Posted on 01/02/2014 9:36:57 AM PST by SoFloFreeper
O ver two dozen houses which were built by Hollywood star Brad Pitt's charity for the victims of 2005 Hurricane Katrina have started to rot from the inside out.
While the blame-game is on between the Pitt's charity 'Make It Right New Orleans' and the house building company, the owners of the houses, which are situated at the Ninth Ward in New Orleans, are worried about the deteriorating condition of their homes, reported Radar Online.
"The wood turned gray and it was also black," a homeowner, who has been living in the house for four years, said.
"Also some parts it was buckling and it had mushrooms growing out of it. Different neighbourhoods saw it too."
A representative for the charity has responded to the complaint and held the company responsible, which provided a plumber for the house that sits on a moist land.
(Excerpt) Read more at financialexpress.com ...
I thought they were built out of chocolate because Nagin said it was going to be a chocolate city.
Ha! That’d be great!
My stepfather and I treated lumber with that old arsenic back in the early 80’s. I’m surprised we are both alive.
It was very dark brown at that time.
“It was unable to withstand moisture, which is obviously a big problem in New Orleans,” Make It Right rep Taylor Royle told the New Orleans Advocate."
Go to Asia, where the temps and humidity are brutal. Everything is built out of concrete. Perhaps they know something that we need to learn.
In a city that features breathtaking architecture even for the most simple homes, these Pitt houses are really ugly.
I always though pressure treated lumber was to repel wood eating critters, not moisture rot. This is an important distinction. Here in VA where I live they like bare lumber on their decks for whatever reason. It is probably pressure treated, but if it is not weather proofed the sun in exterior exposed lumber will make it dry rot and in damp areas will let it mold. Anyone know the distinction?
So these houses are the Pitt’s?
Get what you pay for!! How much did these people pay for their rotting homes?
Treatment serves two functions. It stops termites and it kills fungi which cause rot. There’s very little experience/history with the replacement treatments. I’m seeing something green growing on treated decking locally that was installed less than a year ago.
I’ve had some of the 2.4 pcf stuff in a similar application and it looks the same after 10+ years. In a freshwater environment, the 2.4 pcf treated lumber will be good for many decades.
It does not state in the article IF they even used pressure treated lumber to begin with. ACQ .40 is fine as long as it is not direct ground contact. However, if it was my house, I would use .60 ACQ or CCA. It sounds like they did not use pressure treated at all on the subfloor foundations of the houses. I do not know the LA building codes, but I suspect the contractor is at fault.
Mike Holmes built some of these houses.
They probably used green Southern Yellow Pine and it never dried out and likely touching the ground. Did it on the cheap.
Pray America is Waking
If it was my house I would use concrete, IPE and PVC. None of these three will rot in our lifetime.
Given that New Orleans (part of it at least) is below sea level, praying to Posidon might be a better choice.
forgive my spelling . . .
Typical feel-good program: all show and no substance. And when the whole thing falls apart, the liberal never takes the blame. It’s always someone else’s fault.
There was a lot of trouble with Chinese produced wallboard that flooded into the rebuiilding areas. I have no doubt that many of the problems in any rebuilt area are due to the quality of the materials, plus the mold/rot that we saw in houses because they were submerged for days in brackish swampwater before the land was habitable(?) again.
Benjamin: Yes, sir.
Mr. McGuire: Are you listening?
Benjamin: Yes, I am.
Mr. McGuire: Plastics.
Benjamin: Exactly how do you mean?
Mr. McGuire: There's a great future in plastics. Think about it. Will you think about it?
The Graduate (1967)
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Plastic-it's the new wood.
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