We’re having our bathroom remodeled. It’s a complete tear down and rebuild.
Now, we knew there would be plenty of little hiccups along the way. There was some miscommunication about tiling, one of the new recessed medicine cabinets couldn’t be installed due a sewer line. Shit happens, get over it.
That’s not a problem. However…
We’re in an HOA. We’re changing a window that overlooks the street. We ask the contractor to talk to the HOA. He readily agrees. Three days after they have sarted the job I ask him for the HOA paperwork. He hadn’t done a thing. He didn’t feel it was necessary.
When we were planning the job, we thought we wanted a built in cabinet. A month later we changed our minds. We asked him if the cabinet had been ordered. He said no. So we cancelled cabinet. Two months later, a cabinet maker turns up to take measurements. He’s already built the cabinet. It’s an inch too wide. And it’s so big it probably won’t fit through the door.
Our vanity arrived before the job started. It sat in boxes for two weeks. It sat in boxes while the builder built a nice new wall. In the wrong place. Now the vanity won’t fit properly.
Am I expecting too much from my contractor?
More importantly, what’s the best way forward? The guy has good reviews on Angie’s List and a friend of ours has used him before, but he seems to have totally dropped the ball with us.
If you have your own Angie’s List membership you can start a dialogue with them. They can mediate if you need it, or if nothing else they can tell you if you need to get some recourse.
The guy sounds like he never learned the “measure twice, cut once” rule. He absolutely should have unpacked the vanity and measured it, and made sure that the wall was in the right place. If you have actual drawings for the project, you’re within your rights to make him tear it all out and do it over. He’s also on the hook for the cabinet, since you told him to cancel it. You need to have a frank discussion with him about your issues and ask him what he intends to do to remedy the problems, at no charge to you.
I hate to ask, but were either of these changes put into in writing? I know it sounds fiddly, but the best way to handle changes is with a short change order that both you and the contractor sign and that is dated. It should include any change in the cost or schedule. There are enough things going on that it’s easy to forget changes after you’ve had the original plan in your head for so long.
The wall in the wrong place is totally on the contractor to make good, especially if he was working from a plan and read it wrong. Or if the wall was supposed to be located with enough room for something that now does not fit. How you get him to make good is not something I can speak to. But I can say that if he’s acting shocked and aggrieved that you want work redone without extra pay - some contractors have that performance down.
Sounds like the constant headaches I had when having my backyard re-modeled earlier this year. which went several thousand over budget and took 3 months longer than projected. Every ‘misunderstanding’ was always conveniently in their favor and this was a place that was highly reviewed and recommended on Yelp. Like anything else, they obviously subcontract to other folks for portions of the work and there is a ‘luck of the draw’ element to it in that regard.
Since you are mid-job, the best I can tell you is to try to anticipate things they will screw up in advance and communicate with them regularly to prevent it. Even when you agree, they will still screw it up quite often, but at least it will eliminate some of the screw ups. In my experience, they are more likely to cut corners on things where you don’t have something specified in advance. So if it says ‘faucet’ but you don’t specify a Kohler brass faucet like the type shown here: (with a link or picture to it), then you are getting the cheapest thing on sale at Home Depot the day they go to pick it out. You may also want to anticipate a second option for some things because if it’s out of stock you don’t want the contractor to select it for you. Again, he will pick the cheapest/most available thing on hand, even if it doesn’t match the rest of the bathroom, and his choices will be things that you would swear even Stevie Wonder wouldn’t select given a choice.
I was surprised, for example, that when the specifications for my yard called for ‘mulch’, that I later learned you can get free mulch at the city dump. That is, provided you don’t care if there are rusty nails, staples, candy bar wrappers, etc. mixed in with it. Guess which type I received? Ultimately at final sign off, I had to negotiate with them to fix ridiculous things and I gave them a 2 of of 5 stars review on Yelp. This resulted in the contractor asking me to remove it for which I asked for $400 back (which was a bargain for them) that I estimated was what it would cost a cheap handyman to fix the things they messed up. I also learned that this is why they are ‘well reviewed’. They manage their reviews on Yelp, and effectively bribe their way out of bad ones.
I’ve been on the Dope for 15 years. I’ve learned a lot from it. Here’s one piece of knowledge I learned the hard way, that I want to share with my fellow Dopers.
When dealing with a contractor, if it’s not in writing, it never happened.
Who gets the city permits, the HOA documents, arranges for the inspections, etc. should have been spelled out in the original contract. The project workflow should’ve had talked about whether the wall or the vanity went in first. Everything else should have been dealt with through written change orders.
As for the next steps, first you compile a list of everything that you think is wrong. Discuss it with him calmly and ask him how he intends to fix them. DO NOT make the final payment until you’re satisfied that he’s done everything and done it right.
Exactly right. Before having any work done on our house, we write out a scope of work in detail (assuming we don’t have an architect on board), often specifying materials. We both keep a close eye on the work and the workers, and never pay the final invoice until everything is completed to our satisfaction. All changes are done in writing. It doesn’t hurt that I was a construction and facilities manager and that my wife was a commercial property manager.
I was having a rough time with a contractor that had very good reviews on Angie’s List. Basically, I felt like the project manager wasn’t really paying attention to the job and a lot of stuff was slipping. I wrote the owner an email and said “this is the review I plan on posting on Angie’s List when this job is done.” It was critical, but accurate and fair. The owner had a team of guys on my site the next day, they fixed what was screwed up and finished the job. In the end, we agreed we wouldn’t post any review.
When we had our kitchen remodeled, our contractor brought us prospective cabinet layouts, and eventually CAD drawings of the cabinets themselves and renderings of what the final product would be.
Plus, he had us go and choose our fixtures and tiles and what-not from a short-list of suppliers that he prefers to deal with.
We had some minor issues with things taking longer than we’d planned on, but a lot of that wasn’t the contractor’s fault, but rather a combination of really cold weather (things don’t cure as fast) and unforeseen weirdness under the floor and behind the walls of our 43 year old house.
kunilou is right though; the contract should spell most everything out, including the payment schedules, time frames, material estimates, labor estimates, and any changes in scope are handled through change orders that you both agree to.
It is not that hard to draw your own plans. Really.
On a sheet of paper with those little squares, draw your design/plan. Where the vanity goes, the cabinet, window, etc. Use as precise measurements as you can: one square = 1 foot. Use a ruler and a pencil and mark the feet and inches kind of like this.
Once you get started you will realize it is not hard to draw this. And once you have it done you can show your contractor and work together to get it right. If you want things done right you have to get involved. This is my experience in several renovations.
In summary, do you have a written contract that defined the scope of work to be performed and subsequent change orders (emails can be used for the latter and perhaps for the former but IANAL)? If yes, then that is all you need to do is require the Contractor to comply with the requirements of the work. If no, then sharpen up on your communication skills. :smack:
We actually have a pretty good written contract. They have managed to move the wall so that we can actually open the drawers on the vanity. We aren’t paying for the stuff we didn’t order. At least the granite going on top of the vanity was cut 2" too long, so it’s going to fit. It’s probably going to work out OK - due to the guys doing the actual work and us acting as the Construction Foreman.
I just rechecked Angie’s List and there’s a new review of the guy - it is almost word for word the same as my OP. Complete lack of attention to detail and zero communication. The guy has expanded his business, but instead of adding bricks and mortar to build a solid foundation, he’s stretched thinner than an awkward metaphor.
Anyway, I really appreciate all the advice you guys have given.
Construction can go south pretty quickly. I am usually the fix-it guy at work and go in to make things right when they go wrong. There are always solutions.
It is time to have a sit down with the contractor, air your grievances and expectations, and agree to a course of action. Things are rarely one-sided so try to be fair to both yourself and contractor.
Your contractor needs to address the issues and accept responsibility where appropriate. If they are not willing to do this get out now - there are going to be more problems. In the end it really comes down to pragmatism; how to finish the job from where things stand now.
I swear, the Festivus season gets going earlier and earlier every year!
I agree with those who said you should have gotten a written change order for anything that deviated from the plan or contract. And I would not have left it up to the contractor to talk to the HOA-- you should have done that.
