I agree the width should be uniform. I don’t like the ess either, if it were a longer walk, or maybe coming from the street to the house, the ess might have worked, but your original idea sounds better.
You’ve got some good suggestions on how to proceed, I’d also suggest that you try to sound calm and reasonable, despite his apparent anger. Make him look like the unreasonable one and don’t acknowledge his anger.
If it were straight without that bump in the middle, it would actually look decent
If you pay him an amount that covers his costs he will be less likely to go after you for the money. Marking the check payment in full might not make you legally free of any consequences but it may be enough to make him decide its not worth the effort.
I rarely do written contracts even though I should for a lot of jobs. I’m very selective in who I do work for most the customers are people that have had me, my father or my grandfather service them for many years. When I do a contract I’ll typically have it specify that the work will be done to the satisfaction of both parties, any dispute will be determined by an independent third party such as the BBB or the well water association etc.
As to the look of the walk I can understand the compliant. On the other hand a misshapen look is not that unusual for a front walk particularly if it isn’t a used walkway and is just accent.
Man, especially in the first shot that walk looks like ass. I also agree with Rick, in that it should not be too difficult to stakeout a rectangle and PROVE that the walk is not built right. There are many ways to do this, but personally, I’d stake it out, making sure that the distance between opposite corners is equal, run string, and then use a drywall square to measure the distance to the walk.
Unfortunately it doesn’t look like a simple fix, so the matter of how to resolve it is not going to be easy. Photos may distort things, but to me it looks like you’d have to cut into the first (closest to the house) of the three long courses of stones square to the house to match the inner curve by the front door. The walk is not parallel and the outer curve is a nightmare. Nearly every stone needs to be moved and/or cut.
If I were you, I would shoot for a (low) compromise on the money owed, not have the guy back on my property, and plant stuff to hide the defects. big, low conifer in the first bend and then just make it look artsy fartsy. It’s gonna be expensive to get the walk parallel and right. I hope things work out for you.
Thanks for your comments, everyone.
I sent the contractor an e-mail over the weekend outlining our concerns. He and a couple of his guys showed up out of the blue this morning just before I was leaving for work to “fix everything.”
He did indeed fix the two flattened curves in the walk. He did not adjust the size of the curves, but that would have required taking up and reinstalling much of the walk.
You can see the latest photos here.
What do you folks think?
While it is still not perfect it is boarding on being commercially acceptable. I think once you have plants boarding it, it will not look as bad. By my opinion is not the one that counts, yours is.
At this point, it is up to you. Before it was obvious it looked like shit. No question. Now it just looks a little off IMHO. Do you want to fight to make it perfect, or is this acceptable to you?
robby - that looks better. Not perfect, but better. At least it looks like a relatively uniform width…
As an aside, every time I’ve had a contractor do work for me, something is always not what I expected.
Are there good ways to help get expectations across to a contractor?
This advice is not necessarily valid advice at all. The section to which you link specifically restricts its application to situations where “the amount of the claim was unliquidated or subject to a bona fide dispute.” Here, the amount of the claim is subject to no bona fide dispute; the OP isn’t claiming that he owes the contractor less, but rather that he should have received a better paving job.
Now if they got to the point where they were dickering about what the contractor would accept as full payment for the job done, as a modification to the original contract, well, then, perhaps the section would apply.
Looks tolerable now that the near right kink is gone and Rick already expressed my sentiment, that once plants are established along it, it’ll soften it even more as well as to provide a different visual focus. Right now, with just the walk, of course that’s what you’re going to dwell upon.
For whatever it’s worth, I really like the stone you chose and I hope you get to the point where you’re pleased with the final result.
Yeah, better. As Rick said, once you get some plants established it will help a lot. I don’t see how it can be improved w/o redoing the entire walk and that seems unreasonable at this point.
There is a pretty common regulation in most building codes that in a stairway, all the steps have to have equal rise. This is a safety rule, so people don’t trip. A “tilted” step, or a group of steps which are not all equal in height, is just plain illegal. (sorry, I havent bothered with a cite–I’m just remembering what my professor said in first semester architectural drawing 20years ago.)
But I’m not sure that this regulation applies to a single step outside the building.
Call your local community college (with a program in architecture or construction engineering ), and ask to speak to a lecturer.
(As for the rest of your rant. I’m sorry, but I seem to be the only person on the planet who doesnt see what the terrible problem is. It isn’t the greatest job in the world, but I think if you put some ivy/ground cover and a few flowering plants alongside the pavement, it will look fine. Parallel lines are vital for a street (I earn my living from road construction), but for a home sidewalk it just doesn’t bug me. And an S-bend in the middle looks better than a boring straight line. But obviously my opinions are irrelevant–it ain’t my house 
I know this is too late for robby but in answer to Iggins question yes.
There are quite a few easy to use design programs for computers out there. They allow you to take layouts or even pictures of your home or yard and create a mock-up of the work you want to have done. Some even work in 3D.
For every job my wife and I have had done to our house we have mocked it up on the PC first and incorporate the mock-up into the contract. If the contractor says he can make it look like the pictures then it should look that way when done. If he fails to fulfill the expectations of the client then you have far more recourse in court.
You’re an engineer, and you let them work on this project without written specifications?
Pay him, hire somebody else that you trust to fix it the way you want it, and put the extra cost down to “education” – hopefully, you will learn not to do such a foolish thing again. (If not, your wife will be sure to remind you.)
Have a complete set of drawings and specifications. For a one-of-a-kind item that runs up the cost by a big factor.
I tend to agree with t-bonham@scc.net about just paying him and getting used to the walk as is. It might not please you esthetically but I’m not sure that’s sufficient reason to not pay.
How come the walk is curvy in the first place? Did you ask him to make it so?
I’m sorry, but you don’t know what you are talking about.
You try to find a contractor willing to work on a small residential job for which you’ve handed them a set of plans and specs. They’ll walk away from the job in a heartbeat. There are a million other homeowners without such requirements.
It can be difficult enough trying to find a contractor willing to install things in accordance with standard industry practice, such as in accordance with the specs detailed by a trade association such as the ICPI (Interlocking Concrete Pavement Institute), much less written job-specific specs. For instance, I had another contractor give me a proposal to put in the walk, and being an engineer, I asked him to describe his installation method. What he was doing was specifically NOT recommended by the paver manufacturer or the ICPI. When I asked him about it, he told me that that’s how he’d always done it, the manufacturer didn’t know what they were talking about, and he wasn’t changing. So I dropped him from consideration. He called me later and told me that if I changed my mind (i.e. let him install them by his own method), to give him a call. :rolleyes:
The contractor I went with got points with me because he scrupulously followed the manufacturer’s recommended method of installation, and had even been certified by the ICPI. This is about the best you are going to do with this kind of job.
Besides, specs don’t have anything to do with layout. I would have had to prepare plans for this, and I felt that we were paying him for his expertise at layout. After all, this is all he does for a living.
I’ll give you another example. I had a different contractor install a small dry well system in my yard for my water softener leachate last year. The job cost $1,000. If this had been an engineered system with plans and specifications, approved submittals, and the whole nine yards, this small job would have cost 3-5 times more. And you would almost certainly have trouble finding a commercial contractor willing to do such a small job.
Heck, even with plans and specs, it can very difficult dealing with aesthetic issues on projects. Plans are only so detailed. I’ve had commercial contractors do stupid layout things with all sorts of things–this usually happens arises from changed conditions in the field–including grading, building placement, electrical conduit, building services, etc. Other things, such as installation of building siding, carpentry, detailed electrical wiring, etc. simply aren’t covered in that kind of detail in civil contract documents, and it can lead to a real hassle if the owner is not satisfied with the aesthetics of how it turns out. Just like this.
Indeed.
No. See post #17.
We trusted in his expertise. Our neighbor across the street has an “S” curve (that was installed by another contractor) that’s perfectly symmetrical.
On the other hand, her contractor left huge gaps between the individual pavers in her walk, and filled the gaps in with topsoil instead of sand. :rolleyes:
My experience has been just the opposite. The contractor’s I have hired* have all been happy to have some sort of sketch and requirements attached to the contract. The contractor doesn’t have to do that for you; if you work in an engineering firm, that should be easy to put together and give to him. I work for an engineering firm as well; I don’t spec it out the same way I would for a municipal job, but I still want something to hang my hat on. Questions get answered beforehand because a sketch identifies where problems are likely to occur. And I still check their work every day and meet with them in the morning, or at least leave them a note if I have a concern.
My big problem, looking at the photos, is that front step. It looks impressive, but I have never seen a piece of stone set atop pavers. I would have thought that it would have been bedded separately, at the very least on a well compacted gravel base, but preferably on a concrete footing. Are the pavers set in concrete? I would assume not, and they are likely to see some frost action. Connecticut is subject to frost, and I can see water getting behind that gap and under the pavers, and even between the pavers and the step. If that moves away from the house, good luck moving it back by yourself.
*Plans I have prepared for work at my house:
Bathroom - Floor plan and elevations, list of fixtures, requirements for plumbing and electrical, schedule of finishes for wall, ceiling and floor
*Kitchen - All of the above, plus list of cabinets, requirements for appliance connections, new windows and doors, finish work on the outside.
*New Porch - Floor plan and elevations, list of windows.
Plynck, I think you are talking about something different than formal plans and specs.
There was no dispute with my contractor with respect to materials or methods of installation. All of that was spelled out in his proposal.
In general, any contractor would be happy to get what he is supposed to installing spelled out in the contract, such as the things you referred to at the bottom of your post, or the type and color of the pavers, as in my project.
Project specifications, as you well know, however, go into much more detail than that, down to the type of screws, fasteners, and adhesives to be used in your interior work, as well as the type of pipe to be used for the plumbing work, and how pipes are to be joined together. I’ll bet you didn’t supply that type of info to your plumber. If you did present them with a book of specs, they’d probably bail on you.
Specs do NOT generally get into aesthetic issues, which is what my problem here is.
My problem could have been avoided with a detailed plan, but as I mentioned, we were trusting in his expertise. We should have asked for a proposed sketch from him, I now think, if we weren’t going to supply him with one. I expect there is a lesson here to be learned.
The fact that he came back and fiddled with it means you’re going to be cast as a nitpicker even though it does look kinda crappy. I came in late in the day, saw both the before/after pics at one time and noticed no significant change. Put in some plants that will obscure the edges of the walkway and live with it.
How exactly was the aesthetic design planned? You mentioned they spray painted the outline on the grass, but then apparently ripped out enough sod to destroy any hints as to that outline. I’d have spent an afternoon laying down a couple of garden hoses as props to see how things would look and make sure everyone was on the same page visually.
Pay the man and try to avoid the same problem in the future.