Rich's House AKA Wampecack Creek Farm

[Anonymous Poster]

Re: Rich\'s House AKA Wampecack Creek Farm

This area has an uneven mix, not enough contractors, way too much building going on. The state codes rule out the ones that can't stand the heat and the climate. So the ones that are available can pick and choose their jobs. I actually had an electrician tell me that if he had anything else to do he would never have gotten into our remodel. Said it was a nightmare. I told him his prices reflected that. Told him he was a prima donna. By the time it was over we had a love hate thing going on. He called me 'that lady' and I called him 'sparky'.

 

[s1120]

Re: Rich\'s House AKA Wampecack Creek Farm

<font color="red">Good contractors I've hired show up at day break and will take their 15 minute morning and afternoon break, half hour for lunch, work the rest of the time, and quit by 5 or 6 PM. </font>

Where do you fine these guys. I am lucky to get a few hours of work out of the people building my house.

 

[rancar]

Re: Rich\'s House AKA Wampecack Creek Farm

<font color="blue">"Where do you fine these guys..." </font>

I ask around amongst neighbors, friends, relatives, etc. until I find someone I feel comfortable with. I sometimes stop at people's homes when I drive past, knock on their door, and ask them who did this or that job they had done which I was impressed with. Rarely will I ever call a contractor from the yellow pages sight unseen.

Best contractor I ever hired was my roofer who lived 40 miles away. He was reluctant to do my roofing job because of the distance but agreed to it because he had done my father-in-law's roof. This guy showed up 7AM one morning with a roofing crew of about 10 guys. They worked all day ripping off all the old roofing, setting down a new base, and then starting the re-roofing. They worked until 6:30PM that day. Five guys came back the next morning to finish the job. They were done by 1PM. I had a complete re-roofing job done in a day and a half for about $5,400 back in 1995.

Last fall I rented a bulldozer on my neighbor's corporate account that he has with a local tractor dealer. I rented for one day....Saturday. They delivered at Friday noon and I had the dozer through the following Monday morning. My operator, who I knew also through my neighbor, worked the dozer through Sunday at dusk. I got 20 hours of work out of a one day rental, paid my operator $16/hour, and paid for the diesel. In total, I paid $950 for this hedgerow clearing job. This was half the price of what another contractor wanted who had all his own equipment.

.....And I've got a few other good stories to tell another time. Point I'm making I guess is I don't really have deep pockets. I have to economize the best way I know how. So, I talk to others who have had similar work done and try to find a contractor who can do a good job at a reasonable price.

So far, I've been fortunate. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

...Bob

 

[Anonymous Poster]

Re: Rich\'s House AKA Wampecack Creek Farm

Oh yes, that is a not too well known secret. If you're going to rent heavy equipment, do it on a Satruday. Which you figure most folks would anyway, as Saturday is a good time to do this stuff around the place, but it's yours til Monday, no extra charge. Just the fuel use.

We dug both our ponds on Saturday and once got lucky and rented a backhoe on the Saturday before Memorial Day. Sat, Sun and Mon. and wasn't due back til Tuesday. Then they had no one to come pick it up so it sat in the yard for TWO more days while we racked our brains trying to come up with another use for it. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[RichZ]

Re: Rich\'s House AKA Wampecack Creek Farm

OK!!! Here are some construction pictures!!

Here's the growing extension on the house. Although it looks like it's going over the old extension, the front part is going to be a covered porch, that we're trying to duplicate what we know of the original covered porch.

That's my buddy, Tim the carpenter working on it.

 

[RichZ]

Re: Rich\'s House AKA Wampecack Creek Farm

The sills on one whole side of the house had to be replaced, and all of the land regraded to keep water off the new sills, to prevent this from happened all over again!!

 

[RichZ]

Re: Rich\'s House AKA Wampecack Creek Farm

In order to have use of our front driveway, Tim and I had to rebuild our bridge, and we had to regrade and gravel the driveway.

 

[RichZ]

Re: Rich\'s House AKA Wampecack Creek Farm

The bull dozer and excavator for the regrading were too big for the bridge, so we had to regarde and gravel the back driveway.

 

[Anonymous Poster]

Re: Rich\'s House AKA Wampecack Creek Farm

Rich are you going to keep the metal roof?

 

[RichZ]

Re: Rich\'s House AKA Wampecack Creek Farm

And all that gravel is incredibly expensive, so our excavator suggested that he search our property for gravel. He found some!!! And he had to create our very own gravel pit. That saved us many thousands of dollars!!!