Somebody Is Going to Screw Up

Somebody is going to screw up.

Mistakes will be made.

Fortunately, LinkedIn has determined who should be fired.

This week we're talking about what actually happens when somebody screws up on a jobsite.

The Good News: The schedule is finally coming together.

The Bad News: It's the schedule from three weeks ago.

I saw a post with a picture of plumbing for a toilet cut through an I-joist.

As expected, the internet handled it calmly and rationally.

Fire the plumber.

Fire the framer.

Probably fire the superintendent while we're at it.

I understand the reaction. Cutting an I-joist where you aren't supposed to isn't exactly something you put on the company Christmas card.

But the interesting part to me wasn't who screwed up.

It was the expectation that nobody should.

To be fair, some of that probably has to do with social media.

But if you've been in this industry for a minimum of one full work week, you know the reality of building houses with hundreds of people making thousands of individual decisions over several months.

Somebody is going to read a plan wrong.

Somebody is going to misunderstand a detail.

Somebody is just straight up not going to do a good job sometimes.

And occasionally, somebody is going to stare directly at an I-joist and decide that's exactly where the drain needs to be.

Probably because it can't go anywhere else.

Okay, so the framer should've moved the I-joist.

Maybe.

What if moving it screwed up the layout?

Maybe the layout was wrong to begin with.

There's just not enough context in one picture to know.

So let's just assume somebody screwed up.

That's not an excuse for bad work.

There's a difference between a mistake and negligence.

If someone repeatedly ignores plans, hides problems or keeps making the same mistake after it's been addressed, that's a different conversation.

But one bad decision doesn't make someone a bad tradesman.

The goal isn't to build a house where nobody makes a mistake.

That house does not exist.

The goal is to catch mistakes while they're still relatively easy to fix.

That's a big part of what being a superintendent actually is.

You walk houses.

You check work.

You ask questions.

When something does go wrong, figure out what happened, figure out the correct repair and figure out whether something needs to change so it doesn't happen again.

Then keep building.

I-joists are designed with room for plumbing, electrical and mechanical penetrations.

That doesn't mean you can cut wherever you want.

For the P3 joists shown here, holes can be cut through the web within the manufacturer's limits for size, spacing and distance from supports.

The top and bottom flanges?

Don't cut them.

And if the hole you need doesn't fit within the manufacturer's chart, don't make the hole and ask questions later. Get the required repair or approval first.

There are already fewer skilled tradespeople than this industry needs. We don't need to lower our standards because of that.

But expecting perfection isn't a standard.

It's an expectation nobody can meet.

A good jobsite isn't one where nobody screws up.

It's one where the screwups get handled quickly and professionally.

See you next Friday.

The tape measure usually knows who's right.

— David