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Do you ever get a contractor that won’t take your money?

Bamajeeper

Bamajeeper

Annoying flesh monkeys!
Joined
May 21, 2020
Member Number
836
Messages
270
Loc
North Alabama
I need gutters on one side of my house. It’s about sixty feet total with two end caps, two down spouts, one right angle.
I have called six different gutter installers. Two have showed up and given quotes. One was $4300, the other was $880. The $880 guy flaked because they fired all of their gutter installers.
The other four installers did not respond to phone calls or did not show when they said to give estimates.
WTF is wrong with these people? I am waving my money around and they don’t want it.
My sister is having the same problem trying to get trees trimmed and a pool installed.

Is anyone else here having this trouble?
 
Not just contractors... people selling items as well.
 
A friend needs a large dead tree taken down. It's very close to the house so he figures it's best to hire a professional with a bucket truck or high lift claw and saw ...He made a lot of calls, a lot of promises but no one has showed up.....
 
A lot of contractors are really bad businessmen. They take jobs when they are running out of money or need your deposit to pay for materials on a job they are halfway through.
 
$4300 was to make payroll / expenses for the day.

$880 guy is too busy making $4300+ to make payroll / expenses for the day.

Small jobs don't make money by the time his guys get there, set up, do the job, clean up, etc. He's paying more for payroll, equipment, insurance than it's worth. It's a sad reality.

Find a handyman with a beat up pickup truck and a meth head helper. He'd be happy to work for $880. Just make sure he's insured.
 
Get used to DIY everything, it's the only way. Unless of course you have fuckoff money and pay out the ass.

I really don't feel like being a welder/mechanic/electrician/roofer/plumber/tiler/etc. but shit's gotta get done and ain't nobody gonna do it but you.

I have an old timer contractor buddy (retired now) that would complain that he was booked solid for 3 years and was forever giving more quotes to more people. I told him he wasn't charging enough. He told me that he didn't want to fuck people and price gouge.

To me it's all business. He wasn't a charity and he didn't owe anybody anything.
 
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Muckin_Slusher said:
Get used to DIY everything, it's the only way. Unless of course you have fuckoff money and pay out the ass.

I really don't feel like being a welder/mechanic/electrician/roofer/plumber/tiler/etc. but shit's gotta get done and ain't nobody gonna do it but you.
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yup
 
Had the same problem with flooring before COVID. No one would call me back after a quote. Economy was bumping and they got to pick a choose what jobs they did. They were picking whole houses of new construction. Sometimes entire subdivisions worth.

My piddly two rooms of uneven 40 year old subfloor wasn't worth messing with for most. Finally had one come and bang it out in two days.
 
Everyone is busy. I had to reroof my house because I couldn't find someone who was less than next year out to do it. It's good for them and hard for me because I would like someone else to do my house projects but I suppose I'll just save my pennies and wait or do it myself.
 
Everyone around here is hiring. The economy seems to be booming. I thought the china flu would fuck that up, apparently not. Good luck finding someone. Or as stated above, diy.
 
DMG said:
A lot of contractors are really bad businessmen. They take jobs when they are running out of money or need your deposit to pay for materials on a job they are halfway through.
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Exactly. I was an electrical contractor before retiring. I didn't do residential so I was dealing with business owners and managers. I never asked for money up front..I think it's a sleazy way to do business . There may be exceptions with expensive custom made items that can't be returned or resold if the customer backs out of the deal.
 
Truckedup said:
Exactly. I was an electrical contractor before retiring. I didn't do residential so I was dealing with business owners and managers. I never asked for money up front..I think it's a sleazy way to do business . There may be exceptions with expensive custom made items that can't be returned or resold if the customer backs out of the deal.
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What did you do about scumbags that wouldn't pay once the job was done?

50% to start, 30% when half completed and 20% upon completion sounds reasonable to me.
 
Yes. Ivw been trying like hell to get someone to come out and quote me to run a gas line to my kitchen for a new gas range, as currently we just have electrical. I got one guy to come out and look at it, and said he would email a quote.. that I have yet to see.
 
Muckin_Slusher said:
What did you do about scumbags that wouldn't pay once the job was done?

50% to start, 30% when half completed and 20% upon completion sounds reasonable to me.
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On large jobs a "draw" was arranged, so much money at a certain point in the job progress. Usually three draws evenly spaced as much as practical. Again, no money paid me before the job was started...On some jobs the general contractor or project manager might require a retainer up front to make sure sub contractors finished the job...I saw more than a few subs being a pain in the ass by not keeping up.
. I worked for large electrical contractors for 25 years before my opening my own shop...one thing I learned is always try to work prime, always for the owner and not for a general contractor...
I had very few problems with non payers...more problems with slow payers but it wasn't constantly...
 
Doing work for people you don’t know is kinda sketchy because half the time you never get paid. If one of the General Contractors that I work for gives me a lead I’ll usually work for that person but just some cold call off next door or whatever, fuck that I don’t feel like getting burned by some Karen and explaining why I charge 2x more than a handyman
 
I will agree that most contractors are tradesman not businessman. They don’t understand that they will make more money managing their business than working. Part of managing is making sure that everything scheduled, workers are on site, and they have the proper materials to get the job, there are way too many that meed to run to Home Depot and hope their credit card isn’t declined to buy materials for the day.
 
The $4300 quote makes me think there is something off with your house/location. It sounds like the "this thing is fawked" type quote. My friend that does fab work would do a similar quote when the meth head drove up in his clapped out POS dripping mud asking for "one of them offroad bumpers".
 
My house is big and has no basement. The layout is different. HVAC guys around here aren’t really excited about installing furnace and ductwork. I get it, there are fast easy jobs available right now. Eventually someone will want to do it or I will do it myself.
 
I've posted about this kind of thing a few times over the years.

I cannot ever get anyone to come out, or if they come out I won't get a quote, or if I do get a quote they do not respond to the job.

I have ended up with the methhead loser types that i typically have to fire and give money just to leave as they are complete fuckups.

I still have an extension cord running to my shop as I have not been able to get anyone to run power out there for me who won't burn my house down.
 
crispins said:
I still have an extension cord running to my shop as I have not been able to get anyone to run power out there for me who won't burn my house down.
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Slacker, I went 2BB style and hand dug the 65' trench from the house to the shop. Got it dug wired and filled in 2 days. Should have rented a trencher........
 
bdkw1 said:
Slacker, I went 2BB style and hand dug the 65' trench from the house to the shop. Got it dug wired and filled in 2 days. Should have rented a trencher........
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I'm going to do it this winter, will have to use a trencher for sure as there is a spring right next tot eh area and it stays soggy.
 
On the other end, I used to get complaints from customers all the time because I'd constantly turn down add on shit they wanted to do in their kitchens after they moved into their houses or retail customers who wanted smaller work like replacement vanities. It's not worth my time to bid it because you're not going to pay retail pricing plus what it's going to cost to send an installer out to you. Those deco panels for your cabinets that were an extra $1000 during your home build are going to cost you $3k+ from me after you move in, nevermind what it's going to cost you to bring out an electrician and plumber to remove and reinstall your dishwasher and outlets.

Our cabinet installers are awful and won't do anything for less than $1000 a day to install in tract homes, twice that for anything retail and that's for one guy. But, there's huge skilled labor shortage across the country. Anyone who's doing retail stuff right now is probably bottom of the barrel.
 
The pool industry is seeing it's best year ever across the country. Tell your sister to be patient. Companies (especially quality ones) are up to their ass in work and don't want to take on new jobs until they are able to do so
 
What's the hot trade?

I'm starting to do tile while on strike, my partner and I are charging $4 sqft (labor only) plus $250 to strip and haul carpet from 2 bedrooms

that's not including sealing it, don't know where I'd start pricing on that

I only ever did it for myself, I could use some pointers.

also thinking I should do the wood and vinyl floors, I hear it's $2.75 sqft labor and gravy

thoughts?
 
I posted in the useless things thread about the quote I got last week for the ac on my wifes Yukon. $1121 for a compressor, orifice tube, accumulator and labor. I was pretty sure that was a "fuck you" price.

Im trying to figure out how supposedly no one is working, have no incomes, but yet businesses are busier than ever and turning work down, real estate sales are up, etc.

We are in some messed up times.
 
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