Home repair contractor drama........

[YELLAHEEP]

The old adage "If you want it done right, you gotta do it yourself" hasn't applied any stronger in my life than this past few weeks.........

Hired a highly recommended contractor to do some home repairs and updates in association with a plumbing leak recently. I did all the plumbing repairs and clean up associated with that part, but we took out an insurance claim to pay for part of the repair and some updating we'd been dragging our feet on.

Being done:
-Crown molding in dining room and a hallway
-Baseboards in the same area
-Baseboard on the back of the kitchen counter area that got water damaged
-Paint dining room, hallway and all stained trim white
-Paint new garage door into the kitchen and new trim white
-Replace 3 light fixtures with new ones in dining room and hall
-Put screws into creaky stair case steps and loose floor boards prior to carpet install
-Install new carpet in living room, hall and dining room to address water damage.

Long story short....... this guy is a terrible communicator and shows his face only when it's time to get a check.

With my work schedule, I needed the work done on Fridays and Saturdays, he says no problem, with the advance scheduling, his crew would be able to free up and work the Saturdays needed.

Fridays have been solid work days but Saturdays are 9am-1pm. Work is behind schedule. Contractor is not concerned about the short saturday hours.

I've been home during the work and been having to answer questions of the workers about painting to be done, fixing crappy work, reminding them what's to be done. Contractor says nothing to them. First paint crew of 3 was replaced with a single painter because other jobs he has are seemingly more important - single painter has no idea what's to be done, I have to show him.

First painter crew foreman wants my old door knobs, locks and light fixtures to send to family in Mexico and offers to trade those for labor to install new fixtures..... takes the old stuff, then isn't back to finish the install, new painter knows nothing about it and I'm gonna get billed for install.

Creaky stairs........ Agreement with Contractor is that screws will be put into steps and no guarantee all noise will be gone, but should make a good difference in the noise - I'm good with that. All workers that show up know nothing about having to repair the stairs initially, gets told to the first paint crew to do the stairs..... of course, the day stair work is to be done, the crew is pulled and single painter knows nothing about it.

Each time I have an issue, I can't call the contractor, he's too busy and prefers text. The problems have been on late fridays or a Saturday. He doesn't respond to texts after 5 or on weekends. Last issues have gone unanswered or acknowledged from Saturday until the next Thursday leaving me stewing for days.

Single painter returns Saturday and says Contractor told him about the stairs. I leave for a bit to run errands and lunch. Come back to find that he's used an air framing nailer and 3-4" nails...... most of which have missed their mark and splintered the wood. Some nails placed in very odd areas. WTF? Stairs creak just as bad as before.

Contractor says sorry, we knew the fix wasn't guaranteed. What happened to using properly placed screws? Who uses a framing nailer for this kind of work???

I should add that when I took the guy downstairs to look at what his nail work did and didn't do, he seemed genuinely embarrassed and said he'd cut off all the exposed nails, bring 2x2's to put in the notch of the steps and risers and use screws to secure all that in place under each step........ but that's IF he gets sent back to finish I'm guessing. I texted these photos to the contractor and he said any additional repair of the stairs would be billed.



I wanna fire this contractor but my wife says this is how the industry is and we've been lucky to even have people show up for the work.


Do I really have to accept this garbage?


At this point, I've asked the contractor to come to the house, look at the work so far and that we need to spell out the work needing done, still to be done, and a timeline so that we don't get too far behind. Also that we need to come to an agreement about the stair repair and billing. I'm anticipating that I won't hear back from him until Thursday as per his established pattern so far.........



.

 

[in4aride]

I've all but accepted that everyone is out to **** me over and that people bring endless amounts of suck in all they do.

 

[hjeepxj]

That looks like a torture chamber!

Your wife is right to an extent - many of these types of "handyman" contractors communicate poorly, do bad work, and usually charge too much.

HOWEVER; that needs to be fixed and you need to only pay for what it takes to fix the original problem. IMO.

Who's the contractor?

 

[trippled]

Wow that's bad. But I'd agree, even a recommended one, that contractors are the absolute scum of the earth and most will screw you any chance they get.

 

[ColoradoRaptor]

BS!!!!!!!!! I would call him and notify him not to return, even for a check!! This is NOT a standard of the industry and should NEVER be accepted as one!! Let him file suit, as long as you kept record of what was expected and what you have received to include piss poor correspondence you should be fine. Nonsense I tell you ..... just nonsense! I used to work in that industry and contracts were agreed to in writing and my work was top notch! If you let this jack wagon get away with this BS you are setting up the next sucker to take it in the ass like you will.... No sir fire him and look for a new contractor!

 

[UnlimitedMatt]

I've always said the contractors choose self employment because they can't hold a job.

 

[LBC970]

Wow that's bad. But I'd agree, even a recommended one, that contractors are the absolute scum of the earth and most will screw you any chance they get.

They may not even use screws, but nails!

As a former contractor in COS, I can say there are some terrible ones. But there are also good ones. While I don't agree with your wife, you should fire him, I do agree that the industry has more bad apples than good.

I'd let that one go, and find another.

 

[freerider15]

After writing proposals with lots of line items in industry, I've told Nikki that when we do hire a contractor to do work (like our bathroom tear out and re-do), that I will hold them to the same standards as I should expect to see from myself.

I will get in writing, with wet signatures:

- Timeline with completion. The only allowable delays would be to items completely outside of their control, and not due to their staffing, resource, lack of availability, etc.

- The standard of work will be outlined, and communication periods set.

Don't want to be made sure you do adequate work in an allotted time? I'll find someone else.

Troy, if I were you I'd be becoming unhinged. I'd be lighting a fire under that guy with either the phone, or a threat of suit for damages, wasted time, etc.

Either come fix it, or pay for someone else to come in and do it. Want to take me to court? Sure, it will just end up costing you that much more.

 

[smokeyyank]

I'd tell him to take those nails and shove it! If you have it documented of what the scope of work was and have pictures of that not being done court will side in your favor. I'd fire him, file a suit in small claims court and find another person. Don't give him another dime as chance of work being finished let alone done right are looking slim. That sucks, hate shaddy contractors.

 

[xj-grin]

They may not even use screws, but nails!

As a former contractor in COS, I can say there are some terrible ones. But there are also good ones. While I don't agree with your wife, you should fire him, I do agree that the industry has more bad apples than good.

I'd let that one go, and find another.

^^ this. Most of my handyman/subcontractors have convinced me that I would be top of the food chain if I stopped lawyering and started contracting. My general on my house however, restores my faith -- his guys don't always do good work, but he always stands behind it and makes it right. That should be your expectation.

 

[xj-grin]

I'd definitely do the angies list review stuff on this tool, too. Social media reputation is important these days.

 

[Gotlift01]

Fire his ass. I own a commercial drywall company, and I get hounded weekly to get into residential because of this type of crap. Communication is key...period! Everything that is to be done or is discussed with the customer needs to be in writing and agreed upon before any work takes place. Any "change" in the work, or unforseen problems arise, they need to be discussed onsite and treated as a written change order that again, both parties sign before any work is done.

If the contractor fails to perform a service, the customer has written documentation.....as well as it protects the contractor from the occasional shitty customer "claiming" more work was to be done, etc.

I'd cut that guy loose. Even if he does complete the job, the quality of work you are paying for is shit. Get on Angies list and do some research. Word of mouth ( friend of a friend type deal ) referrals can be great, but can also be crap....as some of those people don't know what is good work and what is not.

I've been slowly remodeling my house for the past 2 years. I have ZERO time to do it, but I absolutely refuse to pay someone to do it as I'm a picky bastard, and I don't have time to dick around with crappy contractors like this.

Sucks you are experiencing this, Troy. Just make sure to document EVERYTHING! Take a ton of pictures, keep all text messages, dates & times of contact if by phone, keep a log of when workers show up to the house, length of break times, etc. If you do have to go to court, this will help you tremendously! Good luck!

 

[xj-grin]

I've been slowly remodeling my house for the past 5 years. I have ZERO time to do it, but I absolutely refuse to pay someone to do it as I'm a picky bastard, and I don't have time to dick around with crappy contractors like this.

fixed it ... for ME!

 

[DutchVDub]

I'd break his knees and pull the dirty cop harassment routine on him.

 

[YELLAHEEP]

Yeah I'm mad at myself for not getting a line-item work order from him signed by both of us. He gave me his work order that spells out most of the work being done in very general terms with hours billed for the work and very general breakdown of supplies billed for the job.

Looking over it..... he's already losing money based on the time and materials. I'm expecting he'll hit me with that...... IF he actually shows up to have a conversation with me.

At this point, if he makes good on the stairs and can meet the job completion date, my wife wants me to stick it out so we're not adding to the length of time we're sitting with carpet-less floors. We have travel dates coming up soon as well.

The other issue that came up was the paint being used to do the walls and trim. We used Behr brand - satin on the walls, semi gloss on the trim. Contractor said he prefers to use Sherwin Williams so we went to the store, picked our wall color and gave that to the Contractor, specifically noting that was to be Satin. He said the white trim in semi-gloss is universal.

Walls got painted and notably less like satin and more like eggshell. Wife HATES eggshell. I look at the printed label on the paint cans..... "eg-shel". Contractor had written "satin" on our paint sample card when he gave it to the painter. Painter goes to get satin the next day. Apparently Sherwin Williams has 7 levels of sheen, "eg-shel / satin" is one of them, the next up from that is "low lustre". This caused a big issue with us and the contractor. Given that he prefers to use S.W. paint, I expected he knew the product and when we looked at our current paint, saying we wanted the new paint "satin" like our current paint, he would have offered up that there might be a difference. Contractor: "In 10 years I've never had a customer want anything other than eggshell wall paint, I've never had this issue with satin." Now it turns out that the contractor grade paint (apparently S.W. sells different paint to retail???) that they're using isn't available in the "low lustre" and the next sheen up is more like semi gloss..... AND the white trim isn't semi-gloss looking like our other trim and it has a flat kind of feel to it..... feels like newspaper on the hand rails when using them. Wife is NOT pleased.

When I did all the crown molding and trim work in the other rooms, I laid out all uncut lengths of crown and trim in the garage and painted them, then cut them as needed and finish nailed them in place. I filled the holes and gave everything a quick roll over with paint afterwards. These guys put up the unpainted crown and trim FIRST. Painted the walls, then masked the walls to paint the trim and crown white. Painted the ceiling, then used caulk to fill the gaps between ceiling/crown/wall. Lots of tape lines and caulk lines... the trim in our other rooms have no tape lines as we painted the ceiling, then walls, then installed the painted crown. Common sense here? Or am I off base?

LOL. I guess all those contractor based home shows on TV are just fictional representations of the care and talent that contractors bring to your home projects.

 

[xj-grin]

You're not off base, you are just competent at DIY, and you know how you want it done. No one will love or take the care doing work on your house the way you will yourself... thus why I am on year 5 of a 3-year remodel. :eyes:

 

[Tracker]

You have not met me. I have been in buisness for over 25 years. Do not advertise and all referals. I have not worked on a track home either, all custom 1 million and up pretty sure if iI
did a crap job like you are describing i would not be doing work any more. So that goes to say you get what you pay for at times. I am called to contract large commercial jobs, work done on a hand shake some at 100k plus, contractors are not all bad. You just are not looking in the right places.

 

[YELLAHEEP]

You have not met me. I have been in buisness for over 25 years. Do not advertise and all referals. I have not worked on a track home either, all custom 1 million and up pretty sure if iI
did a crap job like you are describing i would not be doing work any more. So that goes to say you get what you pay for at times. I am called to contract large commercial jobs, work done on a hand shake some at 100k plus, contractors are not all bad. You just are not looking in the right places.

Um...... the way you describe yourself is the same way my contractor was described to me. I then met him in person at the time he bid the job - clean cut, professional, reassuring, convincing. 2 of my wife's co-workers hired him to do their projects and recommended him.

How is that not looking in the right place?

If one of your customers showed you photos of nails in the stairs like mine and one of your employees was responsible for that...... how would YOU handle it?



I had 3 other contractors come to my house prior to the one I hired. One I easily identified as an idiot and dismissed him. He bid the job at $3,700.

The 2nd had good references and asked me to look him up on a local contractor listing site where people rate them - good ratings - but when I showed him the work I'd done in the other rooms and that I wanted the same done for this project, he gave me a $6,500 bid, but actually admitted that he wouldn't be able to do the work as good as I had.

The 3rd was another highly rated, recommended brother team in their 60's that admittedly do the jobs in their retirement at their pace. They quoted $17K...... I think either they really think highly of themselves, or they didn't really want the job.

This contractor said all the right things and bid the job at what I thought was reasonable, but on the higher end at $6,100.

My major struggle here is having a contractor who does very little follow up on the work being done, showing that he cares how his customers feel, communicating reasonably - as in if he's busy, at least acknowledge my call or text and let me know when he can respond. Making me wait 4 days for a call or text is completely unacceptable. It's one thing to be the contractor and doing the work yourself...... it's quite another to be the guy sending other guys out to do the work and not managing the quality and direction of the work.

 

[Gotlift01]

The days without communication would absolutely drive me mad! There is absolutely no reason at all for him to go a few hours, let alone days without communication. My phone rings non stop all day long....I miss a ton of calls either because I have my hands full, or I'm on another call. BUT...I will make sure you are called back as soon as I physically can. Or if I'm going to be awhile, I'll shoot the person a text or email so they know.

The stair fix is pure bullshit! That looks more like a "**** you" than it does an attempt to fix it. Any decent contractor would have gone downstairs and had someone walk up and down the stairs trying to pin point the squeaks. Use some shims, construction adhesive or even add some extra wood for support. Blindly shooting freakin NAILS into the stairs isn't going to do one ounce of good. I would have come unhinged if I saw that in my house....or as an employer, chewed who's ass did it, make them remove every single nail and do it the proper way.

The paint is also another deal that shows he just doesn't care what you want. In my eyes and the way I go about business....The customer is paying so it's what the customer wants, not what you want. If the customer wants a specific brand paint, you use that specific brand paint. If they want a particular sheen.....use that sheen. Just because you prefer to use another brand over another, tough shit, the customer is paying therefore the customer gets what they want. It'd be like telling a flooring company you want a real Oak floor....but they prefer to use laminate, and install laminate.

I have to use customer spec'd products daily that I think are a total waste of money, or just flat out suck. I may make a recommendation or tell them the issues I've had in the past with the product, but ultimately, it is up to the customer to decide what they want.

I'd personally still send the dude packing, but I do understand the predicament and the time issues you're up against. If it were my house, I'd rather leave the house partially torn apart for a month or two, than have to look daily at things you paid good money for some hack to do. It's like living with an open sore....every time you see something that he didn't do right, it'll just irritate the shit out of you!

 

[ColoradoRaptor]

The days without communication would absolutely drive me mad! There is absolutely no reason at all for him to go a few hours, let alone days without communication. My phone rings non stop all day long....I miss a ton of calls either because I have my hands full, or I'm on another call. BUT...I will make sure you are called back as soon as I physically can. Or if I'm going to be awhile, I'll shoot the person a text or email so they know.

The stair fix is pure bullshit! That looks more like a "**** you" than it does an attempt to fix it. Any decent contractor would have gone downstairs and had someone walk up and down the stairs trying to pin point the squeaks. Use some shims, construction adhesive or even add some extra wood for support. Blindly shooting freakin NAILS into the stairs isn't going to do one ounce of good. I would have come unhinged if I saw that in my house....or as an employer, chewed who's ass did it, make them remove every single nail and do it the proper way.

The paint is also another deal that shows he just doesn't care what you want. In my eyes and the way I go about business....The customer is paying so it's what the customer wants, not what you want. If the customer wants a specific brand paint, you use that specific brand paint. If they want a particular sheen.....use that sheen. Just because you prefer to use another brand over another, tough shit, the customer is paying therefore the customer gets what they want. It'd be like telling a flooring company you want a real Oak floor....but they prefer to use laminate, and install laminate.

I have to use customer spec'd products daily that I think are a total waste of money, or just flat out suck. I may make a recommendation or tell them the issues I've had in the past with the product, but ultimately, it is up to the customer to decide what they want.

I'd personally still send the dude packing, but I do understand the predicament and the time issues you're up against. If it were my house, I'd rather leave the house partially torn apart for a month or two, than have to look daily at things you paid good money for some hack to do. It's like living with an open sore....every time you see something that he didn't do right, it'll just irritate the shit out of you!

^^
THIS!