The Cavalry Ain't Coming, Custer

Being a superintendent is basically just being professionally held hostage.

Homeowners need something.

Trades need something.

The office needs something.

Inspectors need something.

And somehow after enough years of it, you start convincing yourself you enjoy it.

I'm pretty sure that's called Stockholm syndrome.

The Good News: Existing home sales climbed 3.2% month-over-month to 4.17M, and housing inventory is up 9.8% year-over-year to 4.5 months supply. More homes selling, more supply on the market. Take it.

The Bad News: Median home price hit $429,300 in May, up 2.8% year-over-year. Mortgage rates are holding at 6.49%. Nobody's getting a deal out there.

When things are quiet, you know something is wrong.

It just hasn't shown its ugly face yet.

A typical day can be five phone calls. It can be twenty-five phone calls. Sometimes it feels like fifty, and somehow most of them happen between 4:00 PM and 5:30 PM.

One minute I'm driving to my last site of the day to meet the framer on a couple easy punch items.

The next minute we're reframing two rough openings and moving a laundry room wall.

And by 'we,' I mean Sergio was reframing.

My job was running up and down the stairs grabbing tools, materials, measurements, and whatever else he needed like I was fifteen years old again picking up trash on jobsites for my Dad.

But I'm a superintendent.

Good at planning.

Good at running.

Good at getting.

Not very good at framing.

I know my place.

The point is, things come up constantly in this business.

It's a 'we're done when we're done' kind of industry.

Sometimes that's 5:00 PM.

Sometimes that's 8:00 PM.

Sometimes that's whenever the problem finally gives up.

The cavalry ain't coming, Custer.

The job isn't avoiding problems.

It's getting ahead of them so they don't become bigger problems.

Like a homeowner moving into their brand-new house and finding out their brand-new washer and dryer won't fit in their brand-new laundry room.

Not me.

Not me.

Not me.

But I've heard stories.

Unfortunately, this week's story is me.

Years ago, but still me.

And like a lot of people's embarrassing flashbacks, this one randomly reappears in my brain while standing in line at a grocery store.

The kind of memory that makes you physically cringe.

Can you imagine building a house over four months, making it all the way to the homeowner walkthrough, and then getting asked why there's an anchor bolt sticking straight up through the carpet?

Right there in his soon-to-be office.

About four inches off the baseboard.

Slab foundation, by the way.

Dude.

Let's review the list of people who could have brought this to my attention:

Mason. Framer. Electrician. Insulator. Sheetrock crew. Trim carpenter. Painter. Carpet installer. Cleaner.

The carpet installer honestly deserves special recognition.

I still don't know how he managed to cut the carpet around that anchor bolt so perfectly.

If craftsmanship was the goal, it was outstanding.

Every single trade that walked through that house could have said something.

Nobody did.

But at the end of the day, it wasn't the mason's house.

It wasn't the painter's house.

It wasn't the carpet installer's house.

It was mine.

That's the part of construction management nobody tells you about.

You don't get credit for every problem you solve.

You get blamed for the ones you miss.

And honestly?

That's how it should be.

Exterior walls and sill plates are required to be anchored to the foundation using approved anchor bolts or anchor straps.

The code requires 1/2-inch anchor bolts spaced a maximum of 6 feet on center with proper embedment into the concrete.

The point is simple:

The house is supposed to stay attached to the foundation.

Not just most of it.

Translation:

Anchor bolts are important.

Anchor bolts sticking out of finished flooring are also important.

Just for completely different reasons.

See you next Friday.

Keep that patience threshold high, and those punchlists short. Preferably without anchor bolts.

— David