Anyone have experience of needing to change builder part way through a home construction?

After a short but sweet burst of activity during the first week of the year, the second set of framers seem to have abadoned the job because our house has a few non square angles. Poor deers find it to difficult

But to top it all off, our builders have pissed of on a 3 week vacation. Silly us for using a small family firm. We're hoping that this "holiday" is not a last fling with our money before they close down since work seems to have come to a standstill on all 6 houses that they are currently building in Cochrane.

We're trying to find out what the options would be for getting another builder to take over the project in the event that ours is going bust. Anyone know a good lawyer in this area?

I can't help with your problem of changing builders but can perhaps give some perspective on the house building experience in general.

Remember I mentioned our friends were having a home built in Lynx Ridge.

They broke ground last May I think it was. We went to look at the house with them on Sunday. Drywall is up on the main level partially up on the lower level. Work seems to happen in spurts, days will go by with not much happening then there'll be crews all over the property for a day or two then it goes dead again.

While we were there we noticed that they had put the vapor barrier on the wrong side of the insulation in a cold room and it will have to pulled out and redone. They've had windows ordered, delivered and sent back three times because they were the wrong size.

It seems that for everything that has gone right two or three things have been done wrong and have to be redone once or twice before getting them correct. They still don't have a repossession date but May has been mentioned so they are planning for June or July, thirteen to fourteen months after starting this exercise.

I hope for your sake that you don't have to find another builder and the one you have can complete the project reasonably soon to your satisfaction.

Cheers
Steve

The house next door to us is nearing completion. The floors have been tiled and there are counters in the kitchen. The construction started in June 2005.

It's the slower pace of things that people like about Canada.

I can certainly speak for the people I referred to in my post and they are not at all impressed with this particular slower pace.

If one wants a really slower pace, Vancouver Island is the place to be.

Our builder finished our basement work today and left!!!!!!

(I was starting to wonder if he'd claim squatters' rights!)

OK
so when can we move in??

We were lucky that our builder broke ground in July 2005 and completed the house enough for us to move in Feb 2006. He wasn't brilliant at coming back and fixing the minor issues we had but we made sure we witheld his money until he had done so.

He is in the Vancouver area though so I don't think he would deal with Calgary. I'm sorry to hear you are having trouble.

If anyone wants the name of our building firm, just PM me.

Perhaps we are just impatient

But we seem to have noticed that everytime we get near a point where some money has to be handed over that there is a sudden spurt of activity.

We wouldn't mind if they could just be up front about completion dates. Last September we speicifically asked them for a conservative date upon which to base an extension to our lease. They said that we would be completely safe if we went for the end of June. In their words (all the trades were booked to work on our house". Hmm. More chance of hell freezing over from the subsequent progress.

Where's Mike Holmes when you need him

Youve got all your premits? Right?