Adding On for Dummies

Adding on with a room addition

Partial answers are the bane of the human condition. You know what we mean, right? You ask a fairly complex question, and some ill-informed person gives you half an answer... or less. As long as they're well-meaning, we suppose it's all right; but if the person answering the question claims to be an expert and is getting paid? Well, that's not OK with us. Take, for instance, eHow.com's Laurie Reeves (aka Laurie Brenner), allegedly a licensed contractor. She pulled down a tidy stipend for passing off something titled "Enlarging a Room With an Addition"¹ as the answer to some poor schmuck's internet search. We have to admit that what we expected would happen did: her answer was, at best, partial... and not even the most important part!

Reeves started off with a bang, outlining the process of adding on a room or perhaps a bumpout in the DMS-mandated instruction (DMS² being Demand Media Studios, the parent company of eHow.com):

"Room additions are like building a new home. You need to develop a plan and a budget that includes footings, foundation, framing, walls, floor, insulation and siding, windows, doors, roof and connective lines that include plumbing, electrical and HVAC."

That's a pretty cogent introduction, especially considering that it's eHow. Reeves goes on to inform her readers that "Any renovation that changes bearing walls in a home requires a building permit," which may or may not be true – we suspect it's only true of external bearing walls, not internal (and aren't they called "load-bearing walls"?) Be that as it may, Reeves was quite clear that there are many pieces-parts involved in adding on a room to your house. We figured she'd have some words of wisdom based on her vast experience. Here's what Laurie has to say about

Footings and foundations: zip Framing: nada Walls, insulation and siding: nothing Floor: zero Windows and doors: not a word Roof: nil "Connective lines" including plumbing, electrical and HVAC³: this space intentionally left blank That's right: this self-described contractor spent the entire article explaining to her readers that they need to pull permits, which won't be issued if the addition will encroach on a property line, and that – at least where she lives, may "require certification or sealing [sic] through an engineer"... we're pretty sure that use of "sealing" is non-standard.

In other words, this post devolved into a primer on getting a building permit – even though that wasn't the topic in question! We could see including a line or two about pulling permits, but to devote an entire discussion of "Enlarging a Room With an Addition" to getting a permit? That's what put another Dumbass of the Day award (number four) in Laurie Reeves' trophy case.

¹ The original has been deleted by Leaf Group, but can still be accessed using the Wayback machine at archive.org. Its URL was   ehow.com/info_12289834_enlarging-room-addition.html
² Did you know: you can't spell "DUMBASS" without 'DMS'?
³ Since when is HVAC a "connective line"? and, for that matter, WTF is a "connective line"?

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