit as the ceiling fan in my bedroom, in an entirely different part of the house.

[Bites When Provoked]

My father is one of those guys who considers himself an expert in all things he has no training for. When my folks moved into their first owned house, he decided he'd fix the wiring. No, he's not an electrician.

(Before anyone dies of heart failure, he did EVENTUALLY get the house rewired. Eventually.)

However, for at least five years (thinking on it, it actually could have been a lot longer; you kind of get used to it after a while) we had the following:


He'd pulled out part of the door frame in the lounge room to get to where the wiring was for the lounge room lights. He didn't put it back on, and he left unshielded wires just hanging there. In reaching for the switch in the dark you had a very good chance of putting your hands on live wires. I electro-shocked myself regularly until after about six months or so I got really, really good at guessing where the light was vs where the wires were.
The laundry room was wired to the lights circuit. When the washing machine inevitably overloaded the circuit and tripped it out, we'd lose all lighting to the house.
To fix the problem of that pesky overloading fuse, my father replaced the offending fuse with a nail. :eek:


How I survived my childhood is still a matter of horrified speculation for me.