Contractors/Tradespeople are so annoying...

[Disney Doll]

You have absolutely no way to assert that as truth, just because you're not aware of all the instances where it goes the other way. Your anecdotal impressions don't constitute statistics.

Neither do yours about customers who don’t pay, yet you seem to be asserting those as truth.

We did one large-ish renovation on our house. When all was said and done I think we spent about $80,000. We called 5 or 6 different contractors. Three of them gave us a time that they’d come over, never showed, never called to say they weren’t showing because they had a conflict, an emergency l, an unexpected delay...whatever.

One of them showed, looked around and listened to what we wanted, took a zillion notes, said he’d give us the estimate within a week and we never heard from him again. I assume that our job wasn’t big enough to warrant his time or effort, but it would have been nice if, after he looked around, he had said to us “I prefer to do bigger jobs”. We would have understood that and been fine with it.

The guy who got the job is the last guy we called who showed up for the estimate at the date and time he said he would and gave us the very detailed estimate when he said he would. The job ran fairly well on time even with a couple of changes that we all realized we needed to make once we got into the job.

And I don’t think we were terrible homeowners because we became friends with him and are still friends to this day. And he’s made plenty of $$ off of our recommendations.

 

[nkereina]

Geez that's unfortunate. Once we closed we had a 3month inspection and an 11 month inspection for warranty issues. That's crazy that their 3 months is still dealing with stuff rather than warranty things like we were.

Was it cosmetic things not done? Like for my county in regards to a Certificate of Occupancy which is given after final inspection: "No, your home must be completely finished. Completely finished includes such commonly overlooked items such as the address being posted, all flooring and wall covering, all landings, and decks. You must also have had your final inspection done from Public Works and Environmental before calling".

Yes, cosmetic things primarily. Paint that needed touch up, shower doors installed (had to use shower curtains in the interim), concrete patio poured, caulk touchups, etc. Mostly small things, but an annoyance to wait on each tradesperson to come do it. Here, a CO will be issued if the house is otherwise habitable, which it definitely was.

Did you build with Ryan Homes by chance? DH and I built with Ryan Homes and also had 3 month and 11 month inspections. I know Ryan sometimes gets a bad rap but as a national builder, they were way more organized and definitive with timelines and warranties than the builder my parents used. The builder my parents used is a custom home builder, really just a guy with a small crew. While they had more flexibility to do what they wanted to with the house and floorplan than we did with Ryan, the tradeoff was that they had to be flexible with changes and delays and many annoyances throughout the process. Luckily they're on the downhill side of that now!

 

[ljcrochet]

Doing work in your house can be stressful. We just had impact window and doors put in to our house. We did switch the downpayment and on delivery payments so we put less down. But was told 10-12 weeks for our windows and doors. In my mind I was figuring 13 i think it was closer to 17 with no contact from company unless I reached out to them.
Windows got installed and the few days was about 8 days, They "finished" on a tuesday and on friday we had the inspection. We failed since the windows were missing the stickers but installed great. Next friday we had the window company call to say inspector was on his way, I was like but we still have no stickers. Somehow they worked it out with the inspector, they came and added stickers and started to put the covers on the windows. The covers actually had the missing stickers.
Friday, when he left said would be back on Monday. Monday came and he wasn't here. Tuesday he showed up, before he left he said I'll see you tomorrow. Didn't show. Thursday I wasn't home and got a call saying can he come now. I said no I'm not home. They said I'll call you tomorrow to set up when we can come finish. No call on Friday. Got an email yesterday asking if okay to come today. hopefully he doesn't come before 8:30 since I'm not waiting around to go for my run.

 

[ronandannette]

Neither do yours about customers who don’t pay, yet you seem to be asserting those as truth.

We did one large-ish renovation on our house. When all was said and done I think we spent about $80,000. We called 5 or 6 different contractors. Three of them gave us a time that they’d come over, never showed, never called to say they weren’t showing because they had a conflict, an emergency l, an unexpected delay...whatever.

One of them showed, looked around and listened to what we wanted, took a zillion notes, said he’d give us the estimate within a week and we never heard from him again. I assume that our job wasn’t big enough to warrant his time or effort, but it would have been nice if, after he looked around, he had said to us “I prefer to do bigger jobs”. We would have understood that and been fine with it.

The guy who got the job is the last guy we called who showed up for the estimate at the date and time he said he would and gave us the very detailed estimate when he said he would. The job ran fairly well on time even with a couple of changes that we all realized we needed to make once we got into the job.

And I don’t think we were terrible homeowners because we became friends with him and are still friends to this day. And he’s made plenty of $$ off of our recommendations.

There are customers who don’t pay for work that has been done. There are tradespeople who don’t finish work they have been paid for. Neither you or I have any way to know which one happens more commonly, which is the unsubstantiated point you tried to make.

 

[kdonnel]

As part of the basement work two additional windows are to be installed. One in the bathroom, it was installed soon after framing was done, and one in a home office area. That window was delivered prior to framing being completed but has just sat in the basement for weeks. The trim guy unwrapped it to install it yesterday and found that it was incomplete and not installable. The general contractor who ordered the window and personally delivered it 5 weeks ago is now saying it will take 2-3 weeks to get the proper window.

Annoying!

 

[ljcrochet]

As part of the basement work two additional windows are to be installed. One in the bathroom, it was installed soon after framing was done, and one in a home office area. That window was delivered prior to framing being completed but has just sat in the basement for weeks. The trim guy unwrapped it to install it yesterday and found that it was incomplete and not installable. The general contractor who ordered the window and personally delivered it 5 weeks ago is now saying it will take 2-3 weeks to get the proper window.

Annoying!

That is so annoying that you are now delayed 2-3 weeks because they didn't check the window.

I'm still waiting for my window guy who was coming this morning ( its now after 11 so I'm calling this afternoon) to finish putting the covers on and hopefully covering the gaps that are in front of the 4 doors.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Yes, cosmetic things primarily. Paint that needed touch up, shower doors installed (had to use shower curtains in the interim), concrete patio poured, caulk touchups, etc. Mostly small things, but an annoyance to wait on each tradesperson to come do it. Here, a CO will be issued if the house is otherwise habitable, which it definitely was.

Did you build with Ryan Homes by chance? DH and I built with Ryan Homes and also had 3 month and 11 month inspections. I know Ryan sometimes gets a bad rap but as a national builder, they were way more organized and definitive with timelines and warranties than the builder my parents used. The builder my parents used is a custom home builder, really just a guy with a small crew. While they had more flexibility to do what they wanted to with the house and floorplan than we did with Ryan, the tradeoff was that they had to be flexible with changes and delays and many annoyances throughout the process. Luckily they're on the downhill side of that now!

Well that just sounds annoying for sure even if it's smaller stuff like a shower door.

I don't believe we have Ryan Homes in our area. Our builder is a local one but it was the largest basically in our metro- Summit Custom Homes, a couple years ago a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway bought them though they still maintained the name. Summit appears to be a bit like Ryan with the custom aspect but our trade off is they started at a slightly lower starting price point. We met with 2 builders and the other builder was about $50,000 more starting price than Summit. On that other builder the issue was they hadn't updated their pricing online so we were going off old information. That other builder was just higher like that because of their name lol. I liked the 3 and 11th month inspections though nice to have 2 chances to catch stuff or a 2nd chance for things that popped up like nail pops haha.

Good that things with them are looking up though home building and well home remodels too can be so darn stressful at times.

 

[ronandannette]

As part of the basement work two additional windows are to be installed. One in the bathroom, it was installed soon after framing was done, and one in a home office area. That window was delivered prior to framing being completed but has just sat in the basement for weeks. The trim guy unwrapped it to install it yesterday and found that it was incomplete and not installable. The general contractor who ordered the window and personally delivered it 5 weeks ago is now saying it will take 2-3 weeks to get the proper window.

Annoying!

Not that it's helpful at this point, but your general contractor sounds much-less-than-stellar, and her/his lack of proper project oversight and site supervision is your real problem. There's no reason in the world, other than lack of diligence, that those packages weren't opened and inspected well before they were needed. We insist on it and impose a hefty fine (provided for in our Trade Agreements) to anybody that brings damaged, incorrect or incomplete materials to site, resulting in delays. We've been working with most of them for decades and that virtually never happens because we don't tolerate it. Your entire experience is due to poor supervision, up to and including your general contractor using marginal subs.

Look - I get that you had a very frustrating experience and I know exactly why. You're disgruntlement is understandable BUT it belongs being directed at the specific people you were involved with - not literally millions of individuals who are as highly-skilled, diligent, principled and dedicated to excellence as I'm sure you consider yourself to be in your field.

 

[easyas123]

Look - I get that you had a very frustrating experience and I know exactly why. You're disgruntlement is understandable BUT it belongs being directed at the specific people you were involved with - not literally millions of individuals who are as highly-skilled, diligent, principled and dedicated to excellence as I'm sure you consider yourself to be in your field.

Well said!

 

[kdonnel]

Look - I get that you had a very frustrating experience and I know exactly why. You're disgruntlement is understandable BUT it belongs being directed at the specific people you were involved with - not literally millions of individuals who are as highly-skilled, diligent, principled and dedicated to excellence as I'm sure you consider yourself to be in your field.

I agree there are lots of highly-skilled, diligent, principled and dedicated to excellence tradespeople and contractors.

The same can be said for IRS agents, used care salesman, cable tv installers, etc.

That does not mean that dealing with even the best is not annoying. I have said nothing more then that dealing with tradespeople and contractors is annoying.

Many have contributed their stories of annoyance as well in this thread.

 

[kdonnel]

Almost done, so close.

We have the certificate of occupancy everything is done except.....

The shower door shattered during installation. A new one has been ordered but no timeline has been given for an ETA. The in laws plan to move in Monday and rig up a shower curtain temporarily.

Annoying.