Grrrr, dang contractor.

[PotterWatch]

We are having a lot of work done on our house (city grant money, hurray!). The only thing they are doing inside the house is replacing all the interior doors. They are all hung and only one still needs the moulding, but they all need nail holes filled and sanded so that we can paint. They were supposed to come yesterday at 8am and didn't show up. We finally called at about 10:30 to find out they are tied up on another job and wouldn't be coming at all that day so they were supposed to be coming today at 8am instead. So here it is 10:15 and no workers again! Now for two days in a row I have gotten up early (I love homeschooling hours, lol), only to have no one show up. Plus, we can't leave if they might be coming . How hard is it to pick up a phone and call to say you won't make it? Grrrrrrrr.

 

[English Chick]

Totally totally understand, so much so that I endeavour to do as many repairs as possible myself, hate waiting around on empty promises....only bring contractors in for the really big big jobs nowadays.....happy DIY-er

 

[fullhouse]

GRRRRRRRR! Seriously, I am shocked when I get someone here within an hour of the scheduled time. I wish dh was handy

 

[PotterWatch]

We would do more of it DIY except that using the city's money, they won't allow us to. All work has to be done by a licensed contractor. We can't afford to pay for the work if we did it ourselves so we just have to put up with a contractor. At least there are stipulations the city makes with the contractor that will insure our work will be done ultimatley on time. The contractor has until Oct 15th to finish all work or he gets fined $300 a day by the city. I imagine it will get done on time!

 

[Oblio13]

How does one get a grant from the city for new doors?

 

[maplesky7]

My husband's in Iraq...I had someone from church, a contractor, come in and look at the house---he was in charge of it all and he had an excellent plaster guy and siding guy...and i hired my mom's retired friend for the painting.

we have a boiler so frozen pipes and water damage got fixed this spring.

We needed to replace the inadequate flashing around our 4 dormers because of a bad roof job and because of all of the flooding in these parts got pushed to summer...by the roofer who was to come in and "repair" the original flub job...

He tore off and in 90* heat called it a day and it down poured that night...leaving 4 rooms water damaged...2 of the ones that were just repaired from the frozen pipe damage.

Talk about a kick in the stomach.

I am just reeling.

I've had appliances break down, my car worked on, now my mower doesn't work, I found out my baby has a hole in her heart after dh left...

And still I manage by the Grace of My Father God only.

Doors seem easy enough...my bedroom doors are sheets tacked on.

And yeah...how DOES one file for a grant?

me,
g

 

[Chick_a_dee]

If you're that frustrated go and buy a $5.00 pot of woodfiller and fill the holes yourself, then send them the receipt for the woodfiller and have them pay for it. It's not a hard thing to do, at least then you can get on with painting right? When we had doors installed by Home Depot (long long long ago as we do it ourselves now) they never once filled the holes, so we had to do it ourselves and its about 5 minutes out of your day.

We live in an 1870's farmhouse that needs renovations in EVERY room, one bathroom needs completely gutting top to bottom and walls moved, plumbing moved, etc. the other needs a shower taken out, and new toilet and sink, painting, etc. We have TONS of tiling to do, flooring, carpet tile in our living room (we have dogs, carpet tile from home depot the nice stuff is really great), painting galore, ceiling in the living room needs new tongue and groove to match the kitchen, bedrooms all need the plywood pulled up and the spruce floorboards underneath to be sanded, painted, and varathaned, the cedar siding on the porch still needs to be painted, the porch lights need installing still (two hanging lights on conduit because there isn't a drop ceiling), plus.... 13 light fixtures that still need installing, a brand new front window because we have a badly installed bay window that needs to be removed and replaced with a smaller period appropriate window, brickwork needs doing around that, plus the old door next to it needs replacing with another of the same windows, more brickwork... we also need to re-point our house.



Most of this aside from the windows, brickwork, and re-pointing is being done by us. Happy DIY-ers, we just moved in 2 months ago after finishing the project of our Backsplit.

Anything is possible

 

[Oblio13]

I think if someone else was footing the bill and doing the work to upgrade my house, I wouldn't complain about them being two days late.

 

[Marlinchaser]

Quote:
I think the point is regardless of who is footing the bill, be considerate and if you are not gonna make an appointment, pick up the phone and call. Has nothing to do with the money it has to do with the Manners that people fail to use. The contractor in this case IS being paid, and should be on time.

Think of it this way, if you buy tires for your car, and take it back for the FREE tire rotation, when you return at the end of the day and tires havent been done, it cost you nothing, so dont complain???? I dont think so. the OP has wasted 2 mornings waiting for someone to show that never did. un

 

[PotterWatch]

Quote:
I don't care if they are late in completing the work. I care that they tell me they will be at my house on a certain day at a certain hour and not showing up. I arrange my schedule so that I can be home, I figure they can at least do me the courtesy of showing up when they say they will or calling if they aren't going to make it.

The money we are getting is city money that has been put aside to improve houses in certain areas of the city. We live in a neighborhood that used to be fairly nice, but over the years has gone downhill. The city posts a list of what streets they will spend the money on and homeowners have the opportunity to apply for money to improve their home. The amount you get depends on income maximums, how much you owe, and how much your home is worth. The house we are living in is the one my husband grew up in. His sister who took ownership after his Mom passed away unfortunately didn't have the money to keep the house repaired properly and there have been lots and lots of repairs to do. The money from the city has been a great blessing (especially with my husband out on disability for the last 1.5yrs). We are very grateful for the program and are putting it to good use!

ETA;
You can see pictures of some of the initial work we did on the house here: http://www.picturetrail.com/our2boys . We paid for all of that work and the city money is going towards relandscaping the front and back yards, putting in concrete walkways on both sides of the house, painting the exterior and enlarging the front porch. I can't wait to take pictures of it when it is all completed!

*All the stuff in the house in the initial pictures are things that were left behind for us to clean up when my SIL moved out.