Does it have to be an old house, or am I allowed to complain about my 90s-cut-every-corner-besides-size mcmansion? Flashing? Who needs flashing? We don't need no stinking flashing!

Oh lets just go for drama and vent @G W

I forgot to add a picture of the inside out windows!

Our electrical box is right above the water heater! Definite no no.

There were old exhaust fans for the bathrooms shoved up into the joist spaces above the bathroom ceilings that were still connected to wiring. There were new ones stuck in the openings. None of them were actually connected to the ducts that vented out. The new ones were in close proximity, but not connected. Other live wires were found. Things that did not seem to be shut off by any breaker. A joist under the bathroom remodeled right before the sale had about an inch of wood connecting it.

So you think having the electrical box above the water heater is bad? Years ago when i was looking for a house to buy i visited a house where they had cut a hole in a fiberglass shower stall so they can put the shower right in front of the fuse panel and still access the panel to change a fuse! They had put the showerhead right above the panel. You could change a fuse while showering! And that was not the only wrong about that house.

Many years ago we looked a 2 bedroom row house for a rental investment. The house was built pre-indoor plumbing. The only toilet was in a tiny closet in a bedroom on the 2nd floor. The kitchen sink on the 1st floor also acted as the bathroom sink, and the open shower was in the unfinished basement. The water from the shower rain across the basement floor to a drain. LOL

Wow. I’ve got a few stories, but I’ve got nothing that comes even close to a fuse box in the shower or the primitive bathroom facilities that spans 3 floors. :0)

We rented a VRBO that had glass shower doors with an etched bamboo stalks design . The doors were hung upside down !

If by "glazing" you're referring to glazing compound that holds glass panes in a window sash, it belongs on the outside.

What do you mean by "nothing to send the heat upwards into the floor". What kind of heating system is it?

How old is the house?

My current project house has so many issues that it is hard to pick just one. Probably the worst was that the bathroom remodel. The previous owner removed the existing fixtures and built a platform above floor level for the drains. The floor joists below had been butchered but they didn't reinforce anything just added weight above. The bathtub drain was connected with a leaking rubber fitting and sloped backwards so flushing the toilet dripped into the kitchen below.  

My all time favorite has to be the house where drywall was used as the underlay for slate tile in the bathroom.

My current project house has so many issues that it is hard to pick just one. Probably the worst was that the bathroom remodel. The previous owner removed the existing fixtures and built a platform above floor level for the drains. The floor joists below had been butchered but they didn't reinforce anything just added weight above. The bathtub drain was connected with a leaking rubber fitting and sloped backwards so flushing the toilet dripped into the kitchen below.  

My all time favorite has to be the house where drywall was used as the underlay for slate tile in the bathroom.

My current project house has so many issues that it is hard to pick just one. Probably the worst was that the bathroom remodel. The previous owner removed the existing fixtures and built a platform above floor level for the drains. The floor joists below had been butchered but they didn't reinforce anything just added weight above. The bathtub drain was connected with a leaking rubber fitting and sloped backwards so flushing the toilet dripped into the kitchen below.  

My all time favorite has to be the house where drywall was used as the underlay for slate tile in the bathroom.

@res2architect

I have read both ways now; some say glazing on the inside and some say out? Im not syre but I got an excuse not to flop them now. 😀

As for the heating system, it is a mess. Vandals ripped all the copper out so to sell it quick the owners installed pex radiant floor without heat diffusers; just stapled it to the florboards overhead in the basement. It does heat the house, but not well.

I got a 1930 four square, and the owners before me took out a load bearing wall. The 2x5 floor joists for the second floor spanned 18 feet.

Asvto be expected, the floor deflection was three inches in the middle!!

Inside glazing for aluminum storefronts and steel windows

Can probably improve radiant heat transfer if its exposed

We have storm windows on all our stained glass windows. In the kitchen, there's a thin bit of acrylic protecting the inside, too. Makes me wonder if the former owners had food fights. If your windows are well-protected, it doesn't matter which side is which.

We have hooks in the porch ceiling that look like they're for a porch swing. They are too close to a window, particularly for an area that gets a lot of wind. And guess what? That window just happens to be the one modern replacement window in the entire house.

Here are some sources for heat transfer plates for Pex tubing.

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=pex+heat+transfer+plate&hvadid=414831818290&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=9002067&hvnetw=g&hvqmt=e&hvrand=9944713667540593513&hvtargid=kwd-300562490106&hydadcr=12643_9717226&tag=googhydr-20&ref=pd_sl_3n8r28th2q_e

https://www.pexuniverse.com/heat-transfer-plates

https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=pex+universe+radiant+heat+transfer+plates&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&dlnr=1&sei=hNGZZI6jDuCi5NoP5u-GqAU#dlnr=1&kpvalbx=_idGZZIPcL4iy5NoPsfSN-Ao_62

The deep dark basement of our townhouse had a window well outfitted with a sump pump. When we moved in the basement was nice and dry, but some previous occupant had glued carpeting to half the floor. After a massive storm, water entered the basement and soaked the carpet. What could have happened to the sump pump? Every time we flipped on the light over the stairs and went down to test it, it worked! After much frustration we found that the pump was tied to the light switch circuit. When it was off, so was the pump. We called an electrician.

Meanwhile, an eye-watering stench from the wet carpeting also revealed that a previous occupant's cats had been kept in that basement. It took several gallons of enzyme treatment, 2 fans, a dehumidifier, and 1 week to remedy that problem.

My last house was built in 1898. We moved into the house in 1993. When we were buying the house, we asked the PO what was under the threadbare carpeting throughout the house. She had put expensive oriental rugs over the threadbare carpeting.

Her answer: "I have no idea what's under the carpet because the carpet was here when we moved in." They had moved in over 30 years earlier. It turned out they had original oak floors. However the carpeting was so old that the padding had melted into the wood floors. It took my ex almost a month to remove the melted padding. These were the floors we uncovered.

What was more amazing what this was the top ENT doctor in the area, yet they did nothing to update the house. The thermostats were from the 1940's. The kitchen cabinets were from the 1940's or 50's (the kind built into the wall with the backs being the wall). They painted every room except the kid's room white. Everything was white including the fireplace, etc. They still had half the electric as the original knob and tube.

Meanwhile, they sold this house to us, moved to Fl where they were finally going to travel, play golf, etc. Unfortunately the wife passed away a year after they sold the house.

Our best one so far is that the dryer vented into the stairwell

Our house had been ”renovated” by ”handy” members of the congregation of the church for which it was the pastor’s home before they built a new house and sold the old one to us.

A lot of the parts used for the ”renovation” had clearly been salvaged from other places. The kitchen sink should have had the steel front wrap around the top edge of the cupboard it was mounted on, but since the cupboard was deeper than the sink, the sink sort of perched on top of the cupboard and they put a narrow beading of thin, poorly painted wood around it that was a magnet for gunge and mould. The actual cupboards were not long enough for the room, so there was a weird space in one corner where they did not meet and you had to be careful not to drop anything off the edge in there.

Carpets were recut and put back together to fit the rooms which were different sizes and shapes from the rooms the carpets had originally been laid in. The door frames were all seemingly painted by the younger (ie, primary school) members of the congregation who hadn’t quite got the hang of staying in the lines, in a calamine lotion pink which was not entirely complementary to the olive green baseboards.

The hot water system was a wood fired heater (that wan’t a problem), but it was located right outside the toilet door (here toilets tend to be in a little room of their own as opposed to in the bathroom) so that if you were in the toilet trying to exit and someone was stoking the hot water system you were trapped.

The bathroom had been redone in offcuts from other people’s projects, so there were seven different tile types, all brown. The shower (mounted over the bath) had a weird circular shower curtain holder that had the person in the shower standing in a cylinder of shower curtain that was sucked onto their body by the updraft of the steamy air. And the shaving mirror was so low that until we moved it, DH had to crouch down to see to shave. We later found out that the pastor was about 5’2”.

But the worst was when we pulled out the ceiling in an enclosed porch that was our dining area, to replace it with one that wasn’t broken in the middle and sagging down. It turned out that what was mostly holding it up was the electrical wiring. 😬

My BIL's phrase for shoddy work is "handyman special."

@colleenoz

I go to church every Sunday, but sadly know back in the day one of the first places built in a goven town was a sawmill then the church. In the latter, they took pride in its construction.

I did a lot of charity work for a children’s camp, a lot of it done by volunteers and there was zero pride. As soon as a challenge cane along, they went home, and all would be gone by 1 pm.

But laziness is not a religious issue but a human one.

My ethics? I believe we will be just as accountable for our time as we are finances at the conclusion of our days.

I am sorry craftsmanship was so lacking in your boughten home.