Not getting along w GC - can I hire my own flooring sub during the project?
I’m having a hard time getting along with my GC and we are 2/3 of the way done w our renovation project (3 story townhouse). He’s been a big jerk the last few months — he’s refused to admit his mistakes, he charges a super high rate for every Change Order, and he’s stopped showing up to our site meetings with the architect, and he’s extremely rude in every email to the point where I am avoiding him. That said, I do hope we can get along for the next couple of months until the project is done, because I just want it to be OVER and move in….
We are having a particularly hard time agreeing on the best way to do the floors, and without the floors we can’t move forward with installing the kitchens, baseboard trim, doors etc…
Rather than give in to him and his rip-off change order prices, I’m at the point where I’m wondering if I can just hire my own flooring guy to do the floors, and take that out of the GC’s scope. He’s saying that I cannot do that due to insurance reasons, ie he does not want to have another contractor on site during the project since the whole pro ject is under his insurance. Is this correct? He did mention his insurance is only on the weekdays… what if I were to hire someone on the weekends? Would that be legal? Or what if his guys take a break for a couple of weeks while I have the flooring guy come in? Is that my right or not? Anyone else out there done this before?
And aside from the legality, I don’t want to piss him off TOO much, as I don’t want him to walk off the project or try to screw me over in other ways.
Any advice?
Guest User | 4 years and 4 months ago
29
Please log in, in order to post replies!
29 replies
Guest User | 4 years and 3 months ago
Contractor tried to bully me with that same line. The contract stated otherwise but I also got fed up and fired them. I should have done it a lot earlier. In my opinion a good contractor who cares about their clients would have no issue with letting others do work since most subs all have their own insurance.
Guest User | 4 years and 3 months ago
@squibsie this sounds exactly like my contractor. Did you receive any advice regarding having other vendors complete work on the weekends so that insurance isn’t an issue? Would love to hear how you are navigating your renovation.
cobblehillhome | 4 years and 3 months ago
OP, I’m curious what you decided on and how your renovation is going. Been keeping my fingers crossed for you!
Guest User | 4 years and 4 months ago
Changing the GC is time consuming but not hard. Everyone advised against it but I am really happy I decided to proceed. If you can keep the subs and feel strongly that GC relationship is unsalvageable then consider parting ways. Especially if you think he’s made other poor decisions. If you think you are so close to completion that you can live with the GC then try to finish quickly. We are on the outside giving advice so only you know best.
hkapstein | 4 years and 4 months ago
Let me offer a suggestion.
I would not try to stop your job for 2 weeks. I think that is a recipe for trouble. If your GC sends his guys to another site, with the construction industry busy, you may end up incurring serious delays and headaches when you want them back.
Unless your permits are closed, and perhaps even if they are, it will be a difficult to change GCs. The new contractor will say the old one did everything wrong, and new strategies will have to be developed to finish the job, not to mention most good GCs are busy right now, and this would probably be an odd and annoying job to take over.
Perhaps call the architect and say, “I don’t think this floor is being installed correctly, here’s my evidence. If you’re telling me that you are insisting on specifying masonite for this floor, I need you to provide a memo for my records in case there is a problem that needs to be repaired later. I’d prefer that you tell the contractor that he needs to use plywood as per the manufacturers instructions.”
If that doesn’t work, call the contractor and say, look, let’s g et this job finished and get you paid and onto the next gig. I’ll give you 1000 bucks (or whatever you think is appropriate) to demo this masonite and put down plywood, or I’m going to have to shop it around and waste both our time.
Guest User | 4 years and 4 months ago
Thank you JP, very good advice…
cobblehillhome | 4 years and 4 months ago
@squibsie I would at least take your architect aside pre meeting with GC and talk to them about him/her ganging up on you with the GC. Be stern and say you are feeling disrespected and would appreciate them having your back especially since you’ve done your research and the masonite doesn’t feel like the standard for subflooring (masonite may be an acceptable solution, but that you’re not comfortable with it and it’s your home after all.) Explain that they are hired by you (assuming they are) and you expect them to back you up on decisions unless they go against code.
As a side note, you probably already know that the cost of wood (2x4s, plywood, etc.) has gone up significantly(3x) so it’s very likely the GC used a cheaper substitute to not affect his profit margins. I’m sorry but I don’t have a good solution for you other than you throw money at the problem (pay for the change order) or fire your GC, like others are recommending. Both seem costly options so it may depend on you which is the lesser of the two evils.
With regards to wanting to stop work for 2 weeks and getting your own subflooring contractor — the only red flag I see is from a relationship perspective. Your GC will return to see things changed and it will continue the tension between the two of you. I’d recommend you talking to your GC and stating the elephant in the room — acknowledge that things have been tense and that you want to figure out how the two of you can work better together. This will require an uncomfortable, but hopefully a productive conversation — during which you could try to negotiate the price of the CO, or suggest you pay your own subcontractors, or you decide in the end it’s best to part ways.
andriywww1990 | 4 years and 4 months ago
urbandad, you are late to the game again. op is way down the road on this-
Guest User | 4 years and 4 months ago
@Urbandad, great advice. @Squibsie, In order to negotiate a fair price with the contractor I would recommend getting ballpark numbers from two flooring contractors. If you give them the square footage they should be able to give you some numbers on the phone. Painful but only way to avoid getting fleeced at this point.
hkapstein | 4 years and 4 months ago
And you probably can bring in your own floor guy, there is a point with the insurance, and you should check what your contract says, but if he comes in Monday morning and it’s done, what can he really do? But anything that goes wrong on the job going forward, I’m sure he will blame on your floor contractor and take no responsibility for fixing. Trim doesn’t fit, something was scratched, etc.
hkapstein | 4 years and 4 months ago
What does the floor manufacturer say? If they say Masonite is an acceptable substrate, you may be stuck, unless your architect showed different in the plans. If the floor company says it can’t be installed on Masonite, I’d tell the contractor you expect him to remove it and do it properly or you’ll have it done and deduct it from what you owe him, and then try to work affordable price for him to do the work and not complain.
If you can’t demonstrate that the contractor made a error he should have known about, but it’s more of a quality issue, then you should also try to get him to change it for a fair price. If he uses 3 guys for 1 day, that’s around 1000 bucks or less labor, and I think that can be done. Plywood is in a shortage now and prices are high but the quarter inch is not too bad. It should be possible to remove it without destroying the subfloor. All in 2k should give him room to get this done, how that gets split may depend on how big a fuss you make.
Guest User | 4 years and 4 months ago
Have you had a flooring company price removal? In this situation might be worth removing before you put the floor down and have a setback.
Guest User | 4 years and 4 months ago
Thanks for sharing. I still feel terrible for you. I was in the same situation and know how demoralizing it is. Masonite can be sealed which is a solution especially if it is too late to remove it. Augustiner’s suggestion of a thin layer seems viable.
Guest User | 4 years and 4 months ago
@Jane – thanks for commiserating, I found my GC because he was recommended to me by an architect who is the husband of an acquaintance… I checked out GC’s reviews online (on Park Slope Parents website, where you have to be a member to post so I think the reviews were real) and they were all quite positive. He started off OK and most of his works on my house so far seems fine, but when I sometimes questioned his methods he got really frustrated and irritated. And unfortunately my architect turned out to be more of an interior deocorator type and doesn’t want to get involved in these discussions with him about methods and materials, she thinks I should trust him more. Her main concern on this whole project so far has been (I’m not kidding) how the tile is going to align in the bathrooms… where as major issues like moisture penetration in the walls and other more fundamental stuff she has no interest or clue.
@Steve, yes exactly… I saw some figure online that masonite absorbs like 50 (or some high number)% of moisture compared with like 5% for plywood. Since masonite is already glued down (and 2 different flooring guys told me you might ruin the subfloor if we try to pull it up) our current idea is to put 1/4″ ply over the masonite…
@augustiner thx for the tip, I will look that up. Yes with all the layers hopefully that will add to the soundproofing a teeny bit!
stevecym | 4 years and 4 months ago
The op is not looking necessarily for a moisture barrier. The issue is now something else. For whatever reason the contractor laid masonite. Even with plywood over this, if they have a leak that makes its way to the masonite – and in the 100 yr lifetime of that floor, this is likely- the masonite will swell and lift the floor.
These kind of contractors are not thinking 5 and ten and twenty years out. Most of them do not have that ability.
Augustiner | 4 years and 4 months ago
Ok, I understand it is emotionally exhausting, and absolutely not fun to deal with contractors who try to shift blame and architects (haven’t met a good one yet)
But just get it to the finish line as fast as possible and be done with it.
Realistically, if you have the amount of moisture seeping into the floor that will swell up the floor, e.g. if your sprinkler goes off, you’re going to need to replace the floor and much more anyway..
But to get a moisture barrier you could lay a thin layer of plywood over it. I’ve just used revolutionply from Lowe’s under laminate. It’s only 5 millimeter thick and costs $14 for a 4×8 sheet.
On the positive side, using several layers of subfloor with different densities helps with noise mitigation between floors 🙂
Guest User | 4 years and 4 months ago
Ideally she can remove and start over but if that’s not the case have to come up with some other alternative. The contractor seems to be ignorant which is indicative that there may be other problems in the work. Squibsie, how did you find the GC?.
stevecym | 4 years and 4 months ago
When masonite gets real wet, it swells to like 4 times, no like 6 times is original thickness and looks like dark oatmeal and will never go back.
Guest User | 4 years and 4 months ago
The plumber, hvac and electrician can continue working as long as you are comfortable with them. I don’t believe your home insurance is relevant in this case. Yes moisture is an issue but I assume there has to be some kind of liquid moisture barrier/sealer you may be able to put over it. Has the masonite already been adhered? (Your contractor sounds just like mine. He’d talk back to me whenever I’d question his methods.)