Introductions

[Rich]

Wanted to get to know some of the members a little more. First off for industry professionals - if you would state your trade and maybe a little background about yourself for the non-industry professionals it would be greatly appreciated. Feel free to get some advertisement in there too if you have an area of the country and a business name or website.
For the non-industry professionals you could put down a little about your current project and maybe some information about prior experience or DIY projects you've done.
Is what I would like to come out of this is some possible articles for specific trades and Do it yourself projects that I could write for the site. So if there are several framers I could provide a review of saw blades or something like that.

[grumpydasmurf]

I am me, you know me :)

Since everyone else doesnt. I am from Chicago I work in the exterior remodeling and new construction industry. I specialize in roofing siding gutters and windows.

[erpensa]

Hi, I'm Steve. I'm a Mech Engr who lives in Raleigh NC. It's clear that our 1350 sqft ranch ain't keeping up with the Jones's or the Smith's or anyone. And my wife ain't at all happy about the floor plan. We would probably just plain move except I've invested 12 years of work and passion into the yard and landscaping. I've installed raised beds, terracing, border beds, a brand new Zoysia lawn, 5 palm trees, bamboo, Camellia's etc, etc. Plus we have a 3.0 acre wooded lot at the end of a Cul-de-sac which is just 2 miles from I40. So we've decided to stay put and do major expansion and remodeling. We know nothing so far, but we're here to learn and share whatever we can to help others

[Rich]

Welcome to the board erpensa.

[mreynolds]

Hi, my name is Mike and you have probably got an idea of my ventures so far by the questions. By profession and education I am a science a teacher, coach, with a masters in technology so I like the computer stuff a lot. Project wise, I have built a small 24 x24 home for a family in mexico(habitat type deal), re-roofed about 6 peoples homes and a cottage, drywalled a barns interior (long story) and just finished installing a sub panel in a friends garage for a new shop (everything worked except one outlet!). My current project is working on our families home on a ten acre lot out in the country. 2 years ago I had very little construction experience and understanding of the whole process, now thanks to the Internet(This site) and a lot of books I convinced the bank that I actually know what I am doing. The garage I built last summer was a lot of fun. I have to say the two toughest jobs I did was laying concrete block and the concrete. The block was tough because of the learning curve, it took a lot of patience and practice on a sheet of OSB to get the hand motions down. After that getting the mortar mix right was the next challenge. By the end I could lay roughly 200 blocks a day ( a big jump from the first day when I got six). I would say right now the toughest one I have dealt with is the concrete. I am still not real happy with the way it turned out, poor planning was mostly to blame. We have a 54 x 30 slab in our house so I am planning to go to war with this one in the summer. So thats were I am at right now, but I am sure there will be more to come, especially when I get to the plumbing part! 8)

[Rich]

Right on mreynolds. That's some great experience you're getting. Flatwork is probably one of the biggest challenges - even for veteran concrete finishers. It's mostly trial by fire.

[Thor]

Well I've been lurking for a few days so I figure it's time to jump in here with both feet and introduce myself. :)
I work in the mining industry as a welder and also do construction of underground mining installations. Have built a few homes and numerous garages in Northern Ontario and I'm currently in the process of remodelling an older home. Have always done my own framing/finishing/plumbing/landscaping and do my own electrical work with some shocking experiences :shock: :lol:
Hopefully I'll be able to throw in my 2 cents worth of advice and tips every now and then, but I'll probably have more questions than advice. Unfortunately most of my renovation projects have been trial & error (more error than success) so don't ask me too many questions :lol:

Rich; thanks for providing this forum 8)

[Rich]

Good to have you Thor. Trial and error is how most learning happens so you're well on your way it sounds like.. hah.

I was just thinking it would be interesting to see how people found the forum? It's more for my own benefit really - but if by search engine what were you searching for or if it's by another website what was the site?

[Thor]

I use "Google" for all my searches.
Typed in "construction forums" and voila there it was......and here I am.
Hoping to see this forum grow.

[Rich]

Me too.. me too.

[tpluttig]

Howdy All,

My name is Tom & I am in the process of getting my own consulting & photography business going in southcentral WI. I provide visualization services for homeowners and related businesses such as builders & suppliers. Visualization is very similar to an architect's rendering but it's much more dynamic. Thanks to custom computer imaging software, I can provide this service at a much more reasonable price. In addition, I am able to make changes very quickly & easily. This allows my clients to view many different options for colors, materials, landscaping, etc., before the work actually begins.

I have an extensive background in design and construction & thought this would be a good place to share some knowledge. Hope I can!

[Rich]

Welcome to the forum tpluttig.

[ITE]

Hi all,

I am a high school middle school technology teacher. my 4 field specialities are construction, manufacturing, transportation, and communication. currently I am teaching drafting and construction classes.
I have been working on one of my dad's rental properties that needs many repairs. I have had to practicly gut it and start over. I have framed walls, replaced subfloors, installed windows & doors, hung and finished drywall, installed subpannels, outlets, lighting fixtures, and corrected plumbing problems, installed showers and bathtubs, reroofed, laid ceramic tile, installed kitchen cabinents, etc. most of my knowledge has been from trial and error and asking questions. I have a very strong background in cabinet and furniture making and would be happy to answer any question. Also, I would like to get some extra experience in the construction field working for someone in residental and commercial construction during the summer months. I know a lot of theory but need more hands on experience and tricks of the trade.

[Rich]

I've had many carpenters that have worked for me with less experience than you have. And they've been at it all their lives.
Welcome to the forum.

[MommaC]

Hi,

I typed in 'Gable End Overhang' on google, and it brought me here. So glad it did!

I am a stay-home 'handy-mom' and I also work from home as a designer/drafter. Self-taught, by hands on experience, reading framing books and the British Columbia (Canada) Building Code, and surfing the 'net.

My hands-on experience includes:
-go-cart and tree fort building as a kid (okay, so I started early...)
-fine woodworking, mostly in Oak, during my highschool years
-three years ago hubby and I bought a little fixer-upper, and we:
-re-roofed
-gutted kitchen/dining/furnace room, removed two walls (one a supporting wall), installed 16' 2x10's to span the new room, and ended up with a gorgeous 'open' kitchen/dining space
-built a garage where the carport was
-excavated the crawlspace (under where the furnace room was) to fit the furnace
-replaced old windows with new

I also built a shed out back - we call it "The House that Mom Built". It's like a mini house: 10' x 15', and approx. 12' tall at the peak. The lower level, with about 7' headroom, is for storage, and then there's a ladder in the corner to the attic space, which is a very fun playhouse for my little girls. My hubby laughs as he tells people about it, because every day for a week when he'd come home from work, I'd have another wall up. Then the next week, on went the roof. (Okay, so that took a while - one main peak with a dormer out one side, birdsmouth cuts by hand etc, etc. Wasted a few pieces of lumber!)

I've just spent all afternoon reading postings on this forum. I'm like a sponge.

Most of my design / drafting work is for folks who are renovating and/or adding on to existing structures. I have so much to learn, and really will appreciate any help you folks may be able to offer...

I'm running VectorWorks10.5, and would like to upgrade to 11.0. Any other VW users out there? Happy Building...

Thank-you.

-Tara-

[Rich]

I've heard VectorWorks is pretty good. I've personally never used it - only installed the Viewer a couple months ago to look at some 3d interiors of an oval theatre. I've used Autocad as long as I can remember so I'm a little biased.
You've got some great projects under your belt. Welcome to the forum.

[mjpliv]

Hi,

I am a home designer working for one of the largest new home builders in Nova Scotia ( http://www.crescohomes.com ). We will put up between 80 and 100 units this year.

I spent time in the retail building supply business as well as designing roof trusses for a local truss plant for a while. I am currently using Autocad Architectural Desktop 2005.

I also operate a construction forum similar to this one for the Canadian construction industry and I participate in the newsgroup alt.building.construction

Pleased to amke your aquaintance!

[Rich]

Welcome to the forum mjpliv.

[Darren Crawford]

Good morning my name is Darren Crawford, i am a Carpenter by trade i also have experience in several other trades such as Electricity,basic plumbing,Maintenance,Drywall installation & finishing, also window & door installation, i am also a pretty good troubleshooter, i took my union Carpenters examination last May & i am currently waiting placement into the program, if you have any questions feel free to ask and i will try to answer them to the best of my ability for i am still learning more & more every single day and i have doing this off& on for 13yrs. my e-mail address is darrencrawford042004@yahoo.com, i am 33yrs. old from Chester Pa. married for 8yrs. with a hard working persistant wife whoi tries to keep me busy around the house doing little construction jobs only when i am unbelievably tired, Thank you & have a great day.

[Rich]

Welcome to the forum Darren.

[k54kenny]

Hi there, :D
Kenny's the name, I work in the operating rooms here in Redding, CA doing surgical assisting. I typed in 'vaulted ceiling wall build-up' on google at about 3am and saved this link into favorites before I fell asleep in my chair. I actually visited a couple of nights ago and loved it. This is my first experience with forums but what's life without a new learning experience?
My wife & I bought a bank repo house with a great view, solid original construction, and a bunch of projects that needed to be done. First was to make the house habitable( re-set toilets & doors, put in faucets, check wiring, repair plumbing, etc.) and then to clean up the pool and have it finalled by the county building inspector. [how it went 20 years from construction, through three previous owners and one re-furbishing by a local pool company without being finalled is beyond me. :? ) The projects were to include remodeling the kitchen and bathrooms, replace the firebox with a propane insert, replace the carpets throughout, re-roof, tile the entry and main halls, wood floor the living room, convert the hot water heater, cooktop, dryer and HVAC to propane, build a garage, build a pool house, landscape, raise our granddaughter and make a living all at the same time.
What do I mean 'were"? Well, on Dec 29 with 18" of snow on the ground and no electricity(in an all electric house) we were just trying to stay warm when the old zero-clearance fire place ignited the framing in the wall and burnt us out. :cry: Destroyed the master bedroom & bath, all the trusses in the main section of the house and smoke, soot and water damaged most of the contents. Sooooooooo...a few of the projects have been moved up. Fortunately the insurance will pick up most of the costs :) (i.e. what it takes to 'put it back the way it was') and we will add the difference for the upgrades. Anyway, the summers projects this year (with the help of a contractor) will take care of the roof(new trusses with vaulted ceilings) building up the interior walls to the new ceiling, different lighting scheme, new master bedroom and bathroom, re-built hall bath, floor coverings throughout, new drywall, paint , electrical re-do, new HVAC, water heater, fireplace (yes, we will still use it) and replacing the sliding glass doors which partially melted with french doors. The contractor is allowing me to do as much of the basic stuff as I can do right, as long as it is quality work. (Remember, I'm the customer he/I has/have to please! :wink: ) I've already done most of the demolition and will probably do most of the interior framing (including all the 'pony walls', moving a wall about 6" to widen the hallway and converting the master closet into a walk-in.) If I can pull it off, my out of pocket costs will be limited to the installation of the HVAC, hot water heater, cook top and propane system, and a few alterations to the electrical system which have to be done by the electrician to keep the warranty intact.
I've already made a couple of posts and will likely make many more looking mostly for ideas, techniques, and second opinions on things I run into. Looking forward to the community experience!

[Rich]

I'm sorry to hear of the fire.. what a crappy feeling that must've been :(
Welcome to the forum and hope we can all help you get your home back in order.

[TROWLER]

trowler here

29, pa

been in construcion for about 10 years, most my experience is in new home construction (framing) but i have sicne found the ease and $$ in concrete

i am and have been wanting to start my own business ( had enough of making other people money time to start making my own )

if any of you guys can offer any advice or have anything you can share with me about starting off on your own pl;ease hit the sticky i posted

thanks
-trowler

[Rich]

Welcome to the forum.. I'll probably be moving your post to estimating. It sounds like you have plenty of experience in performing the work.. just some help in estimating.

[Phydeaux]

Greetings fellow netizens! I can't believe I haven't done this a long time ago, but this is the first time I've really looked for an online forumboard related to my trade.

About me: I'm 34 years old and have been a carpenter for about 15 of those years. In that time I've gone from being a framer to hodcarrier (bricklayers assistant) to cabinetbuilding. At 24, a friend told me about the carpenters union and i decided to check it out, I was one of the youngest members of my local to pass the journeyman test without going through the apprenticeship program (doing this doesn't make you many friends, i learned). I was a union carpenter for about 5 years, in which I learned a wealth of knowledge, building schools, mid-rise apartments and many other commercial buildings. Since then, I've returned to where I began, building custom homes.

I guess the reason I started looking for a construction forum is to finally give something back to the medium from which I've gotten so much. I have come to rely on the internet in all its forms for the answers to countless questions over the years and will, no doubt, continue to do so for many to come. A forum such as this serves as my best hope of giving back. My reasons are not entirely selfless though, I also hope to learn more about areas of the industry that I haven't experienced and that interest me.

Hopefully there are others here who will find my experience useful. I check the private messages of forums that interest me regularly, so if you think I might be able to answer a question, feel free to message me.

I have done very little lurking here prior to making this post so for all I know this community may have more experienced carpenters then they know what to do with.

[Rich]

Welcome to the forum Phydeaux.. always good to have more experienced members.

[senor_mouse]

Hi all,
New member here. My name is Mike. I am a small general contractor. My trade background is carpenter. I've got extensive career background as a commercial superintendant.
While well-versed in construction, I'm a 'newbie businessman'. Quite a different skill set, really :roll:. This site looks good for learning about the business admin. side of construction.
Also a pianist with a degree in music (go figure :shock: well there is math in common). Does this make me an oxymoron or just a moron? :wink:

[Rich]

Welcome to the forum senor_mouse.

[hilly29]

Well, I fall short of all of you. I really don't have any experiance. Unless you count helping to hold drywall or boards etc.. and being a "go getter" person experiance. lol.
Anyway, i found this forum while searching for answers to construction (leak) problems we are haveing. Anyway, my names Jen, and i'm glad to find there are alot of professionals on here maybe i'll find the help i need!

[Tom R]

Welcome, Jen, actually there's no such thing as 'falling short', we all started out the exact same way. I'm sure this forum can help you along.

[hilly29]

I sure hope your right! And thank you. I wish i was more like the lady who posted on here. I always wished i was more like that. Kinda a "Jen of all trades". lol Closest i come is building birdhouses. Anyway, You all seem ver nice. I'm glad i found this site.

[TomB]

Hi
I am a small general contractor. Ex ironworker,ex residential carpenter, and ex superintendant for a commercial general / acoustical ceiling contractor in the San Francisco Bay Area. I have my son as a partner and currently, we are doing a lot of repair work for realty companies. Been in construction since I was 18. 32 years now.

[grumpydasmurf]

Tom, welcome to the foum!

[woodall83]

Time to introduce I suppose. My name is Jeff, right now I work in the computer industry, but I'm considering switching careers to home building. The industry excites me and I think I would have fun working in it, much more than computers. All I have is a few weekend projects that I have helped with under my belt, but hopefully I will pick it up quickly. They include:
Garage
2 Sunrooms
Screened Porch
Finished basement
Remodeled entertainment room
Numerous decks.

Glad to be here!

[Rich]

Welcome to the forums woodall

[crimeSTAR]

Hi, I am currently a construction student(partly due to finding this site) at Ohio State. I've tried a variety of career choices (Pharmacy, Medical, Finance, Communication, Computers) before I finally concluded that they were all boring (Especially Computer Programming/Networking). I've always wanted to get into home building one way or another, but I couldn't find a degree related to it. Dropping out and starting from the bottom up just wasn't an option for me (I'm already $16,000 in debt from school tuition, so I absolutely must graduate). Ihave a little experience drywalling and painting.

I looked at Architecture, Interior Design, and Civil Engineering, but those majors just weren't for me. I thought I'd never find anything that I was fit for in the Construction Industry. All I knew was that i had a good business sense, and that I liked everything homebuilding/design/remodeling (The only channel I watch on TV is HGTV).

Lucky for me, I found out that my school offered a Construction/Business (Construction Systems Management) degree by mere chance. I accidentally ran into it on my schools Agriculture website (the major isn't listed on there website of official majors, I think it's subcategorized under "Agriculture")

Although the pay for a Construction manager isn't as high as a Pharmacist or a Doctor, I am much happier. I found out that money doesn't=happiness the hard way (wasted nearly 4 years of my life). BTW, how can anyone bear sitting in a boring cubicle all day long? That drove me nuts.

[grumpydasmurf]

Welcome tot he forum, crime star. I must ask, are you some kind of theif? :)

[crimeSTAR]

Welcome tot he forum, crime star. I must ask, are you some kind of theif? :)

Nope, just two completely random words thrown together. I would have registere dunder something else, but I've been using the same username at other forums for years now, so it's easy to remember my username/password no matter where I post at.

[Rich]

Welcome to the forum crimeSTAR. I feel for you - I started in architecture. Went 3 years in that and ended up switching over to CEM and was really bored with it so I dropped out before my last year and started a residential construction company.
Was going really good - until a friend of mine called me and asked if I wanted to work large commercial. The market was starting to slow in the area I was at - so I moved to Colorado. Been here for the last 3.5 years having all kinds of fun.
Started here on a 130million dollar office project.. then went did a small bank remodel, then started on a 100million dollar hotel before I was asked to build the CEO's house (11million).

[crimeSTAR]

Welcome to the forum crimeSTAR. I feel for you - I started in architecture. Went 3 years in that and ended up switching over to CEM and was really bored with it so I dropped out before my last year and started a residential construction company.
Was going really good - until a friend of mine called me and asked if I wanted to work large commercial. The market was starting to slow in the area I was at - so I moved to Colorado. Been here for the last 3.5 years having all kinds of fun.
Started here on a 130million dollar office project.. then went did a small bank remodel, then started on a 100million dollar hotel before I was asked to build the CEO's house (11million).

If I already had a job offer, then I'd quit school too. That's one thing I love abotu Construction, you are constantly working on new projects, so the bore factor is eliminated. Not to mention that the career is pretty much transferrable to any region of the world.

[Rich]

I didn't quit because of a job offer.. I quit because they weren't teaching me anything I hadn't done before 50 times.
Construction is definately a rewarding job - at least in my opinion.

[crimeSTAR]

I didn't quit because of a job offer.. I quit because they weren't teaching me anything I hadn't done before 50 times.
Construction is definately a rewarding job - at least in my opinion.

They should have just given you the credit for work experience. I know that at OSU, you can test out of most classes that you are already familiar with (except those useless Humanities/Art classes).