Renovation Nightmares
My husband and I bought a fixer-upper in Park Slope. We are basically gutting a small townhouse, adding an extension and adding a floor. We were very enthused about the project when we bought it, but have encountered lots of problems. The house was bought in April and now it is almost November and all…
My husband and I bought a fixer-upper in Park Slope. We are basically gutting a small townhouse, adding an extension and adding a floor. We were very enthused about the project when we bought it, but have encountered lots of problems. The house was bought in April and now it is almost November and all that has been done is demolition.
Since this is our first fixer-upper experience. We have many questions from experienced renovators. One question is how many times does your contractor call you? Does he/she call you everytime there is a small or large problem? If so, what are the problems like typically? How often is the contractor at the site? How many projects are they working on? How involved is the contractor with the architect? Do they talk all the time? Is the architect available weekly? How many people worked at your site? How long did it take to complete a similar sized project?
We are at a loss of answers and feel helpless. If you have any experience with anything like this, please let us know. Your help and guidance is very appreciated!
I dont know if you caught the msnbc undercover operation on contractors this week called homewreckers(check their website) but if you didnt, you should. Sounds like things will get worse if you dont do damage control now. Winter is fast approaching and you think you have problems now? You have to decide if you want to cut your losses and start over with competent people. If you choose to continue with dumb and dumber, I would sit them down and lay down the rules.You have the power to do this because you have the checkbook.Good luck!!!!!!
Please take the advice of all these people. Fire everyone- start over. Please decide how you want things to work and have an agreement with all of the people involved. Lay out your expectations- visits, billing, emails, documentation, photos, schematics. Educate yourself first- you can post here to collect information. If you do not start over, trust me- you will be kicking yourself a year from now- and still may not have a completed home.
You and your husband will need to get more hands on and involved in this project. Is the 600k an all-in price?
Its a shame your contractor and architect don’t like each other but that really shouldn’t have any bearing upon your job. Don’t let either use it as an excuse to not fufill their obligations. This is business pure and simple…they have to deal with each other as part of the job.
That said, they both sound like they are taking extreme advantage of you. If you can get rid of them. If thats not possible, light a fire under them! Even if you have to go to their offices and knock down the door – do whatever works.
If your contractor and architect are not cordial (they don’t have to like each other), one or the other (or both, I suppose) has to go.
The architect is supposed to be your fiduciary and advocate. If he or she has no dialog with the contractor, he or she cannot fulfill that function (this depends, of course, on the nature of the contracts you signed with the contractor and architect).
Good luck.
I agree — fire the contractor immediately and fire the architect too. Then I would call the engineer, say thanks but no thanks, please send me my money back.
That said, you do have yourself to blame for letting this situation get out of hand. Visit weekly? I’m sorry, but that just won’t cut it. Even if you are both working full time, you should try to visit every other day, if not every day. The contractor will be making decisions all the time about stuff and you need to be involved. Otherwise, you will spend alot of money for a house that was built the easiest way possible, not the way you want it.
You should have a timetable agreed to in advance with the contractor, and you should tell them that they will deal with the architect – whoever that is – on a professional basis or they will be shown the door like the first guy was. Ditto for the architect.
Basically, you need to take charge and start raising some h@ll. These people are taking advantage of you – and you are taking it lying down. Think of it this way: if someone was employing you to manage this project, would you say you were doing a good job?
It sounds like you’ve very uncomfortable with your contractor. In a sense, you’re lucky, since you’ve only done demolition.
If I were you, I’d fire the contractor and look for a new one ASAP. If you haven’t even started construction yet, and you’re already having problems, don’t even think of keeping him on the job.
I’ve renovated dozens of properties. If you’re contractor doesn’t answer his phone or at least call you back promptly, there’s no way in hell you should keep him.
Isn’t that insane.
$600k to add 1500 sq ft, if that, to a house, when three times that space new construction are going for $300k elsewhere in the country.
I’m sure the materials for this $600k extension are no better than mcmansion construction material. I’m sure the labor isn’t any better either. So who is taking all this extra cash?
In response to your questions and more clarity on the problem….our contractor and architect, to put it simply, hate eachother. They have both requesting the firing of eachother. The architect is not very available, but in his defense the contractor has never called him for anything and requires us to make any calls requiring teh architect. The engineer we paid, we have yet to see him. Recommended by our architect. We have paid him $10,000 to expedite plans, but have yet to meet him. The contractor has involved us in every decision he needs to make. For example, there is a concrete wall on the side of the yard and needs to be taken down in order to extend the home. The contractor has called us to figure out how to tear that down. Should he not know how to do this? Additionally, we have asked him to put a tarp on our roof, since there is no roof and he has refused to do this because he can not figure out how to put a tarp down and funnel the water out of it. The contractor is in various sites and does go by the house, but is working on a couple of projects at a time. His crew at this time seems to be split up on the project. My house is sitting there with no roof and no progress because of some neighbor issues that we are working through. We are paying over $600k and feel like we are overpaying since the contractor is rarely on the project and has us involved with little decisions. I agree we should be involved in the project, but we both have full-time jobs and thought the contractor would be the person managing the project. We expected to visit weekly.
Thank you all for your responses, please continue to respond. My email is Karinab311@yahoo.com