That sucks. I was reading each post in this thread hoping that it was not too late. I hear this stuff all of the time. These guys always have excuse after excuse to keep stringing you along and when they are sure that there is no more money coming from you they disappear. If you file a lawsuit, they will either declare bankruptcy or have no assets to take.
I think that prosecutors should come down hard on these things. This guy deliberately took your money and spent them on his personal bills.
The architect recommended this one, so, from a Bayesian point of view, the architect’s recommendations are not good ones.
Find someone who’s personally had a project completed to recommend another GC.
We are really worried about money right now, what with the country shut down.
I don’t think we can afford to hire another GC, so I am going to try to do it myself. I’m pretty competent at engineering and project management, but I have little experience in dealing with the city for permits. I have the inspector’s card, so Im going to call him and see what he thinks I should do.
I still think you should call the architect, remind them that they recommended the contractor and ask for their advice or assistance.
Thanks, I’ll do that.
This is one of those effects of the pandemic I just did not consider. No kitchen, no way to get one, and you can’t even go anywhere to eat? Sounds like a total nightmare. :eek:
It’s a major bummer, but it’s probably not really the end of the world.
You can make plenty of tasty and serviceable food with a crock pot and a hot plate.
So if this guy was your GC, did he use any subcontractors? And if so, did he pay them or did you pay them directly? Because if he was the one supposed to be paying them, it’s unfortunately likely that you’re going to have some subcontractors coming to you looking for their money. It may be worth proactively contacting them to find out if they were paid.
Like, literally everyone I have ever known who didn’t have a kitchen for 6 weeks because of a remodel described it as 10x more awful and complicated than they ever predicted.
What I remember we did when my parents’ kitchen was under construction was to move the refrigerator into the dining room and use the microwave oven a lot. And even then I think the contractor temporarily wired the stove in the dining room as well.
I see you are in Scottsdale. My friend owned a home improvement business up here in Seattle for a long time and just moved it down to AZ recently. If you PM me I can give you his info, he might be able to just provide advice as an hourly service if that’s all you want.
I would now go to the lumberyard and any subcontractors (electricians, plumbers, etc…) that you remember their names and let them know that your GC has quit your project. Tell them any money coming in from him is to settle any outstanding bills. They might not be too cooperative to this but you will be on record that as of on this date (XX/XX/XXXX) you are no longer responsible for any bills related to your project through this GC. Also ask for ALL BOMs related to your project as of that date as most GCs separate out specific jobs even though it is under their name. Stay there until they come up with something, which should only take a few minutes to bring it up on the computer, so they don’t add stuff that may or may not have been used on your job. It will be a mess but it will be the only way to prevent a mechanic’s lien on your house for items you have already paid for. Good luck!
dealing with the inspector(s) shouldn’t be too bad - for you.
assuming this guy had to pull a general construction permit (that serves all the licensed trades doing work on your job), when the inspector(s) catch wind of how he’s operating, they likely won’t be too kind to him in the future.
on your end, you won’t be able to continue under his permit after the contract has been breached, but you should be able to pull a homeowner’s permit or just have any of the licensed trades pull their own permits (multiple trades individual permits will cost you more).
any work that needs inspected will be between the licensed trades and the inspector. outside of you letting the inspector in when he shows up, you’re not required to do anything. they typically just want to be left alone, they’ll do the inspection, and issue a pass or fail on the work. a fail will be accompanied by a list of any why’s, which the contractor will need to dispute (rarely done) or correct, and then schedule a redo.
pretty much hands off, stay outta my way are your instructions.
Having never been in that situation, I will assume that I’m missing something trying to figure it out from first principles.
Let’s see: you have no surfaces for food preparation, so you have to make do in other rooms and on surfaces not suited for food preparation. These other rooms are not set up for easy cleaning and do not have running water, so you have to shuttle buckets of water from your bathroom and it’s hard to get the bucket under a bathroom tap, so you use the tub and then if you’re not careful, you slop water all over your house when you haul it to the food preparation area. You have no refrigerator and thus no means of storing fresh food, or leftovers. You have no place to wash your dishes except the bathroom sink, which is ill-suited for dish washing, especially large pots and pans; and when you are done washing the dishes, most bathrooms do not have a convenient place to put down the dishes. Basically, everything you do in your kitchen every day, you can’t do in a way that is convenient and conducive to cleanliness.
While I’m sure that a few people end up in the situation you describe, are most kitchen renovations really that absolute?
Do you actually discard all the food in your fridge and the fridge while things are being redone? Or do you move the fridge to some other room so that you can still at least keep the pickles and the leftovers cold? You still presumably have tables, right? You can prepare food at a table.
I made a meal a day for a decent chunk of college with a hot plate and a microwave, washing up in the bathroom sink and using a corner of my desk to put a cutting board on when necessary. I’ve gone on several weeks long road trips where we cooked most meals at campsites and in hotel rooms. Probably a billion people on the planet do all their cooking with less kitchen than what you described.
It’s an inconvenience, sure, and you might be a little bored at the lack of variation, but come on.
6 weeks or more, was the post.
So that’s a month and a half of a fridge parked … where, in the middle of the living room? Can’t just plug that sucker into any old outlet, gotta have the big 3-prong holes.
Washing dishes … where, in the tub/shower? People use the bathroom for, yanno, bathroom stuff. Pooping. They still do, even while you’re washing dishes.
Alternative is a whole lotta delivery (or eating out, which can’t be done now either) and that shit gets expensive, fast.
Now throw in a couple of little kids, or dietary/health issues. Just for funzies.
It’s survivable. But it does suck, and most people - including you, we see - underestimate the magnitude of suckitude. That’s all.
You can, perhaps, run a long extension cord to where the refrigerator used to be plugged in. (Ideally the contractor can leave that outlet in place even as the rest of the room is torn down.) And rather than washing plates in the bathroom, you might just use paper plates. Between takeout and frozen meals, it’s survivable; it helps to look forward to the new, improved kitchen.
In the sink. The same place you wash your hands and presumably get them clean enough to eat with. Hopefully the members of your household can refrain from pooping long enough for you to finish the dishes.
I am still willing to believe that I’m underestimating the suckitude, but I have to say that the responses listing ways in which it sucks are underwhelming and make me think that people are overstating relatively minor inconveniences.
There’s a tendency when debating to state the strongest version of your case or the longest list of arguments, but doing so to the point that the arguments seem overwrought and silly make me think that the argument is not actually very strong at all.
The original claim that “You won’t have a fridge at all” (which as I pointed out seems unlikely) morphed quickly into “The fridge can’t just be plugged in anywhere” (I guess true in some cases but the majority of houses have grounded outlets outside the kitchen) with the ultimate resolution of “you might have to run an extension cable”. That’s not very convincing. And I realize that you personally didn’t make all those statements. But the pattern of making things sound a lot worse than they actually are likely to be is in your post too. Suggesting incredulously that you have to endure with the fridge “in the middle of the living room” instead of, like, against a wall wherever it’s least obtrusive (you know, like where fridges always go?) is just one such silly attempt to make things sound worse than they are.
The stark horror of either schlepping buckets of water all over the house or being forced to wash dishes in a room where people poop isn’t that impressive either. Again: I’ve done those things plenty of times, and it’s… not that big a deal. Put a clean dishcloth down on the countertop and stack the clean and dry dishes on it, then remove them before someone flushes the toilet.
Is being without a full kitchen actually a major misery, or are people accustomed to tremendous luxury making a big to-do over a relatively minor inconvenience. I’m kinda leaning toward the latter.
Well, since I have nothing new to report, let me chime in:
Not having a kitchen is an enormous pain in the ass.
Sure, it’s not the end of the world, but something as simple as scraping your food scraps off of a plate becomes a big chore, when you are accustomed to having a disposer. Also, bathroom sinks are not designed for dishes, so it’s hard to wash them there.
Sure, you can use paper plates, and disposable everything, but that gets old (and expensive) fast. And, with no stove or microwave, heating even a TV dinner is a hassle.
So, is it the end of the world? No.
But, it’s not at all fun.
We were without our kitchen for about 4 days during a remodel, and I think we went out for every meal.