I had a few companies come to the house and give me estimates for new flooring in my kitchen and dinning room.
After a thorough inspection and measurements one company gave me a great price for material and labor, including removal of current baseboards and new replacement of. They wrote up a contract and I signed with a very small down payment.
On the day of installation the crew said they were not aware that the current baseboards were ceramic tiles grouted to the wall at the floor line. They said that was unusual for kitchen floors and they didn’t do that type of work and that removing them could affect the dry wall and they did not do dry wall work. They refused to start the job.
I angrily spoke to a higher up at the company who said the estimating sales person has years of experience and should have recognized that they wouldn’t deal with those baseboards. Sorry. He did say he could recommend another company I could pay to remove them and then his company would do the flooring work.
But wait, I have a signed contract that says they will remove and replace the baseboards included in the overall price. Nowhere on the contract does it say anything like “Unless our estimator screwed up”.
They are a huge, nation wide company. Their sales guys should know what they do and don’t do and have recognized it as soon as they saw my kitchen. Even the marketing VP stated that the salesman screwed up royally.
So, whatta you think? Is it worth my time and energy to insist they get that part of the job done at their expense per the contract. Or should I just say to hell with it and go to another firm?
BTW, we had the same firm do the carpeting in our basement rec room and they did a beautiful job and a great price.
You can certainly ask them to discount you the cost of the baseboard removal. You can’t really insist on it, since they have the option to walk away after refunding your down payment. At a minimum, however, they should credit you something as they will no longer have to remove the current baseboards.
Given that they have offered you a “great” price on the job, and did beautiful work on the last job, I find it hard to expect you will do better with another firm.
It is infuriating when you have gone to a lot of trouble and then a company screws up.
However I suggest that you’ll get better results being polite (rather than angry) and you might be able to negotiate a compromise (since this company has done good work for you previously.)
Perhaps the original company would pay some of the cost of removing the tiles - and then complete the work.
Yes, you’d have to pay more than you expected - but starting again doesn’t promise any better result.
Why do you want a war? As long as you got your down payment back, you haven’t been grievously wronged. Besides, a screwup of that magnitude indicates to me that they could screw up other things, too.
How much trouble was it to get a few quotes? And maybe one reason these guys quoted “a great price” is that the salesperson goofed.
What are the OP’s damages? Under what theory can he force specific enforcement under the contract?
Shit like this happens in home remodeling. (And tiled floorboards certainly sounds unusual to me.) Either accept the downpayment refund and go with another company - paying what it actually costs to deal with the unusual floorboards. Or, since you have prior experience with this company and like their work, see if you can renegotiate.
Somewhere either in the fine print of the contract or the standards [upon which the contract was based] for that type of work is an expectation that the baseboards are expected to be wood, nailed to the wall.
I don’t want a war. I want the work done at the price quoted. I just want to know whether it’s worth it to get pushy on this issue.
No. It isn’t. I went over the contract with a fine tooth comb.
If you reread the OP you’ll see they actually showed up to do the work. I had disconnected and moved my gas stove, refrigerator, tables, and other appliances. A huge loss? Of course not. But a pain in the ass to do and then not get the work done. UPDATE. the company called me today and quoted me a price $1250 less if I had the ceramic baseboards removed. Now I have to determine if it’s worth it to me to have someone else remove those baseboards or just have another company do the entire thing. $1250 is a huge chunk off. I have no idea though what someone else will charge me to remove those baseboards.
Sounds like they’re trying to work with you. Yes, it’s a hassle and probably an additional expense, but why not get a quote from the company they recommended and see how it goes? Taking that step at least certainly couldn’t hurt.
I had a very similar situation happen with a roofing estimate. The estimator for a highly-recommended, well-reviewed company screwed up and the company owner inspecting the site pre-job took note of the screw-up and revised the quote way up after the fact. I got pissed and re-opened the bid, got multiple additional quotes and then come to find that that revised quote was still more than fair. It was a complicated, expensive job as roofs went and it was a fair bid. So I bit the bullet and had the job done with the original company at a higher price( and they did a fine job ).
I’ve got no patience for incompetent, lying or flat-out squirrely contractors. But sometimes fair is fair.
If this is a stupid suggestion, just tell me so! What about removing the baseboard tile yourself? With a hammer, chisel or pry bar and stiff putty knife you can probably knock it out in a day - depending on the size of your kitchen. Since it doesn’t seem that you will be reusing the baseboard tile or existing flooring you will only have to be careful to minimize damage to the wall itself.
No, I’m not the guy to do something like this. Plus I was told that doing it may damage the dry wall and then there would be that problem. This is not a DIY project, I need it professionally done.
The company rep should have known this when he was here. My kitchen and dinning room has a lot of it. Even his boss said he screwed up.
If it costs less than the new discount they offered I will still be ahead, though. So I’ll make some calls next week. I have some comp time at work to burn.
Are they still going to put in new baseboards for you, so the $1350 is just for removal of existing? Are you OK with replacing the tile baseboards with wood baseboards?
An estimator is just that, an person who estimates project costs based on what knowledge/experience they have. His boss acknowledged the estimator made a mistake and has offered a discount, really a Change Order to the contract for the work they wouldn’t have been able to perform without subcontracting that portion to someone else.
When I worked in flooring sales, we had three estimators. One with 20+ years estimating experience, one that was doing it for 5 years, but was a carpet installer for 15 before that, and one with 2 years experience. Both the guy with 20+ years and 2 years experience estimators would sometimes ask for a second opinion from the guy with 5 years experience. Why? Because he was the one with real-world knowledge of unusual conditions/situations that wasn’t known by the guys who haven’t done field work.
I’ll have to be, I guess. The ceramic ones are pretty old, over 20 years, and do need to go. And they said they can’t replace the floor without replacing the baseboards. Something to do with attachment.
The current floor, BTW, is ceramic tile, not the heavy duty vinyl we’re replacing it with. The tile didn’t wear very well in our high traffic kitchen.
Now the question is, who do I call about these baseboards? A dry wall guy? Or should I just see if another company can do the entire floor including dealing with removing the old baseboards?
Go with one of the other contractors. Make sure they know about the ceramic tiles, and that it is already included in the price.
Then sue the original company for the difference. Read the contract carefully first, and make sure it doesn’t give them an out, in which case, don’t sue. They had a contract with you to do your floors for $X and they didn’t fulfill that contract. Your damages are what you now have to pay minus the price the original company was going to charge.
The fact that they offered an alternate to walking away (the discount for not having to remove the baseboard) means in my book this is a good company to work with. As to the baseboard removal, you need a drywall guy, if I understand your situation correctly. Pricing will depend on how exacting you are. Just removing the tile, and fixing the resulting damage to the drywall could leave some spots where you can tell repairs have been made, if the removal creates some big holes. If you want it to be invisible, you need a guy with better skills than just handyman level. Also, you will need to paint (I’m assuming the new baseboard is less tall than the ceramic one, if you get baseboard of the same/preferably slightly taller height as the ceramic, then this is no big deal, and should be cheap to get the ceramic off, and painting shouldn’t be necessary )
Even though the OP said there’s nothing in the contract that specifies the estimate was for regular wooden baseboards, there are industry standard pricing guidelines for construction cost estimates. If the contractor states that the contract was based on these standards according to what the estimator listed, there’s no deliberate intent to defraud the customer, so very likely no case.
Just remembered a possible less costly option that’s not optimal, but can be done. It may be possible to cut only the bottom of the baseboard, remove the cut portion, install the new floor in the cut portion and put quarter round molding to hide the cut mark line which can be 1/2"+ off original floor to account for the new substrate and the new flooring heights. The major drawback is that it’s noticeable that the baseboard is now shorter than normal, assuming it was the usual 4" to start.
The OP is fortunate the crew realized they weren’t capable of removing ceramic tile without damaging the walls. That shows professionalism and concern for the customer.
A lot of guys would have torn into that job and not said anything. They wouldn’t care about wrecking the walls.
I’d use whoever they recommend to remove the tile and pay the extra fee.
Remodeling is never cut and dry. Unexpected expenses are to be expected. I learned that lesson several times working on my home.