Another problem with my builder..

[PavlovtheForgetfulCat]

so, the floor is moved, the stairs are moved. He is being a bit slack now.

Yesterday he had a 'hospital appt' which he told us about on friday. He said he would be in afternoon some time. Did not show up. He came in today at 8:45am (gone are the 7:45am prompt starts) with his son, but not his other apprentice, who funnily enough was on a 'college course' last week. I leave the house this morning to see his apprentice outside talking to the builder by the van, apprentice is clearing in working gear and they are moving a large peice of equipment (wood cutter it looks like) into a van. I did not really pay attention.

Anyway, this morning both builder and his son disappear for 1 hour or so, to go to a builders yard for some nails. Then, lunch time, the 'wood cutter has 'broken' and they have to take it to 'get it fixed', made a big song and dance about it. And have not returned.

I suspect, they have taken it to another job. I suspect that is what they were doing yesterday, and that is what they are doing this afternoon.

They are still not back where they should be after rectifying their mistakes, and we still have 2 unusable rooms (the spare room wall not been put back up, and the loft nowhere near finished, again).

Unfortunately we did not have a contract drawn up stipulating penalties for delays. He said it would 12 weeks at the most, but more likely 8. It has been 12 weeks this week, and another 2 needed minimum. If he continues like this it will be 3 weeks.

I am concerned about the time, and his lack of motivation, which in my eyes = lack of giving a shit, so it won't be as good a finish. We have already given up on some of the expectations that he had promised but were not written down, and put this down to experience.

Is there anything we can do to hurry him up? Legally I mean. I do not have any proof he is working, but I work with criminals who use excuses for things all the tim, and in the manner he is using his excuses all the time, he is behaving just like some-one I would supervisse trying to cover up behaviour!!!

Or, how would you suggest that we phrase it when we ask them to hurry up? I do not want them to rush, but I want them to do a full day's work.

We just want them out now.

Pannacotta - I am tending to agree with you, rightly or wrongly. I just cannot rectify myself with rewarding bad workmanship with money I do not have spare. I think, if he has done an amazing job so far, but was not prioritising due to other work, I would consider cash incentive to prioritise us, but it just goes against everything I beleive (esp in my line of work) to reward something bad with something good. And when that comes from my pocket, even more so.

I will, I think, first off, talk to him tomorrow about timings, try to reach his reasonable side and tell him how desperatly e we are for it to be finished and finished well. I will quite happily blow smoke up his ass, tell him what a great job he has done so far, that I appreciate how hard it has been to recitify a genuine error (bollocks) etc etc, and that we are looking forward to showing off the loft etc etc. I can do all that, but, to give him more money is not sitting comfortably.

certainly not as comfortably as telling the alternative is that I will find some-one else.

My friend did his own loft in 4 months. Admittedly he did not do it to building regs, but that was the floor/stairs not everything else. The structure here is done. I might even talk to him and see if he would consider finishing it for us, for the rest of the cash we owe the builder. He might even be up for it.

Pavlov, it's a bit like childbirth. You forget the pain.

Seriously, in a years time, you will forget all the hassle and you'll be in your lovely loft conversion and have more space.

Without wishing to make huge sweeping generalities, some builders do take the piss. He made a mistake, but at least he has the decency to put it right. Yes, he is also working for the final payment, and his attitude stinks, and it's difficult to live with day to day, but believe me, we had builders for about 6 weeks solid and it was difficult.

I wouldn't threaten him with court as he's a man of straw and by the sounds of it, is hanging on by a shoestring. Doesn't sound as if it would take much for him to walk away for good. Yes, possibly several months, probably more like a year, the case may get to small claims court and you would win your case. He could say he is broke and couldn't pay you. Meanwhile the work would only be partially done.

So, time to get practical. What is outstanding and what needs to be done to complete it? Does he need another builder to help?

And what's this hospital appointment? Is he OK physically? Is he able to complete the job and what happens if he isn't? I would ask him what is Plan B as Plan A isn't working...

He has a cyst on his wrist, caused by some damage putting our steels in apparantly!

I would not take him to court, rather tell him to take us for the final payment.)

I am so looking forward to that time you talk about ILMD. I just cannot see it. Right now, it all feels tainted. Everywhere I look I am reminded of this hell. We are living with stuff around us everywhere, we have gone from 2 bed flat with lots of storage in loft to 1 bed flat with no storage. DD is in our cramped bedroom with us, no-one is sleeping well and there seems no end. I am tired, but cannot rest properly. I have no space, nothing is clean and I just feel like we have lost our home.

Even when they have gone we have more to do, we have to decorate everything as the moving of the floor downwards has screwed the ceilings up in ALL rooms (hammer drill marks). He said he will fill them. He may have to skim, another fight. But either way, our perfect ceilings, which did not need painting ALL need painting, and if he skims, not a quick lick of paint either. Then we have to carpet the whole place.

We were meant to be doing all that now. While I am not too far into my pregnancy. By the time they have gone, I will be 31 weeks pg at least .

You sure I will not resent this place and the loft in a year. It just feels ruined.

Poor DD cannot run freely as there is wood and tools and plasterboard everywhere, the stairs do not yet have their posts in place and the ballastrade is loose, and the loft is accessible so we have to keep a real close eye on DD aged 3.

I am sleeping on the sofa tonight. It is that bad in this place. I cannot cope with another night fighting off witches with magic wands. DH will have to do it alone, hard as he might find it!

Look, some women nest by going to Mothercare and getting a few sleepuits, going home and decorating the nursery.

You are nesting on a huge massive scale

Goes with the territory. It will be fine. Remember though that building work looks awful when it's being done, and most of it is prep work. Once you paint, suddenly it looks great.

Soothe yourself by looking at paint colors, and indulge in choosing fabrics, sheets, soft lighting.

Oh, and all our walls needed re-painting (bribed the plasterer to skim ) and carpets replaced after loft conversion. It's really messy work.

LOL! it is nesting on a more major scale than intended!

We knew the hallway would need redoing. And when the floor was put up, there were 3 hammer gun marks, easily fixed in 2 rooms, easily fixed. Now, it looks like the ceilings are falling in!!! I will try to get him to skim but sure he won't do it. We shall see.

I was expecting some decorating, trashed carpets etc and we waited to replace these on purpose, but the amount of additional work we now have means we have even more to do, and even less time to do it in. Its all to do with time. I am now worried about the time. We got this started in June, thinking, plenty of time for errors, decorating carpets etc and now I am bigger and more tired I am wondering how on earth we will manage it. However, we will manage won't we?

Next time, I will content myself with what sling to buy and a nice pushchair!

Pavlov I really sympathise.
We have bought a large and very run down house which needs everything doing and we have two very lively and very stroppy boys of 2 and 4 (they were 1 and 3 when we moved here).
Renovation/building work is a bit of a nightmare even with good builders.
I do agree that appealing to his better nature is the way to go rather than offering cash you dotn have.
And perhaps try and remember that your DCs are not bothered about the state of the ceilings or carpets etc.
If you can get the work done soon then you can start to put all this behind you....

Poor you Pavlov - it sounds a nightmare. Our babysitter here in Budapest is going through similar with Hungarian builders doing up her new flat. Her boyfriend won't even deal with them so it is all down to her. Every time I see her she is more and more ground down by it all.

In your position I would sit down with the builder and say that you are getting really stressed by it all and that you can tell he is too. Tell him that you suspect he is trying to do another job at the same time and that you understand that times are hard for everyone but that you need honesty and to know exactly what is going on. Ask him to do a schedule of what will happen when and if I were you I would include the skimming and see what he says. I would tell him that you are happy to recommend him to friends but that at the moment your friends know of all the hassle - at least if you can reassure your friends that he came up trumps at the end, he stands a chance of getting other work out of it.

Good luck.

You made the classic mistake of paying your builder too much too soon, removing incentive. You are morally in the right of course but being right isn't going to get your building work finished.

If you think your current builder is capable of finishing the job to an acceptable standard, offering him more money to complete the work might be the way to go. Otherwise you'll need to get another builder who will stand and tsk and mutter at all the remedial work he has to carry out in an "it's going to cost ya" voice. And you are going to have to pay him the full rate plus materials which will surely be more expensive than offering the existing builder more money.

I honestly don't think you want court action hanging over you. It will be stressful and unpleasant. Really. You want to get your house finished and enjoy your lovely family.

Good luck.

Swedes - yes we did. We gave him an additional advance, that was the major mistake. But DHs rationale was that if he is going under, which he more or less stated, and we did not give him this money, he woud not be able to complete and then we would be stuffed, so we needed to pay it to him.

He called us at 9:15am and said he would be another, and then at 10:30am we needed to go out and he still had not turned up. I came home at 4:45pm and he was here with his son, I was not able to talk to him as I needed to be somewhere and did not want to rush it.

He has done some work. Not exactly a full days worth, but certainly he is paying attention to what I have asked - i asked him to amend some plastering around one of the skylights as it did not match and he has put the batons in to plaster where I want done when he does the rest of the plastering.

He is capable, I am sure of that, although he made this error, the standard of his work was fine, its just gone downhill now.

I think I just need to keep an eye on everything a bit more closely. But no more money.

We had a chat, did the builder and I. We have an understanding now .

He asked for a further advance.

I told him my fears (that he will run off if he gets any more money, and if he does not run off, there will be no incentive for him to do the work well, i realise that he is fed up with the job and is now making a loss on it and if I have no carrot to dangle in front of him I am putting us at a big disadvantage. I said I have concerns that he will leave us with remedial work and no money to pay for it. not big work but small bits here and there that will add up, in order to polish off his work. I explained that it was essential this work was done not only quickly, but to a good standard as this was our home and we placed trust in him. I said that I understood how hard it must have been to rip out hard work and redo it, and we hated that it had to be done, and we appreciate that he did it (he reminded us it was not his fault!) but that now he has lost the will, this retainer is our only guarantee that he will finish to an acceptable standard.

He told me his fears. He is running out of cash, he is not broke, but has a cash flow problem right now, has work coming in but cannot start it til this job is done. He needs some of the outstanding balance this week to finish the job. He said he was embarrassed, but not broke, just not balancing right now. (bless!)

He also said that the work outstanding was more in terms of material cost and his time than we owe him, so there is in fact no financial incentive for him to finish the job anyway. He said he is not a dishonest man, and he will finish the job to the best of his ability as that was he was contracted to do. He said if he was going to walk away from the job, he would have done it by now. He would have done it when we asked for the floor to be lowered as he would have been able to walk away without a loss then, but he did not want to do that. He said the guarantee I has was his word.

He took us upstairs, and showed us what he needs to do next, timescales (i asked for them). He said he would be finished and gone by next friday if all went well, or the end of the following monday latest, and he would work on saturday if he had to (both saturdays) to make that possible. I asked him about a few things that worried me regarding him trying to blag not doing stuff - like put cornices back up here and there, replacing missing skirting etc - he said of course that needs to be done. He said he could assure me that all we will need to do when he walks away is paint. And then gave us some advice on painting!

He said he would not be doing the cupboard under the stairs, which he had originally stated he would do, and I asked about, he could not afford it. We let that go to keep the peace.

The spare bedroom is still much smaller than we anticipated, and than we think it should have been. But he has moved the stairs already, and while we feel he could have moved them a further 2-3 inches, they are in situ properly now and I think he would chuck his saw at me if I asked him to move it all again. So we are going to accept this as how it will be, grumble and move on, learning on the way...it is our first project and we are hoping we won't ever need to sell anyway (rental in the future).

My DH sort of joined in, I mean he did participate, but he was very reconcilatory when he spoke! He was a little nervous of how the conversation might go as I was very annoyed at being asked for more money!

well it sounds like it's all going to come good in the end.

Do you want that link to the company that does lovely 2'6" shortie beds to make the little room bigger IYSWIM?

Oh yes please! That would be very useful. It will be a nursery to start with, but we will get one of those when we need a bed in it, and if we sell/rent, we can put on in it too!

It has been so stressful. I did not believe I could be this stressed for so long. DH wants to build a house one day. I do not think my nerves are up to it .

In our "nursery" I always had a single bed & cot so did the night feds in there and it didn't matter if I feel asleep! I couldn't sleep having baby in with us, bloomin snuffling kept waking me up. Baby slept through & I didn't!

will go find link.

They specialise in bunks but I'm sure they'll do a normal "shortie" single for you

www.pine-design.co.uk/index.html

don't think there will b enough room for bed, cot and chest of drawers. Although, tbh, i could probably put chest of drawers in DDs humungous room and change baby on bed.

So, when I say nursery, I mean cot, hanging mobile, not much else! (what more will he need!)

I am the same with the sleeping. DD is currently sleeping in our room (soon to be hers) and she sleeps through, talks in her sleep and I do not get a wink of sleep, same when she was a baby!

LOL!!!!

Mine were fortunately all very good sleepers at night very early on but I could here them through 2 shut (but paper thin) doors - the advantage of having a tiny home!

Oh they are excellent! I like the one raised like a bunk but with table and chairs/drawers underneath! That would be good to get when we sell as it will show you can have a single bed in, AND more usable space too! Lovely, shall bookmark it, thank you!

I found them when looking for bunks that were 2'6" or a triple fabulous and reasonable priced!