A Side Of Contractor ⇒
I have now figured out why the do-it-yourself market has taken off! Here is our experiences with contractors:
Contractor #1: We wanted him to start on Thursday and rip out the entire bathroom, put the tub in, tile the floor, tile the wall, drywall, and put the toilet and sink in. He figured he could get all of that done in 6 days. When we called him on Wednesday to get him started, he told us he started another job and wouldn't be finished until Monday. Which meant he couldn't start our stuff until Tuesday. So all he got done was the bathtub and the floor tiling (not the grouting, just laying the tile).
This meant that I had to struggle with grouting the floor, tiling the bathtub wall, grouting the wall and caulk. All of which I had never done before, so it not only took me a long time, but it was also quite the learning experience. But, with my dad's help, I managed to get it done.
Contractor #2: Nice guy, not very reliable. He came in first to put in a gas line so that we can hook up a gas stove. Then when the stove came in he was going to come and hook it and the dishwasher up. Unfortunately, it took him over a week to come and hook up the stove. And he was in such a rush, he didn't manage to get to the dishwasher. We finally got him to come in to find the leak (yes, after he hooked it up we had a leak) and hook up the dishwasher. After that was done he mentioned that he was going to fix our gas fireplace, which was mixed wrong and producing soot. His first action was to clean out all the soot. Very thoughtfully he brought his own vacuum cleaner so as not to wreck ours. Yadda, yadda, yadda and we ended up with soot ALL over our ENTIRE house! Turns out that the soot particles are finer than the vacuum filter and just shot out the back of the vacuum. All over all my electronics. All over every wall. All over every surface. All over the carpet. All over the fruit in the basket. This was definitely not good.
After all the emergency clean up we ended up with one ruined couch, which the contractor paid for thankfully. Nice, eh?
Contractor #3 was actually hired from a reputable plumbing store. He showed up on time, and the the requested work quickly and efficiently. He also mentioned that he was doing work on the side, if I had anything else for him to do. Turns out we did, but he was going to be on vacation then. He point me at his partner, who would do the work for the same price. Which brings us to...
Contractor #4: The night before he was supposed to show up, he got appendicitis, so he couldn't show up of course. By this time I had already removed the existing sink and turned off the water in the house. This meant that I had to learn how to hook up a sink and faucet, which, unbelievably, I did.
I then called Contractor #3 again and found out he was back from his vacation and asked if he want to finish up our bathroom, install the garburator and fix up the plumbing. He said, "Sure, I'll be there at 10 (today)". At 10:15 I call him and find out he is still in Vancouver. We reschedule to 4pm. I call him at 3 to confirm and I get his machine right away, which means his cell phone is off. Nice.
He won't be getting my business nor the great referral I had lined up for him.
Next up is RONA and a real plumber.
Sheesh.