seth gecko said:
I haven't done any residential work for some time now, and unless you're an immediate relative or very close friend, I won't do resi.....used to be an excellent source of cash jobs, but too often it just isn't worth the aggravation of not getting paid at all for services/parts/equipment, etc.
Once had a guy call me up 3am because his furnace wasn't coming on. Asked him a few questions, he insisted on a service call. Okay, $150 for me to come out, or you okay with that? He says yes, just hurry as the house is getting cold.
Get to the house, ask if he knows where his furnace switch is, and sure enough the switch is turned off....not a tripped breaker but a manual on/off switch turned off. I asked him over the phone earlier if there was power to the furnace & by any chance might have someone switched it off accidently. Now that Seems his kids had some friends over earlier that evening and the homeowner then clues in that one of them must have turned it off either accidently or not knowing that it was the furnace switch & not some lightswitch. But, as he feels he could have turned it on himself IF HE HAD KNOWN, he won't pay what he agreed to....he won't pay anything at all.
Another time agreed on a price to supply & install central a/c - even had a contract. Excellent price for the homeowner & I'd make a few bucks off it also. I asked for 50% payment up front, balance upon completion. Bought the agreed upon a/c unit, installed & checked performance & all is fine, until homeowner decides he won't pay the agreed-upon balance - not because of any installation or performance issues, but because he "did his research" and found what my cost on that unit was. He felt that my mark-up was unreasonable and my labour rate too high. The agreed upon price was originally fine by him, but he thinks I've overcharged him to make a profit for myself!! Tells he I'm extorting him & that I'll have to take him to court.
What can you do....some people are just slimeballs.
.
I'm a Professional Engineer.
I do heavy civil work for a living, but I also do residential work as a way to make extra cash. Been working on houses for 25 plus years and I know what I'm doing. You'd be fucking amazed how many assholes I run into who think that my time is free. They figure that because I don't actually swing a hammer that really, all I'm giving them is advice and can't you do this for free?
I'm serious.
Everybody, including some of my contractor friends, think that I'm just a walking source of free information. I have one friend who is a contractor. He thinks nothing of calling me up and asking me my advice on this or that. It starts to irritate me. I tell him - "I'm in the advice business, would I call you and ask you to come over to so and so's house and core a hole through his basement wall for free?"
Him: "Oh that's different"
Me: "Why?"
Him: "Because it's going to take me 3 hours and I have tools and a van, blah blah blah"
Me: "Yeah, and I spent 5 years in University, and 2 years in grad school and 20 years paying my dues in order to be able to answer your question"
Him: "But it will only take you 20 minutes"
"Then you do it."
I had another friend of mine who is a Contractor called me up one time to come and look at this house that belonged to a certain C list female celebrity here in Toronto that everyone over the age of 35 would know. She lives downtown with her good for nothing unemployed fuckwad of husband. They wanted to take the entire back of a structural brick house off, then stick frame an addition onto it.
They had an Architect, but he didn't understand too much.
My buddy knew that ripping the back off a structural brick house is not a good idea and that he had to consider the lateral stability of the adjacent walls, he's just not too sure on how to build the addition without undermining the original structure. (Very smart.)
So I go there.
Yep, you need to reconsider what you're doing.
I meet her.
Her looks are slipping and she's a long way from that cute formerly dough eyed chick on TV.
She doesn't have a fucking clue of what I'm telling her, other than she understands she has a problem and it sounds like it's going to cost her (and her good for nothing fuckwad husband) money.
He comes home.
Give him the same speech as I just gave her with my friend present. He starts getting mouthy with me and my friend. Then he tries to say that it's my friend's responsibility, blah blah blah. He says to my friend and his partner, "You guys are the experts here, not me, and you as professionals with many years of experience should have known that this is required and it's your problem blah blah blah"
(I've seen this sort of tactic many many times and it never works.)
So I say to him, "Look buddy, you hired the Architect, you gave the drawings to my friend, he bid on the drawings, if your drawings are wrong (which they were) then speak to your designer."
He didn't like that.
Anyway, long story short, after some back and forth over a few days, they start to get their head around that the existing structure as such needs to be modified in order to pair up with the new structure and that was not shown in the drawings, etc. (It's never a good idea to pair structural brick with stick framing ever.)
But they're not happy.
But they're liking me because I appear to have the answers, and I own a bulding code which I'm showing them.
So they want to hire me to do the revised design because their architect isn't stepping up to the plate. They also start adding 2 or 3 other things to the scope of work.
Now keep in mind, this job is in full construction.
So I tell him and her, fine, I'll do it, but it's time and materials because this job is so fucked up and so convoluted, that it's impossible for me to estimate.
Fine he says, but he wants to set an upset limit of 5 grand. Fine I say, but keep in mind, once you hit 5 grand, I stop. If you don't hit 5 grand, bennefit is to you.
Fine he says.
The next day, SHE calls me up and true to her religion (guess which one) tells me that my price is too high. I tell her, look, it's a Time and Materials Quote - it's an upset limit. She says, "yeah, but I spoke to your references and they said that you (me) should be able to do this for $3,500.00"
I know she is lying to me because none of them would even have a clue as to what was involved with her project so how could they say anything like that. So I say fine, upset limit of $3,500.00.
Then, a couple of hours later, fuck tard emails me and he tells me that they want me to ensure that I keep my time below 20 hours.
I email fuck tard back and say, "thanks for the job offer, but I decline, have a nice day"
I don't need the money that badly to put up with the two stooges.
I call my friend and explain and he understands and he's about ready to walk off the job, etc.
Fuck tard calls me up all hot and starts to ask what I'm talking about.
By this point, I now feel good. (Do you ever have that feeling that you're invovled with a disaster and you make the call that the money is simply not worth the grief and then once you do make that call, you are at peace with it. That's exactly where I was.)
Yep, I had wasted allot of time, but I hadn't gotten into it and I felt good walking away.
