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The Dance of the Seven Contractors
It’s been a long and frustrating couple of months since the Ida flood and subsequent devastation of our ground level. (Which we call “the basement” but is not, by the official definition, a basement. You can walk out from that floor into the backyard, and a basement is, by definition, below the ground level on all four sides. This turned out to be a major factor in getting the insurance to pay a fraction of our contents losses, rather than nothing at all.)
The general contractors I found have been great: They rebuilt the walls (and sealed all the mouse-holes when they did it), installed new tile flooring, repainted everything, and also replaced some leaky windows and rebuilt a closet to eliminate the pest-pathways. My only complaint with them is lousy expectation-setting: Their time estimates tended to be very optimistic, and that was frustrating to me. But they did nice work for a good price. The plumber was a mixed bag—he installed indoor and outdoor sump pumps and powerwashed our sewer pipe, but also apparently messed up our neighbor’s system (which runs under our house because of terrible decisions made 25 years ago) and has had to dig up our backyard repeatedly to fiddle with their pipes. Also, we wanted him to fix some leaky taps and that has become a multi-visit extravaganza.
(The storm earlier this week indicated that the pumps and drain that were installed were necessary but not sufficient to stave off the next Ida. I’m building a “sea wall” to limit the neighbor’s runoff from pooling on our yard, and trying to get the GC back to dig up a bunch of the packed clay under our flagstones and replace it with gravel for better natural drainage.)
I’m actually trying to nail down the GC to fix a bunch of other issues on the upper floors of our house, which has proven somewhat more difficult. I’m clear and organized about what I want; I don’t weedle over prices; I pay on time and in full; and when they were working in our house the guys periodically received homemade baked goods. We’re fantastic customers! This shouldn’t be so hard!
We talked to multiple custom bookcase vendors before eventually deciding to just buy cheap bookshelves and put them up on 4-inch cement blocks, with painted wood “fronting” to hide the blocks from view. Unfortunately, because of covid shortages Ikea’s Billy bookshelves are in very short supply, so we ended up with 2 Amazon bookcases and 5 Walmart ones; and a TV stand that looks nice, but was a terribly-designed DIY build that will never survive a move. (Seriously, multiple screws broke in half when I was tightening them with a hand screwdriver. I’ve never had that happen before!) We did get that all assembled with help from our friends. And I had a very “dad” moment when I expressed my glee over the variety packs of wood screws and washers I found at Home Depot.
I’m glad we got the tile flooring, because getting new carpet has been a nightmare. We debated about getting wall-to-wall, but eventually settled on the tile with an area carpet. (We’re reasonably certain that despite our best efforts, there will be another “hundred-year flood” in five years, and it’ll be easier to remove the rug ourselves and then have a usable floor the next time this happens.) Carpet guy #1 ghosted us four times, then took a week to send samples he said he’d overnight, then never sent us an estimate. Carpet guy #2 (Home Depot) sent out two guys to take measurements; the second because the first was so laughably wrong they admitted to screwing up. Of course, the second was even stupider (it was for a 12’ by 45’ rug...in an 8’ by 26’ space AND included a $1,200 charge for tearing up our newly-laid tile!) so we abandoned them as well. Carpet guy #3 gave an estimate, took a deposit and claims the factory will ship the carpet to them on Monday, so we’ll see.
Oh, and the HVAC system on the roof that we’d been trying to get replaced all summer? The guy we’d hired gave up when he realized his adapter was wrong and his fab guy couldn’t make the right one (after months of getting permits and trying to get a crane), and refunded our money. I found a new guy whose company apparently installed the current unit 28 years ago, who thinks they can do the installation in parts without a crane at all. He’s ordered a new unit and is transferring permits, and we’ll see how long that stretches out.
In short: Our home is functional again, but the last few pieces continue to stretch on and will likely take a few more months to actually get into place. (Long enough for more things to break, certainly.) It has been frustrating and stressful, but at least I can sit on my couch again.
The general contractors I found have been great: They rebuilt the walls (and sealed all the mouse-holes when they did it), installed new tile flooring, repainted everything, and also replaced some leaky windows and rebuilt a closet to eliminate the pest-pathways. My only complaint with them is lousy expectation-setting: Their time estimates tended to be very optimistic, and that was frustrating to me. But they did nice work for a good price. The plumber was a mixed bag—he installed indoor and outdoor sump pumps and powerwashed our sewer pipe, but also apparently messed up our neighbor’s system (which runs under our house because of terrible decisions made 25 years ago) and has had to dig up our backyard repeatedly to fiddle with their pipes. Also, we wanted him to fix some leaky taps and that has become a multi-visit extravaganza.
(The storm earlier this week indicated that the pumps and drain that were installed were necessary but not sufficient to stave off the next Ida. I’m building a “sea wall” to limit the neighbor’s runoff from pooling on our yard, and trying to get the GC back to dig up a bunch of the packed clay under our flagstones and replace it with gravel for better natural drainage.)
I’m actually trying to nail down the GC to fix a bunch of other issues on the upper floors of our house, which has proven somewhat more difficult. I’m clear and organized about what I want; I don’t weedle over prices; I pay on time and in full; and when they were working in our house the guys periodically received homemade baked goods. We’re fantastic customers! This shouldn’t be so hard!
We talked to multiple custom bookcase vendors before eventually deciding to just buy cheap bookshelves and put them up on 4-inch cement blocks, with painted wood “fronting” to hide the blocks from view. Unfortunately, because of covid shortages Ikea’s Billy bookshelves are in very short supply, so we ended up with 2 Amazon bookcases and 5 Walmart ones; and a TV stand that looks nice, but was a terribly-designed DIY build that will never survive a move. (Seriously, multiple screws broke in half when I was tightening them with a hand screwdriver. I’ve never had that happen before!) We did get that all assembled with help from our friends. And I had a very “dad” moment when I expressed my glee over the variety packs of wood screws and washers I found at Home Depot.
I’m glad we got the tile flooring, because getting new carpet has been a nightmare. We debated about getting wall-to-wall, but eventually settled on the tile with an area carpet. (We’re reasonably certain that despite our best efforts, there will be another “hundred-year flood” in five years, and it’ll be easier to remove the rug ourselves and then have a usable floor the next time this happens.) Carpet guy #1 ghosted us four times, then took a week to send samples he said he’d overnight, then never sent us an estimate. Carpet guy #2 (Home Depot) sent out two guys to take measurements; the second because the first was so laughably wrong they admitted to screwing up. Of course, the second was even stupider (it was for a 12’ by 45’ rug...in an 8’ by 26’ space AND included a $1,200 charge for tearing up our newly-laid tile!) so we abandoned them as well. Carpet guy #3 gave an estimate, took a deposit and claims the factory will ship the carpet to them on Monday, so we’ll see.
Oh, and the HVAC system on the roof that we’d been trying to get replaced all summer? The guy we’d hired gave up when he realized his adapter was wrong and his fab guy couldn’t make the right one (after months of getting permits and trying to get a crane), and refunded our money. I found a new guy whose company apparently installed the current unit 28 years ago, who thinks they can do the installation in parts without a crane at all. He’s ordered a new unit and is transferring permits, and we’ll see how long that stretches out.
In short: Our home is functional again, but the last few pieces continue to stretch on and will likely take a few more months to actually get into place. (Long enough for more things to break, certainly.) It has been frustrating and stressful, but at least I can sit on my couch again.