Construction question - is this wall out of variance?

[bowtiejunkie]

There’s a wall in our new home that is out of level and bulged from mid to upper of wall. The builder had drywall cut open, and framer shaved the stud down that is right next to the door jam (handle side in picture below). Framer states the stud they shaved was “deadwood”.

Pictures: subject wall is one with alarm control panel. That bare casing is level. See gap, waviness, and slight bulge in drywall next to that bare casing trim.

bottom casing to subject wall gap

mid (handle level) casing to subject wall gap

top of casing to subject wall gap

As said, it’s been attempted to be repaired once and we are not satisfied. Can you tell me if I’m making a mountain out of a mole hill or should I stand firm in that they need to actually make that subject wall closer to level from floor to ceiling?

 

[lbhsbz]

New house? I’d make them fix it

 

[Done-it-again]

Welcome to track homes.... Good luck!

 

[wishiknew]

The door is shimmed wrong in the opening

 

[racektm]

New house, I would make them fix it. It's only a 1/4" but being so close to the casing it looks worse. They could just float the wall to give the correct reveal to the casing that is plumb.

 

[ka0tyk]

wall mustve been built by the same guy who cut that miter on the trim. he must believe in the "bigger the glob the better the job" with the filler.

 

[bowtiejunkie]

The door is shimmed wrong in the opening

i didn’t take a picture, but this is what it looks like behind that bare casing (Top of my drawing is top of door frame):

 

[wallnutz]

You might be pushing it a little. If they are painting the hinges and that gap at the miter is good for them you might be better off. It could get a whole lot worse before it gets better. Like said above have a drywaller float the wall a little.

 

[bowtiejunkie]

New house? I’d make them fix it

yes, new build. We closed remote so no walk-thru prior to closing. Construction Manager assured us everything would be tip top. There were so many things wrong/in need of repair when we first walked in, we thought we bought neglected resale house. Four months after actual move-in the builder is still fixing the initial punch list we emailed them. For example, probably 20% of cabinet drawers wouldn’t even open/close correctly. I’m trying to keep calm as they have/are fixing the issues.

Welcome to track homes.... Good luck!

That’s why I’m trying not to be too picky, but damn this wall is ridiculous.

 

[Waterjunky]

If this was the only issue in the house I would probably not make too big of a deal out of it. Given the whole thing is a mess, I would keep it on the list as leverage. Just know when its time for you to declare victory and run. Use this as a tool and bargaining chip.

 

[bowtiejunkie]

You might be pushing it a little. If they are painting the hinges and that gap at the miter is good for them you might be better off. It could get a whole lot worse before it gets better. Like said above have a drywaller float the wall a little.

the hinges are painted on purpose. I don’t get the look, but they rejected our request to install nickel finish ones so .

for you and @ka0tyk: yeah, trust me, I have almost zero building experience and did 100x better installing baseboards in our prior home after we replaced tile. I’d like to tell the builder to stay the hell out of our house as the final trim work is shit (and that’s giving them too much credit). Their subs do amazingly terrible work. We need to get passed this wall and a few other items, then they can get lost.

 

[Bigbore500r]

First, we must address few things that are driving me nuts.....
- The vertical casing isn't level, it's Plumb
- The wall isn't out of variance, it's out of tolerance

As far as the wall goes, if it has settled and isn't getting worse, you may be better off having the base pulled and have the drywaller float the wall from 0" - 1/4" heavy from 4' down to the floor. Its definitely diving in but it appears very visible because that casing is giving your eye a visual cue and really magnifying the problem.

I have a wall like this in my new house, I installed new casing and scribed it to the wall, caulked it in nice where I ran out of scribe, and painted it. I still know it's there, but nobody else notices.

 

[wallnutz]

the hinges are painted on purpose. I don’t get the look, but they rejected our request to install nickel finish ones so .

for you and @ka0tyk: yeah, trust me, I have almost zero building experience and did 100x better installing baseboards in our prior home after we replaced tile. I’d like to tell the builder to stay the hell out of our house as the final trim work is shit (and that’s giving them too much credit). Their subs do amazingly terrible work. We need to get passed this wall and a few other items, then they can get lost.

I feel your pain. We have to deal with this all the time and it comes down to us, the painters to try and make their crappy work look good.

 

[Ziggy]

The door is shimmed wrong in the opening

wall mustve been built by the same guy who cut that miter on the trim. he must believe in the "bigger the glob the better the job" with the filler.

These two comments are rather revealing imo.
Check the door jamb for plumb would be my first inclination.

 

[hallett21]

Framer cheated a 1/4” drywallers cheated a 1/4” door hanger cheated a 1/4” what’s the problem lol




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[Backlash]

Have you seen how new homes are slapped together?? If this is ALL you've noticed, I'd let it go. Paint the trim and move on. Once its painted you'll be less likely to even notice it. Spend the time and money worrying about more important stuff........like your toys!

 

[motormonkey]

I just went thru this in my hall that goes into addition. They tried floating it .I found this out by removing the 3 corner beads stacked on top of each other to check out why it looked off.
I wound up reframing the last 4 feet of wall. What a mess for 4 feet of sanity but worth it.

 

[BHC Vic]

That’s a tiny non issue in my opinion. I frame and hang drywall for a living. I prefer metal for pretty much this reason

 

[BHC Vic]

My house in norco has a wall 3 inches out of square. I know exactly what happened. Found it when my flooring buddy asked me to check his layout because he was going crazy. One kid got a bigger room the other a little smaller. The last plank that we ripped at a angle is hidden by the beds. No big deal. I wasn’t going to pull the board and kick the wall over 3”.

 

[wet hull]

What is the door on the right doing? Level, leaning back?

 

[DirtyWhiteDog]

Totally normal, every stud has bow to it. Framers will go through and try to plane and shim the walls but it will never be perfect unless you ise metal or LVL studs.

 

[BHC Vic]

As far as tolerance. It’s an 1/8 of an inch for most commercial applications.

 

[Done-it-again]

yes, new build. We closed remote so no walk-thru prior to closing. Construction Manager assured us everything would be tip top. There were so many things wrong/in need of repair when we first walked in, we thought we bought neglected resale house. Four months after actual move-in the builder is still fixing the initial punch list we emailed them. For example, probably 20% of cabinet drawers wouldn’t even open/close correctly. I’m trying to keep calm as they have/are fixing the issues.



That’s why I’m trying not to be too picky, but damn this wall is ridiculous.

I have them too and its crazy how shity it's all done. Just think how much worse it can be if you try and have them fix it...... I've been through this. Once the casing is painted it wont be as noticeable, but you will see it all time but no one else...

Must be a Van Daele home.....ha ha ah

 

[DLow]

Have you seen how new homes are slapped together?? If this is ALL you've noticed, I'd let it go. Paint the trim and move on. Once its painted you'll be less likely to even notice it. Spend the time and money worrying about more important stuff........like your toys!

This. Paint the trim. You won’t see the difference once everything is white. Move on with your life.

 

[lbhsbz]

why do the grout lines on the floor appear to not be perpendicular to the door?

 

[HBCraig]

Don't mean to make light of it but I only have a few that are squared up in my HB house

It was built in 1967 though

If its a new hiuse make them fix it

 

[fmo24]

why do the grout lines on the floor appear to not be perpendicular to the door?

Keep adding fuel lol.

 

[bowtiejunkie]

The door is shimmed wrong in the opening

the door/trim company responsible for install has said the door is in correctly. from what I can tell, it appears pretty close to plumb, it’s level, and looks to be square when measured. Do you think it should have been shimmed more evenly within the framing? This stuff is out of my wheel house so my terminology is crap.

First, we must address few things that are driving me nuts.....
- The vertical casing isn't level, it's Plumb
- The wall isn't out of variance, it's out of tolerance

As far as the wall goes, if it has settled and isn't getting worse, you may be better off having the base pulled and have the drywaller float the wall from 0" - 1/4" heavy from 4' down to the floor. Its definitely diving in but it appears very visible because that casing is giving your eye a visual cue and really magnifying the problem.

I have a wall like this in my new house, I installed new casing and scribed it to the wall, caulked it in nice where I ran out of scribe, and painted it. I still know it's there, but nobody else notices.

thanks for the correct terminology. The Drywaller did come back and say he could float the wall there, but the base would noticeably be in a different place on tile compared to other side of that door on right in picture. I guess he wasn’t thinking the base could be trimmed on backside a bit? I don’t know.

What is the door on the right doing? Level, leaning back?

The door on right is leaning into hallway from top.

the other side of the hallway (left in pic), the wall is leaning away from the hallway. Farmer’s level bubble’s we’re at the extreme of “level” in this hallway, which sucks in such a small space.

I appreciate all the responses. As it’s just a tract home, I don’t and wasn’t expecting perfection. There’s a lot of trim, drywall, paint, and other finish issues we are just letting slide (we’ll fix those ourselves to our liking), so mostly just concentrating on obvious issues (there were a ton, even items a 3rd party inspector pointed out that were supposed to be fixed before closing that weren’t).

 

[500bbc]

It's due to the quality of lumber available theses days. It's all from free farms especially 2x4 and it's highly unstable, look at the end grain, the growth rings are about 1/4" apart. The walls should have been straight edged and planed into line before drywall, the problem is the stud at the channel is bowed and very hard to straighten at rough stage.

 

[bowtiejunkie]

why do the grout lines on the floor appear to not be perpendicular to the door?

curious, I put the rafter square to use and grout lines are 90* to the threshold. Camera angle, luckily for me. Lol

 

[outboard_256]

I got bad news for you, if you walk around your house with a big square you are going to find many more of these.

 

[RichL]

It's due to the quality of lumber available theses days. It's all from free farms especially 2x4 and it's highly unstable, look at the end grain, the growth rings are about 1/4" apart. The walls should have been straight edged and planed into line before drywall, the problem is the stud at the channel is bowed and very hard to straighten at rough stage.

^^^^This^^^^

 

[CLdrinker]

If you think that’s Dont get a level and start walking around checking anything lol

 

[Mandelon]

Framers bang up the walls and think, "oh well, it's pretty close...the drywallers will fix it."

The drywall hangers wonder about the crooked wall but figure the tapers will handle it.

The mud guys don't notice because everything should be ready when they get there.

 

[BHC Vic]

When they replaced my kitchen in BHC, the low wall for the counter was 3” out of plumb in like 4’. Guy got pissed but I made him fix it. He stupidly asked how I wanted him to fix it, so I very carefully explained it. I said you’re going to take off the drywall, install a low wall post, and attach the stud to that. He asked where I got my laser and I said I’m a general foreman for a large contractor in Vegas. He then told the guys to fix it, and make sure it’s right, because I’m a contractor. I was pissed.

 

[DLC]

If you float the wall out you see it in the floor tile grout line. This sucks to deal with and the can just got kicked down the road farther and farther. To fix it correctly rip out drywall and remove stud replace stud and hang new drywall Tape texture paint hang door and then trim. This would have been simple to do early on ...
if people Took pride in their work, an actually gave a crap about the work they are doing. time is money!

this my opinion
I would remove all he base and door casing and go wider 3-3.5 some plane jane type all those humps and bumps (details) catch dirt and are difficult to clean.
The door Fix
scrib the door casing to the wall. You would still see it but it would blend in and kind of go away. All new base and door casing for my house was less than $400 Labor is the expensive part then patch/ caulking and paint.

not what you want to hear after all your house is brand new!

this is what I just installed at my house, just a top edge to clean

 

[JUSTWANNARACE]

If you open the door on the right slightly does it swing open by itself?

 

[500bbc]

Framers bang up the walls and think, "oh well, it's pretty close...the drywallers will fix it."

The drywall hangers wonder about the crooked wall but figure the tapers will handle it.

The mud guys don't notice because everything should be ready when they get there.

You forgot, "the painters will fix it", those lazy fuckers.

 

[Havasu blue label]

Drop a plum bob off wall measure out 4 in that will tell you if the wall is plum then do the same on door jam