Wanna see my kitchen?

[Rain Man]

And my attic, too. Photos attached.

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by bogie

I don't want to put down any contractors, I would like to be a contractor. Changes are part of consruction. It's difficult for home owners to make decisions from drawings. Homeowners need to be informed of the costs attached to changes. If a contractor is organized enough to get costs related to changes in writing, they should be covered. I know, I know, easier said than done.

Yeah, that's the thing. The base pricing should cover a typical level of minor changes. We all know that everything isn't going to be exactly as predicted, because these jobs are complicated. However, I shouldn't have to bear all of the risk for any changes, because I'm relying on the contractor to know enough to predict the risk of problems and account for it in his pricing. If there's something completely unexpected that gets uncovered, then we talk. But the contractor should know that XX percent of the job is going to have a glitch in it, and should price knowing that that will happen.

[Bugeater]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

Yeah. I've obsessed over this all afternoon because I'm so ragingly angrily furiously annoyed, and there were four screwups. The first was not giving me complete pricing in the first place. The second was acting like they didn't screw up in the first place. The third was not correcting the order. The fourth was not acknowledging that they didn't correct the order. If they made a mistake and it costs me more, I can deal with that as long as I'm convinced that it was an honest mistake. The part that continues to chafe me is the fact that they still can't get the order right, and are still unapologetic about it.

I hear you Rain Man. It really boggles my mind how some businesses stay in business. There's a contractor that I did work for over 10 years ago whose projects were always a disorganized nightmare. His customers all hated him by the time he was done, but yet he is still in business to this day.

[Bob Dole]

Originally Posted by Phobia

I don't blame you. We hate homeowners, too.

Which is why no reputable contractors in Texarkana will even deal with private home remodels.

[bogie]

Originally Posted by Bugeater

Yes, changes are part of construction, but they need to be kept at an absolute minimum. There's often more cost involved in the change than just the time & materials to do the work. If you get too many they will disrupt the flow of the job and nothing gets done efficiently, which generally ends up hurting the bottom lines of other sub-contractors who aren't even involved with the actual change.

Yes, they need to be kept at an absolute minimum. That is easier said then done when a homeowner is generally making decisions from paper.

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by Bugeater

I hear you Rain Man. It really boggles my mind how some businesses stay in business. There's a contractor that I did work for over 10 years ago whose projects were always a disorganized nightmare. His customers all hated him by the time he was done, but yet he is still in business to this day.

I think this only happens because there aren't good forums for people to share their bad experiences. That guy can move on and always find someone who hasn't heard of him.

The funny thing is that I just spoke on a conference panel this week about customer service and what constitutes excellent customer service. We talked about how to handle customer complaints and how to prevent customer complaints, and what defines good customer service. In handling complaints, the common theme that I heard was that it's better to not do battle with a customer, even if they're not reasonable, because in the long run you're better off with a happy customer than a mad customer.

[NewChief]

Originally Posted by bogie

If a contractor is organized enough to get costs related to changes in writing, they should be covered. I know, I know, easier said than done.

I think you hit it on the head, there. Many, many contractors are excellent at doing the actual work, but they're atrocious at figuring actual costs and being organized enough to present that information accurately to the home owner beforehand. My brother built extremely high end log cabins (hand hewn logs). He even built a log cabin for Tom Cruise in Colorado. He's built multiple large cabins that have been featured in various magazines. Unfortunately, he was more of an artisan than a contractor. He inevitably underbid the home, then being the honest guy that he was, his profits would suck on the house because he'd try to stick to the initial bid. As a result, he rarely does turnkey cabins anymore despite the potential profit being much higher in turnkey because he can make a better profit with less headache just by going in as a timber framing subcontractor.

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by bogie

Yes, they need to be kept at an absolute minimum. That is easier said then done when a homeowner is generally making decisions from paper.

It's only natural that some things will change. I think that's no problem if they're neutral and addressed before the "point of no return". And if I change something after the fact, then I'll pay for it.

The gray area is the stuff like my refrigerator not being able to open all the way. It's clearly a design problem, and the cabinet subcontractor was following the design. However, I was a little disappointed that they didn't notice it when they were putting it in, or didn't know from experience that you shouldn't have a refrigerator within 12 inches of a 90 degree cabinet turn.

So who pays for pulling the cabinet back out and fixing the problem? The architect, whose design was stupid in the first place? The homeowner, who made the problem worse by trying to fix another architect problem? The cabinet subcontractor, for not knowing that you shouldn't have a fridge that close to the corner? Or the general contractor, who is supposed to be on site managing the project?

[plbrdude]

Originally Posted by NewChief

Heh. What you're missing is that some customers are never satisfied. On top of that, there are customers out there that will change their mind 10 times on a project and want you to stick to the initial bid, nevermind the extra 50 hours of labor their revisions caused.

Two brothers currently in construction and my own time as a framer taught me that construction is quite a bit different than other service/product based businesses.

surely not

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by NewChief

I think you hit it on the head, there. Many, many contractors are excellent at doing the actual work, but they're atrocious at figuring actual costs and being organized enough to present that information accurately to the home owner beforehand.

Yeah. I like my contractor, but they haven't been able to provide me any pricing on change orders other than "that's a trivial cost." We have meetings every week and every week we say, "you need to let us know where we're at on the budget" and they haven't submitted some of them weeks after they did the work - and without us formally approving it. The only price they submitted was $884 for one change order, so I presume that all of the others are below that amount. It scares me, though, and it's not necessary.

[plbrdude]

Originally Posted by Hoover

I hate all contractors.

thank you

[bogie]

Look, I work in video editing. There are subjective changes that happen ALL THE TIME. My customers know that with these changes come additional costs. When the customer is given the options, they will make their decision being fully informed. It's as simple as that. 98% of the time I have no problems. Unfortunately, with construction, as we have all read, problems with communication happen way too much.

[plbrdude]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

Yeah. I like my contractor, but they haven't been able to provide me any pricing on change orders other than "that's a trivial cost." We have meetings every week and every week we say, "you need to let us know where we're at on the budget" and they haven't submitted some of them weeks after they did the work - and without us formally approving it. The only price they submitted was $884 for one change order, so I presume that all of the others are below that amount. It scares me, though, and it's not necessary.

your story reminds me of one i heard earlier this year. one of my customers was having a surgery and his daughter came back for a while. she lives outside indianapolis. she told me last year that they had done an add-on and some remodeling. thought all was good happy with job, knew there were some xtras.then the final bill came, xtras totalled purty near 50g. guess thy're spending some time in court now with their friendly contractor.

[Rain Man]

My business is the same way, bogie. I always have people changing what they need, and it's a natural process. My pricing reflects that I'm going to have do some re-routing, and I typically absorb it unless it's truly a client-requested change in the scope of the work. Then I tell them what it'll cost and let them decide.

Change your mind 8 times about survey content? I'll sigh and deal with it. Tell me you want a 20-minute survey instead of a 10-minute survey, and I'll tell you how much extra it costs. Simple.

My work is also expense-heavy. I do a fair number of $35,000 projects that have $20,000 in subcontractor expenses. I'm not unlike a contractor in that way.

[cdcox]

Originally Posted by bogie

It's difficult for home owners to make decisions from drawings.

Then they are not qualified to own the home in the first place, or at least not qualified to have it remodeled.

[Bugeater]

Originally Posted by bogie

Yes, they need to be kept at an absolute minimum. That is easier said then done when a homeowner is generally making decisions from paper.

Eh, that's true to a point. But often it's because the homeowner doesn't think through exactly what they want, and go into it with the idea that changing things later isn't a big deal.