To Destroy or Not Destroy

[Harley_Monkey]

Been building my own house past 2+ yrs with my own hands with no prior carpentry experience. Basically learning as I go well fast forward to today I have yet to dry it in :( but have learned quiet bit in the time being to know that I messed up pretty bad. Starting on choice of non dimensional lumber mixed with dimensional lumber, the tongue and groove 3/4 plywood never came out straight or long enough to span the entire span of floor or fully underneath the wall framing plate and I didn't measure before buying that it isn't a full 4x8 sheet, along with I put insulation down between the floor joist and thought I could keep it covered entire time. Now the insulation is all wet and ruined been past over year now from putting walls up tearing the plastic, the floor joist are rotted in some areas along with floor of where water stood, mold/fungus is growing on the framing, the whole house is out of square and list goes on. Have been doing nothing but, telling myself I can fix this I can fix this and steady building as the structure seems to be rotting out from underneath me. Every time I turn around I'm going back over adding or changing my work cause I never had a idea in first place how much room I needed till I built it and decided that's to small. Another part is the walls don't line up flush with rim joist due to using non dimensional rough cut lumber some areas it sticks out further than wall. Part of the house is also uneven and crooked from one my levels was bent and I didn't know it (be sure to buy the plastic levels) I was up on roof redoing some my upstairs dormer work with reciprocating saw board fell to floor and went into floor as if no problem and started looking at rest of house then at saw and thinking should I just destroy this whole damn thing and start over right or keep putting band aids over every thing..... Not to mention I keep hearing people tell me I have put to much work into the house to tear it down, now at same time I see it as complete "failure" time to cut my losses and move on with something else....

[RTF]

Why don't you hire a couple of carpenters/framers to help you correct what is wrong. Using people that build homes for a living might save you a lot of headaches and money. At least get their opinion on whether or not it can be saved.

[Harley_Monkey]

Cause Im on limited income disabled vet and cant afford it.

[Don_P]

From the outside looking in... you have enough money to walk away and let it fall. I'd find someone who can take a critical look before you do that. I've repaired work that had been stopped and let weather. Our helper went through the floor of one place when we walked in the door. We stabilized, replaced, got a roof on and turned it back over to them to finish the dried in shell.

[Harley_Monkey]

Wow well its not that bad off that you walk through front door and fall through floor then again a track hoe looks like a fun toy to demolish it. From what you said stabilized and replaced that's something I can do its just like having to rebuild the house again. I will make my final decision after today when I rip the insulation out the floor joists and see if its possible on how much damage is down there. If its not to much then "after" I get roof on I will sister up some new floor joist down there just hard part is I ran a beam every 4ft in 20ft of floor joist span. The beams are pressure treated so I know they are still good. Will keep posted on how this goes.

[Harley_Monkey]

Well Im going to have to say its time to pull the plug on this project from looking at floor joist cut my loses and move on better next time. Got most insulation out from under there every single joist has mold and or rot somewhere on it. I could dry it in and pull all apart but I would be spending more time in restoring the place than I would to start a new house and be done with it by then. its damn near impossible to replace the floor joist and flooring with all screws and lag bolts I got going through the system. I admit I fucked up by putting insulation down in floor before drying it in along with not starting with proper tools, mixing dimensional lumber with non dimensional lumber and nothing came out square or lined up right along with didn't grade ground properly before laying the brick piers down. I hope everyone learns from my mistakes that has never built a house before. All is left to do is let it be and start building on other side of yard the right way before this trailer rots from over my head or hurricane takes it. I will post more of whats going on as progress is made if I can recover emotionally from this loss.

[Don_P]

Bummer!
It is hard to work on a place on the pay as you go plan. I did ours in stages. Saved till I could do the foundation, stopped and saved again till we could dry it in and then tackled it piecemeal. The only note was forgetting the shingles, had to charge them and then pay it off.

I'd still try to deconstruct it and salvage what you can. I'm sure you've learned alot in the process, sorry it was such a draining education.