All Forum Posts by: Jay M.

When you say "haven't gotten much positive feedback" what do you mean?  What exactly are you looking for?  I'm about 50-60 minutes from you. My son lives in Weymouth.

 I didn't, the company I design a lot of my homes for did..... Actually it's probably an industry standard quick formula.  If you google around you'll see other similar numbers.

There are two costs here.  Removal and replacement.  I don't have any numbers for removal but in my area it is about $1.35 psf for installing / taping / finishing / priming only drywall.  We use the rough formula of 3.9 x floor area.  Add more for excessive amounts of interior walls or add / subtract according to wall height.  So......1200 x 3.9 = 4680 sf x $1.35 =  $6318.  This is MY AREA....your's could be cheaper.

Okay here's the definitive answer to what happened.......Peter S. touched upon it.  The joists didn't snap nor did the beam snap BEFORE the column bent and fell away from the excessive weight / possible bouncing / concussive reaction..  See the bent column in the picture... No support from column that bent and fell away then the beam snapped taking with it some joists.

As someone else touched upon residential floor systems are designed for 40 lbs per square foot live load and 10 psf dead.  So if that area was 10' x 10' that is 4,000 lbs. of design load.  If the average person was 200 lbs that means there had to be 20 people in that 10' x 10' area.  Which is highly unlikely.  You would have to stack people and then it is still at design load not catastrophic load.

I think that column may have had a good size bend in it beforehand and the load buckled it.  Go back to your college days and remember standing on a beer can and it would hold you?  As soon as you dimpled it the can would collapse?  Same theory...

If the column wasn't bent before then there was a hell of a lot of jumping going on.

At least one window needs to be an egress window.  In MA minimum of 20" x 24" operational panel.  The glass area of the window(s) must be 8% of the floor area.  The maximum the bottom edge of the opening can't be higher than 44" off of floor.  Closet has nothing to do with code.....  Must have a smoke detector in bedroom.

If you're not on town sewer is the septic design capable of handling the "extra" bedroom?  Chances are if you don't have town sewer it will be a problem.

In my state you start with a salesperson license.  After working under a broker a certain amount of years you can test for the brokers license.

Depends on the area.  To the customer (not builder cost) in the mid-cape area is $250-$300 psf.  In Bridgewater it is around $175-$200 psf.  This is for a typical 2,000 sq. ft. colonial type house with 2 car garage.  Average finishes, low / mid range kitchen.  The suburbs of Boston I'm sure are twice as much...

Check out small local cabinet retailers especially ones near a big box store.  If you get the right one they'll surprise you with their cost.  The big box stores really nail you on the install prices.  I would stick with an inexpensive line of wood box cabinets like Showplace.  According to others on this forum the RTA's have come a long way.

Butcher block isn't that much cheaper than the cheapest granites...... There are two types of butcher block.  Those finished with mineral oil and those sealed with a sealer / coating.  Make sure you order the correct one if you go that route.  Mineral oil if you plan to cut on them.  Personally I wouldn't do it.......

I used this stuff in my bathroom walls.  Notice it is NOT fiberglass insulation.  In fact there isn't even an R rating (although there is, they choose not to publish it). It's for sound deadening.  They also make a sound deadening board.  Put this under the rock if you really want to compound it.

https://www.lowes.com/pd/ROCKWOOL-Rock-Wool-Batt-I...

https://www.homedepot.com/p/1-2-in-x-48-in-x-96-in...