What can we possibly do at this point? Our contractor is adding on a master suite to an existing room on our house. Adding a 12x22 slab off the back for the bedroom portion. I paid them 12K 7 months ago to start November 28th. At this time I only have a buried frost wall and no poured floor. THAT IS IT! Aside from them completely destroying half of my back yard.
What can I do to make our job a priority with them?
Today is the day that with their newest timeline, drywall was supposed to be going up. We don't even have walls. My wife and I are at our wits end with these jack wagons. We also just found out that the plans they drew up were wrong and the foundation has already been poured and dried. Any help would greatly reduce the amount of hair I am losing on a daily basis.
Please help!!!!
Wow! I truly am sorry that you are in such a horrible situation.
The first thing I would do is decide whether you would like to continue with this contractor. If you don't want to, then I would try to talk with him and find a reasonable amount that you can settle on for the work already completed. If it is wrong, as you have suggested, then I would ask for your money back. If he refuses then I would go talk with a lawyer, they will have the best course of action as to retrieval of money, and breaking the contract (that's a I hope you signed). The contract protects you as much as it protects him. That is the key.
After that I would look at other contractors again. To finish your project.
If it is a legitimate reason that he is late (someone died or something like that) I would try and work it out with him. If the foundation is incorrect it is his cost to fix it, not yours. I would also ask for a rebate on the final price, a good contractor will likely work something out with you.
Again, I'm sorry that this is such a horrible situation for you to be in.
All the best, and remember a lawyer is probably the best way to deal with this if you wish to discontinue the Contractor's service.
Marc
Trade-Marc Carpentry
Thank you Marc. I will use this information moving forward. This job was to be completed before our 3rd child was born. She is now 4 months old and we are running thin on space and patience. I would understand if the plans were wrong on the first draw up, but this is going to be the third time the plans were incorrect. I just wish i saw this error before they started ripping up my lawn.
Cheers
Clean habits is very sorry that you and your wife our going through this it's crazy how many story's we here of this type of stuff.
Well I totally agree with Marc I would try to talk to them and see what the problem is that's first. Then after you get all your info from them I would look at getting in touch with a Lawyer and seeing about retaining money back from them. And then getting in touch with a company that wants to take on there mess that they have left you with.
Clean habits
CEO
Ryan Carwardine
Hi,
In my experience as an architect & project manager you find all kinds of people. By now I have learned that if peoples actions are not following their verbal promises you should not hesitate to part ways. It will only get worse with time. You already discovered your foundation is the wrong size & that is only the start of your project.
If your foundation is smaller than you wanted I recommend cantilevering the floor to make up the size difference as much as possible.
Firing people is never easy. Good luck.
Peter
I don't have any experience with this kind of thing. But maybe the newspaper or radio because this type of thing is starting to get a lot of exposure.
Goodluck
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