Confessions of a Georgia Builder

Looking

BACK at my days as a builder, I’d like to say that everything always went smoothly, that I never had problems on the job, and I was always wise and mature in my actions. I’d like to say this, but I have to confess that’s not always been the case. The truth is I had many unique learning experiences.

Olympic Debacle

I learned that low toner in a copier can cause more problems than you think. In 1996, The Olympic Games were underway in Atlanta, GA. At the time, we were operating our own lumberyard that provided our projects material. One morning, the yard guys were caught up so I offered to let them make extra money aside from their salaries by demolishing a small deck inside the Atlanta city limits. I instructed them to put the stake-sides on one of the trucks, go by the office to get a copy of the job cover with the address, and bring the demo back to the yard.

Around 2:30 p.m., I radioed them to check on progress thinking they should be done. My guy started telling me that they had just finished unbolting and removing the railing and were just about to start on the deck. I had existing job photos and knew there were no bolts on the railing so I questioned him about being at the right place. He acknowledged that he did have trouble determining if the street number was 600 or 606 because the toner was low on the copier, but he was sure he was at the right place because the homeowner had come outside and talked to him. Then he mentioned the homeowner had a foreign accent. I had spoken to the homeowner earlier that morning and he had a Southern accent, which might seem foreign to some people. But this customer was not foreign.

During the Olympics, many homeowners in Atlanta made arrangements to rent out their houses to visitors and athletes. As it turned out, the foreign speaking guy was an Olympic athlete who, along with other foreign athletes, was housed at this residence. He just assumed we were supposed to be there so he didn’t question it. In fact, the house they were staying at belonged to a previous customer who had provided the referral for the new customer whose house was three driveways down and the one we should have been at. How my guy didn’t recognize our previous build from a few years earlier I have no idea. The “victim” customer was on vacation when I made that dreaded phone call to tell them what happened. Fortunately, I had a good relationship with the customer and they handled it pretty well. I learned to attach existing deck photos to the job packages after this.

There were a few other lumberyard-related drama events. I learned that when a lumber truck drops a driveshaft at 55 mph and a new BMW is right behind it, the result is not going to be good. I learned that loading a large lumber package on a flatbed that had iced up over night could result in a rocket launch at dump time that takes out shrubbery and multiple fence panels in one shot. I also learned that taking curves with stacked pallets of concrete that aren’t securely strapped can become problematic.

Permit or Lack Thereof

I learned that working without a permit in Atlanta or anywhere is not a good idea. It may surprise you, but in my earlier days it wasn’t totally uncommon to sneak in a job here and there without one. In one instance, I was halfway through a job and was walking around the house to the driveway to grab some material when I realized some type of work was going on in the street out front. As I rounded the house and more of the street came into view, I noticed a lane was shut down and a flagman was managing traffic. As the flagman flipped his sign from “slow” to “stop,” a city inspector rolled to a stop right at the end of the driveway. I lip-synced a barrage of expletives as he turned his head and saw the lumber stack and then me, standing there like a deer caught in the headlights. It was a special day in that I received my first “Stop Work” order. I collected a few more over the years.

Dog Drama

I learned that without certain precautions in place, “dog drama” can occur. One day, I pulled up to the job where the existing deck began as a walkway at the driveway and lead around to the main deck behind the house. The crew was on the back portion doing the demolition and had removed the rail and most of the decking working their way towards the walkway. I walked off the driveway out onto the deck’s edge and was talking to the guys when the neighbor’s labrador retriever came in at warp speed from the driveway. He blew by me eager for a visit with the guys standing out on joist. I’m not sure if it was pure trajectory from speed and momentum or if he was good at placing his feet on joist or some combination of the two, but he made it an impressive distance before starting to bounce across the joist, disappearing, then landing

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10 ft. below. He seemed okay, but I took him back to his mom and explained what happened.

In another instance, we had built a landing that had stairs protruding off of two sides for a duel entry. Apparently dogs love carpenters because as soon as the customer let his French terrier out the front door he too came running around the house to socialize with the crew. He ran up a set of steps that we had just decked and onto the landing which we had not. His departure was similar to the lab’s, but with an impressive flip rotation during the free-fall. He went end over end for 6 ft., landed in a dirt pile and rolled over into the water-filled footing hole. He was muddy, wet, and shaking, but otherwise okay. I took him to his dad and went through the same routine I did with the lab’s mom.

On another deck that had a 10-ft. elevation, we had tacked a board across the house door to keep anyone from walking out and asked the homeowner to make sure the “doggy door” was not usable. Apparently he forgot because three days into the build with most of the framing up, his English bulldog skydived out of it. Although we didn’t see him come out, we heard what sounded like a sandbag hitting the ground followed by some wheezing. When I turned around, his eyes were bulging and I got the impression this was a new experience for him. But, Georgia bulldogs are tough. It took a minute, but he shook it off. I had another one of those dog-parent conferences, which I was now getting pretty good at. He was fine, but I heard that he wasn’t using his doggy door weeks after we were done. We implemented a plywood safety block program from that point on.

911 Call

I learned that cell phones should be carried in a two-sided protective case. One day, one of my lead guys was putting down roof sheathing on a porch roof. I guess as a way to entertain himself, he would curse the plywood as he would swing it around, slam it down, and shoot it in place with the pneumatic nailer. He would say things like “get down you mother *#$@” as he slammed it down and “take that you son of a *#$@” as he fired off multiple rounds with the nail gun. What he didn’t realize was that he accidentally bumped his phone in his tool belt which some- how dialed his programmed emergency 911 call. He stopped because he kept hearing someone talking. Then he heard someone saying, “Sir, are you okay?… Sir, do you need emergency assistance?…Sir, can you speak?” The 911 operator thought they were overhearing an act of violence in progress. It took him a while to convince the operator everything was okay.

Portajohn Drama & Dirt Clod Wars

You often hear how you should lead by example. This might not be the best example of that, but I did learn how to break someone from throwing dirt clods at a portajohn when others were using it.

I was on a commercial job site and had a guy named Jim on the crew that liked to do this. I had warned him, but couldn’t seem to break him from it. One day, I was on a roof when he went inside the relief unit which appeared to be within range of my position. While Jim was getting settled in, I had one of my guys haul a giant dirt clod up the ladder to me. Seriously, this was a mother-clod created during the site excavation weighing 10-15 lbs. In fact, it was so heavy I thought it would hit the ground and break into cluster-clods and bounce over to the john.

I crow-hopped across the roof and shot-put it as hard as I could. I underestimated my abilities as the clod launch exceeded expectations, hitting high on the portajohn crushing and exploding through the vent. It buckled the side with much of the payload entering the interior through the newly enlarged vent system. It literally rocked the john—and Jim. Looking back, I should have put more thought into the physics and trajectory involved because it was more like a bunker-buster bomb delivery and much louder and violent than I anticipated. I can only imagine what it must have sounded like from inside.

You could hear Jim bouncing off the walls and screaming like a girl just before he fell out the door on to the ground with his pants down around his knees. He was covered in dirt—even inside his pants. The good news is: aside from a few abrasions and possibly some slight hearing loss, Jim survived. And I didn’t have to file a workers’ comp claim and he didn’t sue me. It did, however, break Jim of the dirt clod throwing and put an end to the dirt clod wars. Jim quit soon after that. I suspect he remembers the experience every time he goes into a portajohn—if he even uses them. I know I think about it every time I see one.

As you can see, I’ve had many unique learning experiences. I’m guessing you have too.

Bobby Parks is a nationally known contractor who has delivered over $40 million of outdoor living projects. He is founder and former owner of Peachtree Decks & Porches LLC.