Builder screwed up, what now?

[terabitdan]

We hired a builder for our gambrel garage, with specs for 7' 6" door opening and 8' 4" sidewall height built on a concrete block above the foundation. The resulting sidewall would be 9' above grade with a high enough door to fit my truck.

The builder screwed up and we now have 8' walls with less than 7' door rough opening, too low for the truck. Builder has agreed verbally that it's not to spec and is working with their engineers to raise the door opening to the spec. We haven't discussed other opinions yet.

Of course, we can demand they build it to specs, but assuming they can get the door height I need, what would be reasonable to ask as monetary compensation? Any other ideas for making it right?




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[jd_1138]

That *****. I'd say at least 20% knocked off from the cost. What a ***** of a builder.

That's pretty tall for a truck. Does it have a lift?

 

[LXCam]

Is it me or is the slab not poured yet??

 

[jd_1138]

Is it me or is the slab not poured yet??

Depending on the slope of the ground, digging out earth below the grade to get the door height taller might cause drainage issues.

 

[LXCam]

Depending on the slope of the ground, digging out earth below the grade to get the door height taller might cause drainage issues.

Well obviously you read into where I was headed. But looking off to the left of the picture there sure is plenty of fall. So maybe what's the worst that might be needed, a two or three course retaining wall to the right of the shed. About the only limiting factor I see with what's known to gain that six inches would be rebar tie backs into the CMU if they exist.

 

[AZ Pete]

Jack up the building and put another course of block under it??


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[terabitdan]

The truck is an F250 superduty, right around 80" tall unlifted. It might make it in but there little room to swap tires or do work on it.

No, the slab isn't poured yet and I might be able to gain a couple inches that way. The block is about 6" above grade.


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[RVDan]

Jack up the building and put another course of block under it??


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That would be the most efficient course of action.

 

[LXCam]

The truck is an F250 superduty, right around 80" tall unlifted. It might make it in but there little room to swap tires or do work on it.

No, the slab isn't poured yet and I might be able to gain a couple inches that way. The block is about 6" above grade.


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I see at least two courses of block, is that correct? If there is only a single course to the right then my suggestion won't work. But if there is then why can't the contractor drop the slab 6". On the left side of the building your plate is 12" above grade.

 

[Lunker]

Can you raise the header ? Maybe switch the material to LVL?

 

[ozyborn]

Siding off, raise it the foot. Side with correct height siding. You ordered the building to. Certain spec and it is not right.

 

[DougWil]

That would be the most efficient course of action.

Yep, doesn't look to have any mandoors or windows that would end up with odd heights.


If you settle for this, you will kick yourself everytime you look at or enter it.
Raise it...... on the other hand, is this contractor competent enough to be able to do it?

 

[Orionrising]

is it a truss? does it even need a header?>

 

[Richard Cranium]

I agree, jack it up and add another row of block under it.
Good luck. I would be so pissed.

 

[Kevkx125]

Jack up the building and put another course of block under it??


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X2!!

 

[bczygan]

What leverage do you have?

 

[mrpizza]

I think they would be fixing it to my satisfaction, what I paid for! I would not accept a half assed fix.

 

[finn]

Another vote for jacking it up and adding block.

 

[ez-duzit]

I have to wonder where the OP was while this was being built. Why wait until it's all built to ask about door height?

 

[wren57]

Don't drop the slab. It looks like the land on the right of the shed is a good 6-12" higher than on the left. Also that tree right there may have a root system that comes to the shed, and dropped the slab could increase your risk of root-related issues. Jack the building up and add blocks is the best solution.

 

[terabitdan]

There are 1 1/2 courses of CMU all around. Lifting should be possible for the contractor adding a second 4" block would fix the sidewall height.

The roof is trusses, but not the gable end. the header is LVL already. A shorter quadruple lvl header or steel I beam would still need to be moved above the top plate to meet the door opening spec. There is plenty of room to do so in the gable end wall.

Pretty simple screwup, construction team used the wrong studs. I was out of town and couldn't check until too late.

I'm pissed about it that's for sure. In any negotiation I want to consider what to demand and what I'm willing to accept before starting.


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[jclem40c]

crib the up hill side, excavate to floor grade and lay up footer to match wall on up side, pour floor to grade and form up side to accept door and call it a garage. It seems that either you or the contractor should have noticed this irregularity long before you reached this point in construction. Not having seen any prints for the project I am at a loss to see who is to blame for the oversight ( and I use the term oversight for lack of a better one).

 

[Dr Stan]

on raising the building. Make the contractor hire a mover to raise it then add a couple of courses of block. Also make sure the foundation anchors are to code after the lift.

'bout the only other proper fix would be to tear it down & rebuild.

 

[tcianci]

There's nothing to demand, tell him when you get the building to spec, he gets the money to spec. There's no amount of discount that's going to make up fora building that won't meet it's intended use. Right now your contractor has about 2 days of work to straighten the place out, it's a screw up but not a disaster.

 

[ard]

How does a building get finished only to find this out!?!?


Drop the slab OR extra course of block. Be careful when you discuss this with the builder, as has been pointed out this guy is a proven hack. Make sure the slab is properly specd either way....


Edit: sorry for repeating- I loaded the page an hour ago and just got around to posting

 

[terabitdan]

The building is prefabricated, what you see is three days work. Plans definitely agree with the specifications, no one is disputing that.

Nope I won't be paying anymore until it's resolved to my satisfaction, final payment is 40%, that's enough leverage to ensure it's done right or I can hire someone else.

Raising it should be an easy fix.


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[terabitdan]

Thanks for all your input.


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[James-W]

I can't think of any other logical way of doing it other than raising the building. Digging down into the ground further to gain the height would work, but would no doubt cause water problems. Tearing it down and rebuilding would work, but would be expensive and is not really necessary. From a practical standpoint, in my opinion, raising the building is the only practical way of doing it.

 

[mitusa]

Make sure you don't have any local ordinances about maximum height of garages.....then proceed to raise the building.

 

[James-W]

Make sure you don't have any local ordinances about maximum height of garages.....then proceed to raise the building.

That's a very good point. When I built my garage I was told by the city building department the maximum height is 18ft 6in from the ground to the peak of the roof.

 

[terabitdan]

Knowing it always gets asked the initial post should have stated permits have been pulled and the specification was within building code.

9' max sidewall height from the mean grade to the top plate. 15' maximum height to the midpoint of the gable.

I spent some pleasant time with the building inspector understanding the requirements before getting quotes. Even found an error on their garage requirements handout.


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[jclem40c]

Once again... Need to see building blue prints. Was builder the excavator? Why was this not seen earlier in the build? Not defending the contractor or the owner but to assign blame we need more information. With all due respect to all on the forum I've got 25 years experience in the field and I feel that we lack enough information to make a responsible judgement on the issue. The OP would look somewhat foolish should this end up in a court of law if ,in fact, the builder had followed specifications and the issues were not as they seemed to be.

 

[vettex2]

if you can't park your truck in it, tell him to fix it or tear it down

 

[ddawg16]

With proper grading, you can get the floor low enough to get the height you want and keep water out.

Personally, I would go that way along with a nice discount.

 

[James-W]

With proper grading, you can get the floor low enough to get the height you want and keep water out.

Personally, I would go that way along with a nice discount.

With all due respect, I would have to disagree with you on this.

My thinking is, what happens if the floor is lowered and later on down the road there are water issues? What does the opening poster do then? Once this gets settled, the builder is off the hook and it will be the responsibility of the property owner to deal with the problem. It would be in the best interest of the opening poster to get this building done correctly right now so that hopefully he won't have any issues later on.

Personally, I would not want to take the chance that lowering the floor would work out and not cause any problems later on. I agree that it is an option that will work, at least initially, but there would always be the ongoing potential for water leakage into the garage. Besides that, I have no idea as to the cost of grading the surrounding area and putting in some sort of drainage system to channel water away from the building, but I have to think the cost would be more than to lift the building and add some concrete block. Anyway, that’s my assessment of the situation, be it right or wrong.

 

[Milton Shaw]

Jack and add to the building. Should be a simple job for someone who moves houses, I don't know if I would trust the builder himself to raise it. Check to see what a house mover would charge to raise it. I would put two more courses of block under it if your truck is that tall.

 

[58Yeoman]

I would agree on raising the building, then paint the foundation to match. I had a house built in 1974, and when the basement contractor measured for the beam pocket, they measured from the front of the house wall, not the garage, which set back another four feet. I didn't notice it (what did I know anyway). When the house builder came to check the foundation, he found it. The basement builder had to cut a pocket with a concrete saw, in the hot August sun.

Couple years ago, we had Lowe's build us a wooden deck. We didn't like it as they were building it, but the 'carpenter' knew more than we did. The following year, we called Lowe's and had them send someone else to check it out. He said that it had been built totally wrong, and the whole deck had to be replaced, all the way to the footings. It's their screwup, not yours. Have them do it right.

 

[The Tool Tyrant]

There are 1 1/2 courses of CMU all around. Lifting should be possible for the contractor adding a second 4" block would fix the sidewall height.

The roof is trusses, but not the gable end. the header is LVL already. A shorter quadruple lvl header or steel I beam would still need to be moved above the top plate to meet the door opening spec. There is plenty of room to do so in the gable end wall.

^^ If you do indeed have 2 top plates above the existing header, they can be removed, the header can then be raised 3", then strapping the header to the remaining top plates at both ends to tie everything back together. If the plates have already been deleted, then the next least disruptive fix would be, as you've brought up already, to replace the existing LVL with another with less height and more width. Another possible fix would be to add a flush beam above the door header (at floor height) allowing the header to be removed completely or at the very least, replaced with a shorter (in height) header.
You state the roof is truss, and I would naturally assume the floor joist span the short direction, which means that the door header is not carrying much load. I was a framer and framing contractor for 32 years, so I've been around the horn a few times!

Good luck...oh, and FWIW, I personally would not give any thought to adding another course of block or lowering the slab...but that's me.

 

[johninct]

As stated by other posters there are ways to solve the problem but that is not what you contracted for. You may have other future problems like if you jack up the truck, can you open up the hood? I am guessing that the problem was with the foundation either being too deep (I don't know your frost code) or them not going up high enough with the blocks.

 

[ard]

The roof is trusses, but not the gable end. the header is LVL already. A shorter quadruple lvl header or steel I beam would still need to be moved above the top plate to meet the door opening spec. There is plenty of room to do so in the gable end wall.

^^ If you do indeed have 2 top plates above the existing header, they can be removed, the header can then be raised 3", then strapping the header to the remaining top plates at both ends to tie everything back together. If the plates have already been deleted, then the next least disruptive fix would be, as you've brought up already, to replace the existing LVL with another with less height and more width. Another possible fix would be to add a flush beam above the door header (at floor height) allowing the header to be removed completely or at the very least, replaced with a shorter (in height) header.
You state the roof is truss, and I would naturally assume the floor joist span the short direction, which means that the door header is not carrying much load. I was a framer and framing contractor for 32 years, so I've been around the horn a few times!

Good luck...oh, and FWIW, I personally would not give any thought to adding another course of block or lowering the slab...but that's me.

How does this increase the ceiling/wall height inside the building??