How often do contractors' estimates go over or under original estimate? (wood floors, roof)
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Your lucky....getting judgment is one thing, getting the money is another.
Glad you got it.
Yes the State of CT has a special fund set up just for these instances. All licensed contractors fees go into the fund, and if your contractor is found liable, then the state will pay up to $30,000 and then go after the contractor. The state always gets its money back, even if there is bankruptcy, they will attach future wages of the personal income of the liable contractor.
I disagree that small-time contractors will take advantage of you. Or I've gotten lucky several times now.
I just moved into a new house and worked with 2 outside contracting companies - Company A for hardwood flooring and Company B for painting.
Company A did a great job, totally on budget, with one day's delay. They did some special artsy stuff with the transitions and stairs that they really did not have to do and we are pleased!
Company B also did a wonderful job, but went over budget because of a change order by me. I wanted some more walls painted. Since they had paint left over, they did it cheap and touched up all places I wanted touched up, no charge. They also rehung some things for me and helped me pound in a few dozen slightly protruding nails also free of charge.
Do movers count? They came in way under budget and wrote us a new bill for that
We ran into the same problem. I am an experienced construction lawyer. I have handled hundreds of millions, possibly billions of dollars of construction contract issues. I know the business very very well. I prepared a really solid contract (which most trades contractors refused to sign, or took one look at and declined to take the job). I was able to work from our project house a lot of the time (but not all of the time) that the project was underway. I know more about the legal side than any project manager, and almost as much about the management side as most of them. I have helped companies manage projects in the hundreds of millions of dollars in cost. My older brother had been a licensed contractor for several years and was available to advise me. I felt I was well qualified to GC our project. What I did not know was that small time single home projects and contractors are very very different than the companies who work on multi-million dollar projects.
The HVAC contractor disappeared for six months. We went through eight plumbers. The Grader did 80% of the work and then abandoned us for a bigger job and was never heard from again (other than to send an invoice a year later). I could not be there all day every day to watch the work. The insulation guy just blew insulation on the floor to make it look like they put it in the walls, they did not. We found that out over a year later when I discovered that some walls had no insulation in them at all (woodpeckers exposed this when they pecked holes in the siding). The electrician disappeared after doing the service entrance and one circuit. I finished the wiring myself. The carpenters argued with me all the way through. They said I and my brother do not know anything. In the long term, it turned out that we were right. The window guy was the worst. The first set of windows were for some other house. The second set had no weather stripping and some of them had glued on muntins. (actually stuck on with double sided tape - they fell off the first time it rained). Later, the window mechanisms literally fell out of the windows. Now the windows will not stay closed unless we put screws in them (then they will not open). The roofer cut through a roof rafter and then tried to claim it was somehow my fault. When that failed he tried to claim it was always that way (even though a fresh cut is very obvious in a 170 year old beam). The drywall finishers got more mud on things in the house (like my tools) than they did no the walls. The drywall hangers tried to get away with using thinner drywall (I required 5/8" commercial grade). The flooring contractor did a good job, but had a product failure. We had problems with virtually every trade.
Then the materials often did not arrive on time, or they were incorrect. We had to send back entire truckloads of lumber because it was too warped and/or too wet to use. Various contractors mixed concrete or concrete materials (like the stuff you use as a bed for a tile shower) incorrectly and it had to be torn out and replaced. The tile guy did not show up and the carpenters tried to do the tile work and made a mess of it. I had to make them tear much of it out and re-do it. It took them five times longer than the tile guy's estimate (I felt sorry for them).
One worker fell off a scaffold and broke his back. One painter had a heart attack. One plumber's brother committed suicide the morning that they were supposed to start work. Two workers got in a fight (one with an axe). Another worker was found spitting chewing tobacco juice on our bedroom floor. People stole things from me and from each other. The carpenter's trailer was stolen from another job and burned (all of his tools and some of mine were in his trailer and he had no insurance). Someone plugged a drill motor into the sup pump outlet and left it laying outside. It shorted out and the sump pump went out. In the morning I found almost 3 feet of ice cold water in the basement. (which I had to wade through to reset the sump pump GFI). There were another two or three similar personnel problems.
Pretty much everyone disappeared for a time, no one showed up on time, no one finished on time, almost everyone had change orders. Pretty much everyone messed up or simply did not complete their work. We could sue most of them, except that would mean that I would need to take a year off and do nothing but sue our various trades contractors and the suits would be for $5,000 - $10,000 issues (not worth the time and expense). Many of them are not collectible anyway.
So Yes, hiring a GC would have been a good idea. However not just any GC I think that you want a large well known company with very good connections. Not a retired guy who knows a lot about construction. Someone who knows who does a good job. Someone that is going to provide additional work to good contractors and can get them to show up and stay on the job. Someone who can pay if the job gets Marjory messed up. It would have cost us an additional $50,000 to $70,000, but it would have been worth it. It just seemed like it was not necessary at the time. Surprise.
What I learned is that for most small time contractors, if they can take advantage of you, they will. Some of them are honest and upright but the necessities of the market require them to place you second or third or fifteenth. Some make mistakes that they cannot afford to absorb and they get desperate to blame you or someone else in order to avoid bankruptcy. Some end up disappearing altogether, even if they were decent people. It is a mess. Do not do it.
I would tackle management of a huge road, bridge, or dam project before I would take on another damn single family home one time project.
WOW
And I thought I had a hard time. Mine was a walk in the park compared to you. I can relate to every single thing you wrote.
My next home will already be built and inspected by a qualified and licensed inspector with me in attendance as well. I wouldn't build another house again.
My next home will already be built and inspected by a qualified and licensed inspector . . . . .
At the risk of offending the hell out of someone, I do not believe such a being exists.
If I were needing some type of inspection, I would call someone licensed and still working in that particular trade.
As they say, a jack of all trades is a master of none.
We occasionally do inspection work for insurance companies as some will not accept inspections from "licensed inspectors"; they want licensed contractors.
At the risk of offending the hell out of someone, I do not believe such a being exists.
If I were needing some type of inspection, I would call someone licensed and still working in that particular trade.
As they say, a jack of all trades is a master of none.
We occasionally do inspection work for insurance companies as some will not accept inspections from "licensed inspectors"; they want licensed contractors.
I agree. I have seen consistently terrible jobs by most "home inspectors" Get people fromthe trades to inspect each trade area of the home.
My husband and I decided to re-do our front yard. We had a landscaper come out to do a 'walk through' with us, he gave us an estimate of $16,000 - our budget was $15,000. We all decided on a budget of $16,000 and he started the work the following week. Three weeks later he mailed us an invoice for $27,000!!!! Is this even legal?!?! There has to be some sort of percentage that a contractor must stay in, how can they just send an invoice for that amount without ever saying a word about things costing more, etc. It's just bad business!!
I'd be really interested to read feedback on what they'd do about this situation.
Cold- I would actually advise against hiring the huge, well-known manager unless it was a huge job and you needed the political clout. My experience has been that they are often the absolute worst.
That said- I think the big thing is showing the contractor a level of respect (ie- if you want stiff penalties for time/$ overages you also need to reward them for keeping the project on the rails. The other main advice I have often makes heads explode- but don't used low bid as the only criteria. Review the bids and make sure everything is comparable. This is were a good contractor/architect often makes themselves invaluable. You would be shocked at the number of people who brag to me about their contractor or sub finding the magic bullet/being so skilled/knowing just the right person to pull 10-15% off the job. Only they didn't- the person simply was so blinded by the dollar signs they bought a phony argument in its entirety. Making sure everyone is biddign with comperable materials and comparably skilled workers (require installers have x amount of experience) might get rid of some low bids but you won't miss them.
Another thing one of my first bosses always recommended that people never like but saves heartache everytime is to budget 5% for errors and omissions. Because without fail- Kohler will raise prices or discontinue the selected fixtures, the siding company will change the recommended installation after you've priced the project, the city will up the tap fee or we'll go to war/have a hurricane and there will be a run on plywood that noone could have forseen. Now- you only let them tap the contingency if everyone agrees it was truly unforseen but usually it is an item everyone acknoweldged was from out of left field. Like unearthing a a grave during excavation for the foundation (true story- and we'll just say that schedule was shot!)
Another wise move is to have your contractors lock in a unit price for materials and set rate for labor on work outside the contract. You'd be shocked how pricey everyone gets once the dotted line is signed. One of my friends always bid low and simply said 'I'll make it back on the first changeorder.' And he does.
The last item is to get a quality set of specs/drawings. I'm doing some estimating work to stay afloat (don't you just love this Bush-Obama economy???) and honest to gawd half the drawings I see make my eyes bleed. And its some of the more 'well-respected' firms that are cranking out absolutely abysmal sets. Either inadequate detsils, a lack of coordination or using master-spec and never editting the darn specs down to only the items included in each project. I can't tell you how many times I've had to ask where the heck industrial coatings are being used or why their is a spec that included metal fabrication on aproject that included all wood framing. Or the finish schedule lists one material and sections/elevations show another. My favorite was a military job with an entire spec section on lead abatement removal- for rehab of a building built in 1985. (Bonus points for whoever points out the absurdity of that spec on said building.)
So bascally to have something come in on cost/time I'd recommend a good drawing and spec (outline or spec book but must have one of the two), budgeting some contingency and making sure the bid is for the work you actually desire.
The reason alot of people dodge small jobs is that over the course of a large one you can pull some items in under cost/time to offset the ones that run over. On a small one you lose that margin for error.
Sorry about the dissertation- I've spent half my day and night going over 4 addendum on a jail that were all issued within one day of the actual bid date. And I've grown tired of having an owner/rep say that something should not change the time or cost while I stare at 5 new spec sections and about 50 replaced drawings accross multiple disciplines. I think they must be teachign Tony Robbins and prosperity theology in management classes these days.
My husband and I decided to re-do our front yard. We had a landscaper come out to do a 'walk through' with us, he gave us an estimate of $16,000 - our budget was $15,000. We all decided on a budget of $16,000 and he started the work the following week. Three weeks later he mailed us an invoice for $27,000!!!! Is this even legal?!?! There has to be some sort of percentage that a contractor must stay in, how can they just send an invoice for that amount without ever saying a word about things costing more, etc. It's just bad business!!
I'd be really interested to read feedback on what they'd do about this situation.
Oh yeah! Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeello!?
A contract with a stip's page that had a line item list of items to be done would have been done for the contract amount- Period. If there was unforeseen circumstances, they should have addressed those issues with you to amend the contract.
Now, if you don't pay (barring the issue of a contract) they'll just put a lien on the house.
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