Pick Your Battles - House Contractor Rant

[mad_planter]

Hiring GC's is a lot like foxes guarding the hen house. Some of them are good, but a lot aren't any better and you just end up complaining about them and the quality of the subs they are supposed to be supervising.

 

[/pine]

The best GCs try to keep the best subs (they use and trust on a regular basis) busy...but sub contractors have to keep their own employees busy and schedules do not always work out...
Often the GC is pitted between a homeowner etc. rushing them to get the job completed and waiting on a particular sub contractor that he is confident in over using a sub they may have never used before but can start immediately...

 

[Garandman]

We had two contractors in the last three years: one run by a local guy who's been around forever, and the other one, a second generation Vietnamese.

The local guy started three days late, left the job site here and there for a day or two at a time, and finished two weeks late. In the meantime he spent hours talking to people walking by. When he wasn't doing that, he was bragging about the quality of the work: at least until a neighbor who used him two years prior came by to complain about problems. He also hit us for about a 20% overage for "additional materials."

The Vietnamese guy (he's American-born of Vietnamese parents) shows up when he says he will, does the job for what he quoted, and finishes it on time.

Our dilemma is if we tell too many friends he'll be too busy for us!

 

[TemporaryKubotaOwnerMark]

It seems you can't pay someone enough to do a top shelf job anymore; all they seem to excel at is cashing the check. The entire approach of the owners is tell you what you want to hear, do the work as cheaply and quickly as they can and make the customer find the problems and come back and fix them if absolutely necessary.

Is this the general state of affairs in the remolding world or is it just me? Should they have to fix every minor issue or do you just fix it yourself and forgo the headache?

It's not just you. It's the norm. It's disgusting.

And they all seem to be making plenty of money, too. I'm in the wrong business.

 

[TemporaryKubotaOwnerMark]

My son had a recommended builder build a really nice house in northern Wisconsin. He made a change with the GC. I wanted the 150' driveway widened from 14' to 18' or something like that and it was okayed. The driveway was put in and when he came home he noticed something odd. The concrete driveway stopped about 6 feet from the frontage road, with gravel finishing it off. He questioned the oddity and the GC said he only paid for so many square feet, but he would be glad to finish for an additional amount. I don't know the conversation between them but the contractor should have either told him it would cost extra, whch wouldn't have been a problem or the sub screwed up. Just though it strange that could happen.

I just can't imagine anybody stupid enough to think he can ask for a 150' concrete driveway to be widened from 14' to 18' and NOT pay any more money.


Makes me wonder if there's more to the story.

 

[downsizingnow48]

I have no view on that specific example. However as a long-retired GC I can tell you that clients expecting something for nothing is par for the course. Signing a contract I showed the client standard change orders. And made it clear that additions deletions and substitutions will generally have a cost that they sign off on before it happens.

 

[MossRoad]

I have a friend that is a facilities manager for a major property owner. His job for the last 30 years has been to plan new construction, plan repairs and plan maintenance for a couple dozen buildings ranging in size from single family to multi-apartment buildings. He sends out the bids, hires the contractors and supervises the work. So you'd think (and he thought, too) that he would have no problem acting as the general contractor for his own new home. He knew all of these contractors from years of working with them, the level of their professionalism and the quality of their work. Yet when he hired these same people for his own personal home, he had problems with the siding guy, the drywall guy, the carpenter, and the concrete guy doing the garage floor and driveway. About the only one he didn't have trouble with was the tile guy and the painter and that's because he did the tile and painting himself!

He's still not sure if it was worth the $$ he saved by acting as his own GC VS the aggravations and time he had to put in. Some days he looked so depressed while this was going on. These were people he knew well.

 

[roadhunter]

If you expect your project to look like a this old house episode you will likely end up disappointed trying to assemble your own team of contractors. If you do find guys who do that level of work it will cost an arm and a leg.

The reality is most tradesman or larger contractors can make more on commercial construction, government projects, or slapping up cookie cutter homes than they can doing remodels for individuals. The quality of work required on commercial construction is much different than what a homeowner requires so the guys that end up doing remodels are in many cases the bottom of the barrel as far as contractors go and even with larger outfits will end up with the worst crew they have on remodel jobs. Many guys who do remodeling work are the ones who can't hack it in commercial construction or lack the organizational skills to take on larger more complicated work that pays better. Missing details, lack of money to pay for materials, etc.. are common with these kind of folks. Asking for large down payments and additional funds during projects to keep going tells you they live job to job never getting ahead. They can't afford to buy necessary materials because they are broke and in may cases using your $ to complete the last job when they get behind.

At the same time homeowners are guilty of actually seeking these people out because they think they are going to save money by finding these type of people who need the money/work and will do things for less $ than other contractors. With all these remodeling and home flipping shows everyone thinks it's easy so they can do it themselves not realizing they are setting themselves up for disaster.

If you really want to save money on a remodel find a legitimate contractor who handles larger more complex projects and is capable of the level of work you expect. Explain what you are after but also explain that you are flexible on time. These larger contractors have big crews that need to say buys and sometimes big jobs have time in between or get delayed and these crews need to stay busy. Winter is especially tough to keep crews busy in many parts of the country so a remodel job that is inside work for the most part can be a great way to keep a big crew busy for a short period of time.

We had a hotel in town that did this with the contractor I worked for. During the winter it was great to have some inside work but the owner also was able to get a discount due to being flexible.

I would also recommend having your own contract drawn up with as much detail as possible. It takes some time but will pay off down the road when there are questions about what's included.

 

[downsizingnow48]

Roadhunter has a point. I started out remodeling and then started doing spec houses and fixer uppers with my own money as side jobs to keep the crew and good subs busy. I found out that cutting the homeowner out of the picture while doing basically the same work was easier and more profitable, and did less of that work as time went on.

If you google home builder client nightmare you will see what the situation looks like from the other side of the table.

 

[2ndhalf]

I watch those home improvement shows with my wife to get ideas. I always tell her wouldn't it be great to just tell someone what you want done and they get it done in a week or less. But, I'm independently poor so I have to do it myself. Takes me a month of weekends to do what it would take them a couple days to do but I get it done.

I don't do roofs and I don't do gas lines or gas furnaces. Everything else I can do for the most part. I bought a 63 year old home with not really any updates done to it a couple years back so it has been one project after another pretty steady. That will go on another 5 years probably.