Here's today. I put the range hood up along with diamond plate on the wall behind the oven. Alls left is trim and a backsplash.

You know they make backpacking camping equipment, right?
You can carry your own kitchen.

Does the kitchen inclube the back door to the house?

Dave wrote on 09/22/19 at 04:49:44:


Of course we spoke to a lawyer. We were told that the insurance company has a year to reach their determination. After that we can take them to court. But if the condition of the property changes in that time it invalidates the claim. Essentially we'd have to live with the kitchen all torn up like the demo company left it for an entire year and as long as the court case takes which could have been 6 months to a year depending on if the insurance company files an appeal which is normal practice when they lose a case.

Living without a functional kitchen and with holes through the party wall into the next door neighbors house for potentially 2 years is not an option.

The lawyer didn't comment on the fly by night public adjuster because we never received a full copy of our agreement with them.

As for the plumber we are still fighting with them for an itemized bill. But they couldn't charge us for the repairs to the repairs because we already had the loan drawn up by then.

For fixing the walls and ceiling I called more than a dozen general contractors and got quotes from $800 to $2800 for installation of 128 square feet of drywall. That's an entire 4 sheets of wallboard.
In the end I managed to get a neighbor to help me with the ceiling and did the rest myself. I just couldn't believe what a ripoff these contractors are.

Anyway if you ever need a public adjuster do NOT call Zenith.

If you ever need a plumber do NOT call Len the Plumber.

There's my wisdom for the day.

And yes we're ditching the homeowners insurance for another company.

As a plumber most of my life, except my stint at Boeing, I must ask, what did the plumber do wrong?

drywall up

raydawg wrote on 09/22/19 at 18:44:53:


If you must know. In addition to replacing the leaking pipe we chose to have all the old copper replaced so as to eliminate ticking timebombs all over the house.
Anyway the pipes for the bathroom upstairs above the kitchen were run below the drywall studs for the ceiling. Granted we didn't tell the guy we were ditching the kitchens drop ceiling but still it's a big zoning violation regardless and he should have known better.

The sewer stack was also changed to PVC instead of old cast iron. This is inspired by the aftermath of our next neighbors stack cracking and leaking into our basement last winter. The guy cut ours about 4' off the basement floor and ran PVC up from there. Except the PVC was the wrong size to mate up with the old pipe so he cemented the joint between the two. It took all of 2 days for the cement to crack and leak.

He removed the old ball valves for the boiler and replaced them with ....you guessed it. Gate valves.
He removed the old ball valves from the lines to the two outside spickets and replaced them with.....
Nothing! We had no shut offs for freeze prone outdoor plumbing!

Many electrical grounds were attached to our copper plumbing. All of which were just left hanging after the copper was gone. He didn't bother to even warn us or recommend calling an electrician.

He damaged the woodwork in the doorway to the kitchen with a tool hanging from his belt and pretended like I hadn't just watched him do it.

What a piece of work this guy was. So that's just the short list....