Carpenters and Joiners
Construct, erect, install, renovate and repair structures and fixtures made of wood, plywood, lightweight steel, wallboard and other materials, and cut, shape and fit timber parts to form structures and fittings.
A deck, a rush and a family barbecue
You are a carpenter building a timber deck at the back of a family home, with your apprentice, before a birthday party on the weekend. It is Thursday morning. The deck frame is up and the boards are stacked. The family has invited forty guests for Saturday. The weather is clear, but the supplier has delivered the wrong fixings.
Choose what you would do. Then see what happens. There are often good reasons for each choice.
The deck is looking great! My mum is coming on Saturday and she uses a walking frame. I thought we might leave the stair rails off until next week, to save time. It will only be one weekend, will it not?
Say the rails go first, then the boards, and tell her the order of the work
Joss agrees. The rails and the stairs are done by Friday noon, and the boards follow. Her mother arrives on Saturday and has no trouble at all.
Leave the rails off for now, as agreed with the owner
On Saturday a guest steps back onto the edge in the middle of a conversation. Nobody falls, but Joss and her mother both see how close it was. The rails should have gone on first.
Tell her the deck cannot be used for the party, and leave the rails and boards until Monday
It is safe, but Joss is left with forty guests and an empty yard. A flat no with no plan to make the weekend work felt like giving up on the party.
I am so sorry, I sent the wrong screws. The ones you ordered will come on Monday. I have a close match in the van that would probably hold the boards in place. Do you want those instead?
Use the close match, since they look similar and the deck needs to be finished
They hold at first, but outdoors the wrong fixings corrode and stain the boards within a season. You saved a weekend and bought a call-back.
Ask Sam to find the right ones from another yard, and collect them yourself
The correct fixings are at a yard across town. You collect them, and the deck is finished by Friday night with the right screws. Nobody has to compromise.
Wait until Monday and let the party go ahead on an unfinished deck
Forty guests arrive to find the deck half done, with loose boards. Joss is mortified, and the family blames the carpenter rather than the supplier.
I measured and cut all the boards for the corner, but I think I used the old plan. They are too short by a few centimetres. We could stick a small piece on the end. Nobody will see it, will they?
Join a small piece on the end so the cut boards are not wasted
The patched ends are visible from the lawn, and the joins catch bare feet. The family notices before Saturday, and you spend the evening replacing them.
Start again with fresh boards, and show Zoran how to check the plan before cutting
The corner looks excellent, and Zoran learns the lesson. But you have used the spare boards and had to order more, which costs half a day and a call to the supplier.
Use the short boards elsewhere and recut the corner, checking the plan first
The short boards fit under the stairs where nothing is wasted. You recut the corner from fresh boards, and Zoran writes the plan number on every board before he cuts.
How it went
By Friday night the deck is finished, the rails are on and the family has a party to look forward to. Carpentry is the sort of trade where you can see and touch what you made at the end of every day. Which would you rather build, something big or something fine?
This is a simplified, fictional situation to help you explore. It is not professional instruction or a test of your ability.
Case study: The wall that was holding up the house
A fictional case set in a building and joinery business doing home extensions, decks, doors, stairs and workshop-built windows.
The situation
Callum, a carpenter, was renovating a kitchen for a couple who wanted to knock out the wall between the kitchen and the living room to create an open space. The couple, the Rosenbergs, had seen it done on a television show in a weekend. They had a tight budget and asked Callum to just take the wall down, as it looked thin and did not seem to carry anything.
What they did
Callum went up into the roof space before touching the wall, and found the ceiling beams above it were joined at that point, which meant the wall could be carrying part of the roof. He told the Rosenbergs that he could not take it out until an engineer had checked it, and explained why in plain terms. It added a few weeks and extra costs. He kept the rest of the renovation moving in the meantime so they were not left waiting.
How it turned out
The engineer confirmed that the wall was carrying load. A properly sized beam was installed to replace it, and the kitchen opened up as planned. The Rosenbergs were frustrated by the delay, but later said they were glad nobody had guessed.
What would you do?
- How can you tell whether a wall holds up something above it?
- Why might a carpenter bring in an engineer instead of deciding alone?
- How would you keep a client calm during a delay you caused by being careful?