Piff Poff

Time and time again we end up telling our contractors to not come back thank you.

1st time we had a guy come to build our deck and erect our shop, we had used him previously for a very similar job and was super impressed with his work, so had every confidence in him. We went away for the weekend and came back to find he just did his own thing (I didn't want the deck to cover the basement windows, the deck comes halfway up the windows) and he ballsed up the shop.

2nd time guy comes to do lots of little jobs and a couple of big ones, started off fabulously, then stopped showing up, we managed to eventually get him back to finish the floor and then told him to go and we'd get someone else to finish the bathroom.

3rd time was an electrician, when he punched a hole in our brand new drywall to pull the wire through for the pot lights when the wall didn't have a ceiling we asked him to leave.

4th time the bathroom guy and tiling, I hate that bathroom, he used floor spacers for the subway tile, the tiles are wobbly (not flush) and some are chipped, it's horrible.

Present, our septic requires unblocking, guy comes out and augers, doesn't work, is due to come back the next day to jet it and if that doesn't work they are going to dig - $5k as they already have the digger out that day. I get home, no sign of digging, think great job done. Erm no. Apparently the people that come to check utility lines couldn't find our blue sign number (god help us if we need emergency services and what was wrong with google, comes up on there!). This was last Friday. They left a message saying there was an issue. I called Friday, Monday and Tuesday leaving messages each time. Last time I emailed a stroppy note. Today I got a call from a guy, it's gonna cost $7k as they needed to get permission from me and the Utility finders couldn't find us.

Just 'cause we have lots of cars people think we are loaded. The cars are kaput in most cases and we look like gyppos (yep hubby is lethargic again and nothing is happening). I just want to sell everything, EVERYTHING and move to a tent somewhere.

bats

It's nothing to expect people to.do their job properly. I've had the same trouble with the people we got.to do our kitchen and bathrooms
​​​bathrooms. It's not a country thing either, nobody gives a toss.

Piff Poff

So why, when my husband is selling a car does he wash it beofer poeple are expected to show up and why does he do all the niggly bits that are not always necessary. Why is it only us that care? Expletive expletive expletive!

dbd33

I was well pleased with the contractor who reconfigured the garage, made it a clear span. Also the one that laid the concrete for the barn foundation. I can send them round if you're ok with Mennonites.

Siouxie

The only recommendation I can make is never ever leave them unsupervised - appoint yourself as site foreman and watch what they are doing -- at the first indication that they are not complying with what you actually want, stop them and tell them they need to discuss it with you before going any further.

I once had an electrician (in the UK) who tore up half my floorboards, splitting a ton of them and gouging wood out on others; cut huge holes in the original paneling under some windows and gouged out plaster in some places and tried to lay surface channelling on others. (It was a Georgian house which had the original features including ceiling roses and plaster curved coving etc.)

I took photos of everything when he left the premises - went to his house and handed him an official letter barring him from the premises and explaining he was dismissed - then gave him the option of collecting his tools and equipment the next day, giving me the deposit back and signing off on the job officially - or be sued.
He turned up next day to collect his tools, equipment and reels of wire, sockets etc., with a cheque for me... which I took to the bank and got special clearance on (didn't trust the sod). Sad thing was he had come recommended.

Lesson learned - never trusted anyone again to be unsupervised.

Piff Poff

if they can do the job, do the job well and on time for a reasonable price i wojld happily emply them!
there is only so much time a person can take off work, at the end of the day we need to earn money for their extortionate prices! Lol

Atlantic Xpat

Finding a good tradesperson/contractor is a challenge on both sides of the pond & you have my sympathies. We've just completed a large extension to our place & used a contractor that we knew personally (contemporary and family friend of one of my brothers in law), even with the knowledge that if he screwed up it would be very embarrassing, the project has not been without it's stresses. The work ethic of millennials being the primary one. I lost my sh1t when a carpenter showed up at 9.30am, idly did a few bits of work and then announced he had to leave at 11.30 for a hair appointment with the hipster barbers in town. He was away for 2 hrs. Told the contractor to find another carpenter, one who wanted to work a full day and attend to his personal grooming needs in his own time.

Having a clear definition of what needs to be done is key and, unfortunately, being on site as much as possible is also key. I was able to work from home a lot to keep an eye on what was going on and prevent some stuff going awry. Even the best trades people can do annoying things though. We had really good electricians but they decided, unbidden, to remove a bunch of network cabling I'd run and reconfigure it. I only found out after the drywall had gone in and it means that things don't work as neatly as they should. One has to roll with the punches I guess.

dbd33

We haven't supervised at all. We find potential contractors by internet (yes, even people who by religion are forbidden to operate combined harvesters have proxies to work the internet for them), send pictures, ask for a quote. We drive around and look at other jobs they say they have done. The contractor comes around and the work is discussed, the important thing at this point is not the price but the understanding "you want it to come out to here?", "You can live with rough filling of the holes?", "you need piping for hydro under the driveway but not the hydro itself", "we can leave burnable rubbish only". If the contractor seems to know the business and has asked about everything we know matters and a series of things we didn't know mattered then we pay the deposit and go off to work. Written documentation is not usually involved and payment, if not in cash, is by cheque.

Sometimes the contractor will text with questions or exciting news "did you know you had knob and tube in the ceiling?" one asked, rhetorically. Mostly there's no news. we next deal with them directly when they say "work x is done, please inspect, installment payment now due". If it's a big job, for example framing an additional floor for the house, there may be some negotiation of issues at that point but usually not, usually it's just a matter of coughing up the cash and letting them press on.

I think we have been lucky but mostly, like anything else, you're buying the person - reputation and personal impression are what count. If they seem anything other than knowledgeable and straightforward then never mind, there'll be another one along next month or next year. Staged payments appeal to me, I think that's how contracts should be structured and I would find it off putting if the contractor didn't ask for that. Oh, and I look askance at people who turn up to quote driving a Dodge Ram, if you're so aesthetically challenged and so unconcerned with precision in steering, you're not likely to make anything nice with a power tool in your hand.

Atlantic Xpat

This. We've paid a number of stage payments - framing, insulated & drywall, kitchen installed, etc. It's the only way to go. (& is what you do in the commercial world for complex projects). Any contractor who requires money up front should be avoided - financially they should be able to float the first stage of the job. Similarly, I'd be concerned about someone not wanting payment til jobs end - clearly unrealistic on a big job. There should be a final payment held for 30 days from completion against any of the sub-trades placing a lien on the property if they haven't been paid by the contractor. Changes should be agreed and costed prior to execution - if only by text message. And to go a bit Mike Holmes for a second .. "Make sure you see/get copies of the bloody permits". Friends had a big job done some years ago and it turned out that no permits were applied for so they had all manner of costly aggravation when they came to sell.

Oakvillian

That's as good a recommendation as any! We had two guys come round to quote for some work a while ago. One was in a super-duty truck of some kind with the cab half a mile off the ground, the other arrived on a BMW R1200 "because it's a nice day" and we spent the first ten minutes on a sort of "life's too short to drive a truck if you don't have to" conversation. I have a feeling his quote was a little more expensive, but I knew which one I'd trust with my house!

Engineer_abroad

I largely agree except it is common for an advanced payment at the beginning for materials especially on large jobs. I work with contractors all the time and the one thing you learn is that they will cut corners if they think they can. The best advise I can give is ensure you always have a written statement of specifications that the contractors has signed off on. This doesn't need to be complicated but should also include:
What you want doing, how you want it doing and what materials should be used.

scrubbedexpat091

The mellinial generation seems not too interested in work. Its not a priority for them. I am sure there are some exceptions but working with mostly millenials at work its difficult at times. They tend to be late, call in sick, leave early, refuse to do their job and feel they dont have to listen to superiors.

Snowy560

We had our basement suite renovated after the tenant we inherited trashed it just when we were moving in (long story). We asked the builder to build us a storage area. What the builder didn't tell us and we didn't know (the place was in a terrible state after the tenant eventually left) was that there was a huge safe stuffed towards the back of what was to become the storage area. The way the entrance to the storage area was then constructed (by the builder) means we can never get the safe out and apparently they are impossible to dismantle (for obvious reasons). I suppose it's quite funny really.

BristolUK

At least it's safe.

dbd33

I don't think this advise relevant to domestic renovations as it assumes both that the contractor can read and write and that the contractor is fluent in the language of the client. That narrows the field unreasonably.