Can anybody recommend a company/contractor who would develop our basement professionally and have it ready by end of August?

Any contacts gratefully received!

Is this a serious question? :scared:

A colleague at the office has just had a whole bunch of renovations done on his house. He highly recommends a carpenter by the name of Kevin Nillson (phone 403-697-8773). Apparently Kevin does woodwork, dry walling, painting, and various other kinds of work. You also would need an electrician and, if you're going to install a bathroom, a plumber. Perhaps Kevin could recommend relevant people to you.

If you don't want to have to communicate with each tradesperson separately, you'll need to find a general contractor, but I don't know one off the top of my head.

My husband installed a bathroom in our basement. He did most of the work himself. Since he's an electrical engineer, he felt confident that he could do the electrical wiring himself. He even did the plumbing himself. However, when it came to installing marble tiles, he decided to get someone else to do it. He asked Home Depot, from whom he had bought the tiles, and they recommended a tiler who turned out to be excellent.

My husband is very frugal, and he went to great pains to price building materials. He came to the conclusion that Home Depot offered the best value for money.

But everyone I know who is having a house built or having renovations done tells me the same story. The tradesmen who are working for them are simultaneously working on other jobs. They do some work on your house, and then they duck out and go and do some work on one of their other projects. I'm not blaming the tradesmen. The building industry is so busy at the moment that tradesmen are stretched thinly. Hence my initial reaction to your post. I'm just trying to warn you that, if you're going to embark on a home improvement project, you should gird your loins, so to speak.

You're in Calgary, right? I would think end of August would be pushing it in the current climate. It's so damned hard to find quality in the construction industry. We've recently stopped work we were having done, because it was simply inadequate. Now they are threatening to sue us - cheeky b'stards!

Anyway, we learned a lot as a result of the above, so I'm more than willing to share any info if you'd like.

We did go and talk to one company since that impressed me (that's not easy to do, as I grew up on building sites as the daughter of an old school, and VERY highly skilled, particular Carpenter). If you want to discuss, please PM me

Thanks Judy, yes I'm afraid it was a serious question. We bought our house in November, and at that time got a contractor to come give an estimate to redevelop the basement.

We completed Jan 31st and on Feb 2nd had the guy come back to further discuss plans. We had a good look around the house, and found that now it was empty there was a lot of "face-lifting" that it'd be nice to get done before we moved in. We had our rental booked til end of May.

So we handed over the keys and the guy said he'd start by ripping out the old basement, then get on with the rest of the house so it'd be all done. Well it isn't. We were supposed to move in tomorrow, and the house has no flooring, only primed walls, the kitchen has been taken apart ..... and I'd had fond hopes that he'd just be finishing the basement by the time we moved!

Don't get me wrong. He does really good work and is VERY thorough, so we know it will not be a botched job, but the problem is exactly as you describe .... he has been doing several jobs at once, and as we were not actually living in the mess I expect that other owners were more insistent that he get on with theirs!

Tonight we learned that he had been planning on getting another job started once he has finished our "upstairs", and was he dismayed to hear that we really want our basement finished by SEPTEMBER as my elderly parents are visiting from the UK then. He remarked gloomily that he'd have to refuse another job ..... well I had to bite my tongue to prevent a rather terse response to that one!
I'm afraid if I really tell him how disappointed we are he might just push off and leave the mess to us!

I just wondered if there was anyone else we might get quotes from, to finish the basement, but it rather sounds like we'd be out of luck anyway.

This might help you get started
http://www.hiringacontractor.com/En/default.asp

Thanks Calgal, that's a good link.

We've just had a bedroom and bathroom put in our basement and had to wait 6 months to get the contractor we wanted. (Recommended by a friend).
The good ones are mega busy and a wait is perhaps inevitable.

Would be right in assuming that original source of this guys name was the Wisdoms?

Biting your tonque ...is the best thing you could do, because if he walked out, you'd find it extremely difficult to get another one until probably october. Also when another contractor turns up and can see the mess you're in, they'll probably rip you off....To be honest, unless you go with a large firm, then you'll encounter this problem all the time, as everybody is chasing the next job...My guess is that you've probably paid him a good chunk...he's spent up and needs more cash to help him through.

Anyway as for recommending a contractor..I only know ones in Cochrane, and they are booked solid...so apologies there. Hold on OH has a number of a guy in Bragg Creek who is excellent and might be worth giving a call...PM me and I'll give you the details.

As promised.

Wow terrific list. Thanks.

Which is the Bragg Creek guy? Is he on there?

No I sent that info as a PM to you...Rob Paterson is his name.

Your PM must've got lost in the post, cos I never received it

Thanks anyway.

The only thing I have to add to this discussion is that last year I wanted to install a new window in my kitchen. So I went to Home Depot and Rona - I can't remember which was cheaper - there wasn't much in it so I decided to go with Rona as they are a Canadian company.

So they priced out the window and the installation and I paid them the money. In about six weeks the window arrived and a few days later the installer came - only to find that the window was the wrong size. So, I started thinking -- at the point Rona had had my $750 odd for six weeks. We were going to England at the end of June, my son was getting married at the end of July - by the time the new window finally arrived and got installed, I would have lent Rona $750 for about three months or more. I decided that I am not a bank. I got my money back from Rona.

I went to Home Hardware. Ordered the window. Paid them $100 deposit. When the window came I paid the balance of the cost of the window and when it was installed, I paid the installer for his work.

I told him about what I had figured out about paying "up front" for the whole thing and he just laughed. He said he used to do work for Home Depot. Everybody who orders from those big box stores has to pay up front. Can you imagine how many millions of our dollars Rona and Home Depot use to fund their business? They don't need to go to the bank to borrow money - their customers GIVE them money and they can run their business on that. They don't pay their suppliers before they get the merchandise - they probably pay months ahead.

Sounds like a good ruse to me - for Home Depot and Rona that is and I will continue to buy my windows, doors etc. from Home Hardware.

I don't know why anyone would go the Home Depot/Rona route.

When replacing the sealed unit in our living room, two bedroom windows, a sliding patio door and the back door we went to a place that does only windows and doors.
Small deposit up front, they arrived on the day they said they would and were gone by 4:00 p.m. all work completed.

The bill for the balance arrived a couple of weeks later.

Cheers
Steve