RE: Acquaintances that want your work for free
March 10, 2017 at 12:32 pm
(This post was last modified: March 10, 2017 at 12:34 pm by vorlon13.)
While visiting a neighbors recently remodeled/renovated home, he expressed a concern about a basement room with a very large clear span ceiling and how much stuff was upstairs over it.
This is a big deal, having the ceiling sag (bad) or collapse (worse) isn't a good thing and he wondered how it could be checked without tearing down the dry wall and looking. I told him to get a step ladder, and we set it up in the middle of the area downstairs and I had him watch the gap between the top of the ladder and the ceiling with a framing square, and then his sons and I went upstairs directly over his location and jumped up and down a couple times. Went back downstairs and asked if the gap changed and he said not at all.
There you are, no need to ever worry about it, I wouldn't have worried about a deflection of a 1/4 inch, and there was no deflection at all. Told him he had an adequate reserve of strength in the framing in the ceiling and that was that.
Didn't occur to me at the time, but hiring a structural engineer to come out to his rural farmstead and pretty much do the same test I did would have been quite pricey. I didn't charge anything or even think about it at the time. On the other hand, later on he gave me a 'heads up' on someone with an item for sale and I got a hellish deal on something for my farm. Did I give him a spliff or finders fee ?? No, didn't occur to me.
Just how we do things out here.
This is a big deal, having the ceiling sag (bad) or collapse (worse) isn't a good thing and he wondered how it could be checked without tearing down the dry wall and looking. I told him to get a step ladder, and we set it up in the middle of the area downstairs and I had him watch the gap between the top of the ladder and the ceiling with a framing square, and then his sons and I went upstairs directly over his location and jumped up and down a couple times. Went back downstairs and asked if the gap changed and he said not at all.
There you are, no need to ever worry about it, I wouldn't have worried about a deflection of a 1/4 inch, and there was no deflection at all. Told him he had an adequate reserve of strength in the framing in the ceiling and that was that.
Didn't occur to me at the time, but hiring a structural engineer to come out to his rural farmstead and pretty much do the same test I did would have been quite pricey. I didn't charge anything or even think about it at the time. On the other hand, later on he gave me a 'heads up' on someone with an item for sale and I got a hellish deal on something for my farm. Did I give him a spliff or finders fee ?? No, didn't occur to me.
Just how we do things out here.
The granting of a pardon is an imputation of guilt, and the acceptance a confession of it.
