Hmm, if that architect messed up so badly with such simple things, I wonder what other messes he/she created...
Yeah, Makes you wonder.
I plumbed a rebuild of a home on Lake Washington, owned by one of the Microsoft biggies sort of near St Edwards State Park.
I plumbed in the jetted tub according to the plan.
The pipe was all in.
The the designer came in and she said I should have know to flip it the other way, so you could see the water view as you were laying there.
To myself I"m thinking , well Duh, but that's how you drew it. I'm not going to change "your" design" to please myself.
So I tell her, that's a "change order" to replumb it.
She says no. Change it, because it's obvious that opposite of the plan is the right way. Cut out your plumbing, and re-drill across the living room ceiling, and no, I'm not going to pay you for doing it twice.
Yeah, like it was the plumbers fault for following the designers plan.
A week later, I showed her the downstairs bath I was going to plumb.
I asked her,
According to your plan, you won't be able to get into or out of the shower, with the toilet so close.
She said, just do it like the plan. Quit trying to think so much.
So I said, Okay, I will, but if you don't like it, it's going to be a change order this time.
She said quit making a big deal of this and plumb it according to the plan, I know what I'm doing.
So of course, when she saw the plumbing finished, she was aghast.
Oh no! It can't be this way! Change it now!
At least that time she signed for the change order.
The whole project was that way, for all of the trades.
At lunch we would laugh at what an idiot the designer was, and how much money we were losing trying to fix their mistakes.
We at least had other customers that knew how to build that knew construction techniques.
It's hard to convince someone that works in front of a computer, that they don't know more then construction professionals.
Months later, I saw the home pictured on the front page of the Sunday pullout. A big article by the home owner and the designer, bragging that they kept the stupid construction workers from messing up their beautiful home. How funny was that. Here we were losing money, trying to explain to two clueless people how a home goes together, and they think they are geniuses.
When the homeowner called a few years later about doing more plumbing for him, I told him I was too busy.
What was he thinking?
I couldn't work in that environment twice. Not for those two.
The last two home I designed and built, are now being lived in by home contractors. Those were built in 85 and 87
I see elements from my design now all over the Seattle area.
The Burnsteads come over one weekend, and tape measured the home, and six months later they were tweaking some of their plans,
The contractor on the hill, a smaller builder, was doing twenty plus home a year at that time, but later he kicked it up to about 100 a year.
It's funny driving by stuff that looks a little like the one I drew on my kitchen table in the early 80's