Archives for February 2007
Home Depot: Good For Do-It-Yourselfers, Not So Much When They “Do-It-For-You”
“Here’s our money, we trust you, just come into our homes and devastate our lives,” a Home Depot customer tells NBC4. “It’s just been a nightmare,” says another.
Now Home Depot is a company that not unlike Wal-Mart, has its share of fans and foes. The fairly common home improvement supply store is a wonderful place [...]
28 February 2007 | Business, Construction, Construction Defect, Inspections, Litigation | Comments Off
Washington State May Be Seeing More Defect Litigation!
As mentioned over at the Washington Construction Law blog, a couple bills are heading up through the ranks in Washington state that if passed, could make for a much more favorable situation for homeowners and homeowner associations. One of the laws would allow a plaintiff to seek damages from anyone that worked on the house. [...]
25 February 2007 | Construction, Construction Defect, Consulting, Inspections, Litigation | Comments Off
Bacteria could steady buildings against earthquakes
Soil bacteria could be used to help steady buildings against earthquakes, according to researchers at UC Davis. The microbes can literally convert loose, sandy soil into rock.
When a major earthquake strikes, deep, sandy soils can turn to liquid, with disastrous consequences for buildings sitting on them. Currently, civil engineers can inject chemicals into the soil [...]
22 February 2007 | Construction, Green Building, Technology | Comments Off
Good for Many Things, but NOT for Ducts
“Duct tape (fabric-based tape with rubber adhesive) is good for many things. People use it as a bandage, to tape up broken plates, to repair their cars. There are thousands of uses. Some folks have even have websites and written books about duct tape. Apollo 13 astronauts used it to repair some equipment to get [...]
22 February 2007 | Construction, Consulting, General, Technology | Comments Off
Non Sequitur for 2.21.07
21 February 2007 | General, Litigation | Comments Off
A Few Green Building Links (2.21.07)
Going through the news today, a number of stories on the topic of green building showed up:
“Does your office environment get you down? Then you might want to consider working with Tom Hicks. In buildings that receive USGBC’s “platinum” certification, its highest rating, natural light permeates the entire floor. Sometimes, cubicles have their own thermostats, [...]
21 February 2007 | Green Building, Technology | Comments Off
Floors Made Out of Mud Are Hot
To crudely paraphrase the former U.S. Ambassador of Jazz, Louis Armstrong, Hot can be Cool, and Cool can be Hot, and Each can be Both, but Hot or Cool man, Mud is Mud.
“Early one Saturday morning in January, Kevin Rowell dumped a bucket of dark mud on the floor of his big south-facing bedroom. It [...]
8 February 2007 | Construction, Green Building, Technology | Comments Off
Reconstruction Project Begins For Sandra Bullock
A construction defect trial concluded in Austin, TX involving Ms. Sandra Bullock and the builder of her large custom single-family home. The conclusion of the trial resulted in $7.8M in rewards (including, or in addition to attorney fees?) and the house was declared uninhabitable! That doesn’t happen very often. Unless the plaintiff is a renowned [...]
8 February 2007 | Construction, Construction Defect, Litigation | Comments Off
Homefree Puts Detailed Home Information at New Home Buyers’ Fingertips
SCOTTSDALE, AZ — (MARKET WIRE) — January 29, 2007 — Home builders now have a reliable tool to ensure that critical information about a home is available at the fingertips of the home buyer, 24/7. With Homefree’s Builder Edition, produced by Ethix Media, LLC, home builders can now preload information about each new home, including [...]
8 February 2007 | Construction | Comments Off
Warning – Kasdan Simonds Riley May Be In Your Neighborhood
This article came up on a recent search on Technorati for items tagged with “construction defect”. Apparently Kasdan Simonds, a well-known construction defect law firm representing primarily homeowners and HOAs, sent out marketing letters to a community up in the Valencia area. It is fairly old, but it certainly is an interesting read…
“BEWARE of these [...]
8 February 2007 | Construction, Construction Defect, Litigation | Comments Off
