Home Builder Developer - Interior Renovation and Design

WILKES-BARRE Closing arguments are scheduled to take place Wednesday in the trial of a contractor accused of cheating a first-time homeowner in renovating a house in Exeter.

Matt Stuka, 30, said he had no experience in renovating houses and trusted George Poplawski, 42, of Honesdale and formerly of Plains Township, to perform quality work to transform a single-family house on Harland Street into two apartments in 2012.

I told him I trusted him to get the job done, Stuka testified Tuesday before Luzerne County Judge Lesa Gelb on charges of theft, deceptive business practices and receiving advance payment for work not performed.

Assistant District Attorney Thomas Ratchford said Poplawski took advantage of Stukas inexperience and failed to keep several promises to finish the renovations during the summer of 2012. Ratchford said Stuka was forced to pay nearly $43,000 out of pocket to hire a second contractor and an electrician to correct and finish Poplawskis work. Stuka said he paid Poplawski nearly $73,000 from February 2012 until October of that year when he told Poplawski to leave.

Poplawskis attorney, Joseph Sklarosky Sr., said Poplawski was completing one job as Stuka kept asking him to do more work in the house. The requests to do more work quickly piled up to 27 separate contracts during 2012, Sklarosky said.

Mr. Stuka kept adding contracts. George did all the work properly, Sklarosky said. Just as George finished one job, Mr. Stuka had another. (Stuka) was withholding payment to him.

Stuka told jurors Poplawski was to finish renovating the house by the end of June 2012. As the job was not finished, Poplawski promised the end of July 2012, then October 2012.

Sklarosky had Stuka go through all the contracts separately. For each contract, Stuka said he paid either one-third or half the cost with the remainder paid when each job was completed.

Sklarosky questioned Stuka why he would pay the balance if he didnt like the finished product.

Stuka said all he saw were wires, plumbing pipes and concrete when he paid Poplawski, not knowing if the work was meeting building codes.

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Exeter homeowner says he trusted contractor; closing arguments set for Wednesday

Though a large earthquake can prove catastrophic to life and property, even relatively minor tremors may compromise the structural integrity of a home, resulting in large repair costs. A team of engineers based at California's Stanford University has developed a new method of building earthquake-resistant homes that could be implemented relatively easily and inexpensively.

The Stanford engineers built a small two-story home model that features what they refer to as a "unibody" design. Rather than screwing drywall to the home's wooden frame, it was attached with glue, while strong mesh and additional screws were used to attach and keep the white stucco facade safely in place.

More significantly however, the home was not placed on a standard foundation, but on "seismic isolators." The seismic isolators comprise 12 steel-and-plastic sliders, each measuring around 11.4 cm (4.5 in) in diameter, and plates and bowl-shaped dishes made of galvanized steel were placed beneath.

The prototype model home was tested on an earthquake simulator that essentially acts as a large shaking table. Though unable to give a Richter scale reading, the engineers report that they shook the table at three times the intensity of a 6.9 magnitude quake. Thanks to the seismic isolators, the house slid harmlessly from left to right, but took no damage. Indeed, it wasn't until the researchers turned up the earthquake simulator up to maximum that the building displayed significant damage.

Of course, the principle of seismic isolators isn't new, and they are already used to protect some larger structures, like San Francisco International Airport for example. However, the significance of the Stanford research lies in its inexpensiveness and ease of installation. The researchers report that their system would only add around US$15,000 to the total cost of a typical 185 sq m (2,000 sq ft) full-sized house.

Though retrofitting the earthquake-resistant technology to an existing home is possible, the researchers say that a new build would be much easier and only take contractors roughly four additional days to install.

The video below shows the model home being tested.

Source: Stanford News

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Stanford researchers develop earthquake-resistant house prototype

News 12 at 6 o'clock / Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2014

GROVETOWN, Ga. (WRDW) -- George Posey said he never saw it coming.

"I was out in the yard messing around, right? This truck pulls up," Posey said.

The man behind the wheel had an offer the 77-year-old Army veteran said sounded great at the time.

"He had some excess asphalt," Posey said.

He said a Harry Smith with a company called Asphalt Maintenance promised he could give Posey's driveway a quick facelift.

"I was thinking it was going to run in the $4,000 or $5,000 range," Posey said.

But at completion, Posey said the total bill rang up much higher.

"Ninety-one hundred dollars for the 2,600 square feet," Posey said.

In keeping with his end of the bargain, Posey cut a check to Smith for $9,100, but now seven weeks later.

Original post:
12 OYS: Senior accuses paver of shoddy work; company promises to fix driveway

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