Home Improvement

Finally done.

Olebass_sl said:

I'm assuming the work he has left is worth less than he is owed, so have you tried asking for the doors back?
I would ask for the doors or a time to pick them up and complete yourself or hire someone for the minor stuff if that is all that is left.
If it is a situation where he has more work/finishing materials than owed however, sick the board on him.
Also if you have asked for the doors and not got them back sick the board on him.

Unless he has had heart surgery or some shit he could have come at nights/weekends or whatever by now if he was that behind on jobs to finish it.
I had this happen years back when I broke my foot and assisted the homeowner on the job I was doing to get it finished with another contractor for what I was still owed.

Click to expand...

It's probably right around what he's owed, yeah. The job took much, much longer than was written into the contract. It said two weeks, and that was in June. The last day I saw him here was sometime in late August.

He failed to respond yesterday, so I emailed him last night. He sent something back making excuses for why the cabinet doors aren't finished like he told me they were months ago, and claimed a bunch of things on my punch list weren't listed in our contract (the punch list was entirely stuff like "walls around outlets not sanded / cable box still sitting in floor with hole cut / paint on steps already chipping"). It is very clear to me now that he's fishing for ways to avoid doing the work.

I'm torn between getting tougher about it and threatening to file a complaint vs. not wanting him to come back and do shoddy work he doesn't want to finish. The part of me that DESPISES being taken advantage of by businesses wants to make a hobby out of this guy for the next month while I'm on vacation. I'm tempted to just see if I can pay someone else the difference to come do the little detail bits or just do them myself, but first I want to get this guy to confirm in writing that our contract is terminated.

I need him to bring my cabinet doors back first. If they were sitting here, I'd have cut ties long ago. Apparently he hasn't even done what he was supposed to do with them in the first place.

He strung me along again this morning about why he feels certain items aren't covered by our contract. Meanwhile, I was cleaning downstairs and noticed a crack running clear across the mantel he built for us over summer where two pieces of wood join together. Image attached.

I'm fed the fuck up and ready to file complaints with every possible office and review site I can.

Been going on long enough in this thread. Just bite the bullet be it lazyness or timidness, and get er done and force things. It's one thing when accommodating someone else is a minor inconvenience but at this point it's directly and substantially affecting you. Don't be walked over/pushed over.

I do, but I've been keeping as much communication in email as possible so that our conversations are documented. His tone was more apologetic after our conversation this week, and he's due to come by for a walkthrough on Monday. If he doesn't show, I'm going straight to the license board.

Mike and I moved from Ohio to Washington in October of 2013 and initially rented. We were aware of the housing price difference but it was still a bit shocking when we started looking in the spring of 2014. We got lucky and bought a cheap fixer-upper with 2.5 acres in June 2014 on the eastside, about 30 minutes on I-90 to downtown Seattle.

Here is an album of the improvements we did in 2014:https://plus.google.com/u/1/photos/1...32224434341889

Basically we:

- added a chain link fence in the backyard for a dog run
- had a contractor install hardwood in 3 bedrooms (had lovely asbestos tile & horrible carpet floors)
- painted over wallpaper in the kitchen and half bath (both of those will need to be remodeled in future)
- painted the 3 bedrooms - the worst bedroom had a strange mix of drywall and cork-type board walls, we will have to re-drywall the whole thing someday
- installed new closet systems and corner round in all 3 bedrooms
- replaced the kitchen cabinet facings, ordered unfinished doors/faces online from Barker Door and hardware from CabinetParts.com and finished/hung them ourselves
- updated a lot of poorly wired outlets, Mike used to be an electrician so he is picky about wiring
- removed the rusty swingset, gave the merry-go-round to a coworker, trashed the old stair climber in the mud room
- bought all new kitchen and laundry appliances
- had a plumber replace the laundry cold faucet stem and unplug the kitchen drain
- for the first time ever, bought a real adult matching bedroom set
- put up new blinds and window treatments
- tilled an 1100 sq. ft garden plot in the backyard and put in 13 cubic yards of aged horse manure we bought from a local guy
- probably lots of other little stuff I'm forgetting

All told we put about $13k on credit cards for the move-in remodel and paid it off this month.

The to-do list is several years long, including:

- redo the laundry area and half-bath into a single pass-through
- redo the mud room, the previous owner thought it was cute to put traffic signs all over it instead of drywall
- put hardwood in the MIL suite
- paint the deck
- replace the main and MIL suite hot water tanks
- tear down the decrepit wood shed and (maybe) replace with 2 car garage or workshop
- much, much more

So, we bought some new flooring for our hallway, living room and dining room. We got Golden Arowana bamboo flooring, and it's pretty nice looking stuff.

My nephew is going to be installing the floor and I have no idea what to pay him, and he's just started as a floor layer, so this will be his first side-job.

There is 551 sq feet that is being put down, plus all the carpet and pad tear-out, and removing the baseboards. He'll also be moving the majority of the furniture moving.

Any ideas on what I should pay him? I think paying by the job would be better than hourly.

If it's floating, engineered flooring, 30$ per 100 square feet is entirely fair, as it shouldn't take an hour to lay it. Give him 200$ and call it good. That's on the generous side.

It is floating. I was thinking 300-500$. I'm usually a cheap bastard, too.

That's a small space. Should be able to finish it in a weekend. $200 for a weekend side job for family? sheesh. Sounds good to me.

So my big project for the new year is my basement. I've already gutted it. I've read mixed opinions on insulating a basement ceiling. My hardwoods upstairs get cold, so I figured insulating the floor below them would help. It would also cut down on sound in the basement when finished. I've read it's better to just insulate the basement walls and not the ceiling. Any experts on this? I planned to do both but have read the ceiling is a bad idea due to the basement becoming colder.

Your biggest issue with basements is moisture. Typical heat loss through a floor into a basement/crawl space is 8-16% from the overall house. If the basement is heated/cooled this will be less and you should look at insulating the walls. The most common form of this is attaching 2x4 to the walls with foam board in between, of it space allows it, actually framing 2x4 walls. Use something that will not wick up moisture.
Insulating the basement floor is tricky due to floor covering. Tile in a basement is just thermal transfer from ground temperature to the house. Which is why many people use carpet/pad or pad/floating applications.
Think of it as a heat sink on a processor.

That all said, I am for insulating basement ceilings myself, it will make your upper home a bit warmer/less thermal loss, but only at the assurance of humidity monitoring/dehumidifiers. If yours is heated and cooled, you can add one to your existing HVAC system, otherwise a standalone unit. I suggest the one attached and working with your HVAC due to the issues of the past few years of the portable dehumidifiers catching fire from many brands made in china. There has been millions of recalls and twice now in the past 2 years I found units in houses that were recalled and helped the homeowner remove the model plate, cut the cord and mail it off for refund.

Go to Google and type heat loss in a house and click images. This is will give you everything you wanted to know and probably a bunch you didn't but goggle is awesome for stuff like this.

Ugh. So much to consider. My HVAC and ducts are in my basement ceiling too. I still need to look into insulation for the actual ducts. I plan to stud out the walls with 2x4 and use the mold resistant sheet rock. I'll look into the xps boards for the exterior walls. I already waterproofed and have a sump pump. I was planning on putting tile down on the slab. That's what was there originally. Sounds like that might be risky? I can't say I get a lot of moisture down there but I guess that would change if I insulate the ceiling.

Opps I left out the most important link to you.
Where to Insulate in a Home | Department of Energy

It isn't risky to tile, it is perfectly fine to do so given the right mortar. It just does little to insulate it. The floor conducts a constant tempt from the earth which in use of tile/mortar/stone/concrete just transfers that temp to the inside. That is why pads are nice are they don't conduct that temperature so much. It isn't a severe consideration due to earth temperatures are not extreme, just a constant.

I should add keep it all in perspective too when dealing with these decisions. Is reducing your heating bill 5% worth $10,000. No.
If you go down in the basement and it is drafty and freezing then you have things to address, but if you have HVAC/plumbing/vents down there and one of them has a hole around it, simply foaming it up for $5 you will save much more than the cost even short term. If the walls are cold , adding foam insulation will save your costs long term. If you have no insulation or poor in your attic ( which you covered earlier in the thread if I remember ) then doing anything anyplace is a waste if you are losing it in other places.

It all comes down to biggest loss areas compared to cost of addressing it. The biggest pitfalls are older homes that have little or no insulation in walls or homes not properly built. Those are costly to fix as you have to remove exterior or internal walls to address. Most homes just need simple things to improve conditions such as caulking/foaming up all holes through the flooring where electrical/plumbing/hvac run through. But never find yourself spending more than you will save over a 10 year period.