Your Home Needs a Strong Frame
A house’s frame is like its skeleton. If the frame is improperly constructed, the house will struggle to support its own weight. Defective framing can look like surfaces sagging and bowing, drywall cracking, out-of-plumb/out-of-square walls, doors and windows not fitting into their frames, uneven cabinetry, and odd gaps in trim. When lines that should be straight are curved and bent, moving into your dream home can feel like living in a carnival attraction. Incompetent design or construction work is usually to blame for these issues. To cut costs, builders may elect to use thinner lumber for load-bearing beams or place fewer of them. Badly spaced beams can look fine initially, but gravity will eventually win out, and the house will start to sag. If really cheap lumber is used for framing, or the lumber isn’t properly protected from rain at the job site, it may contain excess moisture. This wet wood can warp inside of the finished home as it dries out. Framing can also be compromised by water leaks from poor grading or defective roofs bloating and rotting the lumber. Even when the framing crew does their job well, if the other subcontractors on the project are incompetent, they can throw all of that hard work out of the window. Plumbers, HVAC technicians, and electricians often destroy good work by drilling excess notches and holes into the studs to install pipes and wires. The best quality wood still cannot survive having giant chunks taken out of it. A structurally compromised home can be incredibly expensive to repair. Johnson Law works with experienced structural engineers to identify these framing problems and bring negligent builders to heel.