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The Foundation Contractor
The Foundation Contractor
R. M. Dubois Construction Company
Richard DuBois.
8032 Old Missouri 21,
Hillsboro, MO 63050
(636) 942-2046
In the beginning…. Not in 2017, when I started building the current new house, but in 2004, when my husband decided to build a new house for our 50th anniversary.
My husband chose the foundation contractor for that house because he lived fairly close to us, and because he had his own concrete pumper, which my husband felt might make it easier for him to do the job on our sloping lot.
Unfortunately, the contractors crew forgot, or neglected to, brace the wood framed window openings in the foundation wall. This failure to brace the wood frames in the window openings, allowed the weight of the concrete to force the top of the window openings to bow down and the bottom of the window openings to bow up. This distorting of the wood frames in window openings, prevented the windows from fitting into those openings.
My husband, who was 70 years old at the time, started hand planing the wooden window frames to try to get out the bows so he could put in the windows. … This was a difficult and tiring job, and it was very hard on him at his age.
I said to my husband: “Let’s call Mr. DuBois (the foundation contractor) and ask him send up some of those husky boys he has working for him and let them do this planing.” … So I called Mr. DuBois and told him we were having trouble with the windows and asked if he could please come up and look at them.
Mr. DuBois came and brought an Engineer with him! We had not asked for an engineer and were perplexed that he had brought this man with him.
When they arrived, I was across the street at the house we lived in. I saw them arrive , so I walked over to the new house. I could immediately tell that Mr. DuBois was angry. His face was red and he did not even speak to me or my husband.
The Engineer asked him how many pieces of rebar he had above the window and Mr. DuBois said “three”. Then the Engineer asked how many pieces of rebar he had above the door opening (which was also bowing down from the top, keeping the door from being installed. Mr. DuBois said:”Two.”
The Engineer turned and looked at my husband and said: “Well, he has enough rebar in there that nothing is going to go anywhere”. …Then he and Mr. DuBois just turned and left. No offer to help my husband, no offer to do anything.
My husband pointed to cracks above the doors and the windows and said:”I guess I’ll have to fix those myself too.” … I hadn’t known about the cracks and was totally shocked that the Engineer had not addressed the fact that those cracks were there! Mr. DuBois never said a word about helping my husband and he never checked back to see if there was anything he could do.
My 70 year old husband did all the sanding of the window frames and all the patching of the cracks by himself.
A friend heard about my husbands hand planing those window frames and brought him a high-powered strip sander which helped him immensely.
Unfortunately, because the window frames weren’t totally straight, in some places, there was space between the wood frame and the plastic windows. One of the windows leaked at the top of the frame and no amount of caulking could keep it from leaking for very long. It was literally 10 years of frustration with that window!
Pics From Dec 6. 2017
Part 2
After I contracted with the First General Contractor, he suggested this same person to do the foundation. I told him NO! I did not want to this person to do the foundation! When I told him about our previous experience with this person, he sounded genuinely shocked.
He said he had worked with Mr. DuBois on five or six houses and that he had always done a good job and been a “jolly” person. (I thought that was a strange word to use, as the only time I ever heard anyone called “jolly” it was in reference to Santa Claus!)
Anyway, the GC said: I’ll talk to him about all that. They won’t do it again. … Later he said: “Let me bring him up to talk to you, I think you’ll see he’s actually a nice guy.”
To make a long story short, the Foundation Contractor was very pleasant and agreed to do what I asked for, so with the GC’s urging, I said OK to letting him do the foundation.
A little later, we walked into my back yard for me to show him the size of the area I needed leveled off behind the new house, to be a fenced area for my dogs.
As we passed the window that had leaked for ten+ years I said: “Tell your guys not to forget to brace the window openings this time.” This man narrowed his eyes and looked at me with a very unpleasant expression.
I then told my GC again, that I didn’t want this man to do my foundation. He told me that he could never get another foundation contractor at that time of year. (This was mid-October.)
I looked in the phone book and called every foundation contractor in the book myself. The ones who called back told me they were booked through the end of the year.
So the GC once again talked me into letting this man do the foundation saying: “I’ll be there. I’ll make sure none of that happens again.”
Again, to make a long story short… This man changed the design of a window. (Made it smaller) Changed the design of a wing-wall. (Made it shorter and changed the shape of it.) And then:
THIS MAN’S CROWNING ACHIEVEMENT WAS: HE PUT THE ENTIRE HOUSE CROOKED ON THE LOT!!!
How did my house end up “Crooked” on the lot”?
Mr. Matzker, Mr. DuBois and I had discussed how the new house was to sit on the lot. My instruction to them, was that to give everything a balanced look, that the new house was to be built parallel to my existing house.
Mr. Matzker and Mr. DuBois both measured, and Mr. DuBois staked out the location/position where the house was supposed to be built.
1.This line shows the front line of my current house.
2.This line is paralell to my current house and should have been the front line of the NEW house.
3.This line was marked by Mr. DuBois, with multiple rebar stakes, topped with bright orange caps.
Why didn’t anyone notice that Mr. DuBois had staked out the house at the wrong position on the Lot?
Because Line 3, with its angle marked with the rebar stakes, with bright orange caps, was the angle that immediately caught your eye, and gave the illusion that it was the line the house was staked out to follow.
How far off parallel is the house? Ten feet! (10′!)
Why did this man do all this to my house? The only reasons I can even imagine, are that he was angry that I was the one who called him back on the job in 2004, and then got angry again in 2016, when I pointed out the leaky window that had been a problem for 10 years.
But of course, to be sure, you would have to ask him. His phone # is: 636-942-2046
Note: I have asked Mr. DuBois multiple times to please give me his Liability Carriers Contact Information so that I could file a claim about his mistakes.
Each time he said: “I am NOT going to give that to you!” Raising his voice a bit more each time. IE:”I AM NOT GOING TO GIVE THAT TO YOU!!!”
OTHER ISSUES CAUSED BY RICHARD DUBOIS
Mr. DuBois did many unexplainable things on my property.
One that no one could explain to me, including the General Contractor, Mr. Matzker, was the three inch pipes he put through the concrete footings, from the outside all the way into the inside of the basement.
Those 3″ pipes let water (that accumulated in the excavation channel around the house) drain off into the INSIDE of the basement.
When it was time to pour the basement floor, I talked to Richard “Richie” G’Sell about pumping that water out. He said: “Oh, we’ll just pour over it, we do that all the time.” “The rock will hold the concrete above that water.”
I though to myself: “No, I don’t think so”.
So my Son went to Buchheits and bought a water pump. We spent two day pumping that water out.
The water was literally 2 feet deep! We dug multiple holes around the basement and would pump out one hole and it would fill right up again. We did this over and over.
Why did Mr. DuBois direct all that water INTO that basement area? … You would have to ask him. 636-942-2046
More Deviations By Mr. DuBois.
The Wrong Wing Wall
Because my lot is sloping to the back and to one side, we needed to build a wing wall.
Since Mr.DuBois had built the wing wall at my current house, and the design worked well. (See photos 1. and 2. ) I told him to just duplicate that wall at the new house. He agreed to do that, adding that he could actually add another 10 feet to make the wall 35 feet long.
1.
2.
If he had done as requested, and as he had said he would, the wall would have followed the slope of the yard and would have contained all the dirt in a way that would have kept it from eroding over into the Septic System field. However, he did NOT do as he had agreed to do and totally changed the size, shape and positioning of the wall, from what it was supposed to be. This created multiple problems.(See photo’s 3 and 4).
Photo 3. shows how the design change left the sloping ground unsupported. It now drains directly into the Septic System area, where the drip lines are only 3-4″ deep. Photo 4. shows those 3″ holes again. … In this case, their position will direct water from those holes into an area that Mr, DuBois had been informed was the area for my dog’s yard.
3.
THE “DUNGEON” WINDOW
When the foundation was poured, as soon as the forms came off, I was excited to go see it.
I had to approach the house from the back, as the front had mounds of dirt piled up.
The first thing I noticed, was the one and only window in the whole foundation. It immediately struck me as looking like “a dungeon window.” … My heart sank, as this would be the only source of outside light coming into the basement.
The Photo shows what I call the “dungeon window” in the foundation. It is 12 square feet less than what it was supposed to be (IE: What is designated on the Architect’s Plans.)
I had planned to put my Dental Lab Tech bench in front of that window. (Lab Tech work is often small and intricate. The brighter your light, the better.) … No source of artificial light can ever illuminate like the sun.
This deviation was my introduction, as to what was yet to come from Mr. DuBois.
