Should I expect a contractor to work everyday?

Question

Working on a cosmetic flip.

The contractor I found bid out another house but didn't get the job. I liked him though, good family business. Got 5-stars on Google/Thumbtack.

Gave him the next house. Pretty basic ---> kitchen, 2 baths, flooring, paint and windows

He gave me a 5 week timeline which I accepted.

PROBLEMS:

1) Every time I visit the job site, no one is ever there. Stuff is moving slowly along, but not at the pace I thought.

2) They seem inefficient. They painted the interior and exterior of the house first before any rough plumbing/electrical which is weird

3) Very slow to communicate. I'll ask for an update 1-2X per week, and it'll take sometimes more than a day to get a response.

*Before anyone asks. All I've paid is an initial deposit. The job is about $50k. All I've given him after 4 weeks is $4k. I legit ask him every week "What do I need to pay you for the work you've done?" And he always says "I'll let you know." Then never gets me a number. So, no, I haven't paid him a lot upfront and he's ducked out.

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I've brought up my concerns 2X with him about no one working. He is very nice, but always says something like "Oh, we are going through growing pains and having trouble getting subs managed to each job site." One of the reasons was his drywalll guy got hurt, or his tile guy had other work to do.

We have one week until our deadline and there is still a lot to do. Technically, if they work 8-10 hours per day with multiple subs it could probably get done, but up to now, it seems they've only been working 10-12 hours per week on our jobsite.

QUESTION:

Should I have no expectation for how often a GC/Sub should be at the job site? It sounds like other people on here expect a 8 hour day with subs showing up at 7am (the sign of a good contractor).

Again, my GC is very nice, hasn't taken any money or anything. Just seems very disorganized. Or do I have high expectations for how often they should be working

*FURTHER NOTES:

1) I didn't haggle any of their prices

2) I get them materials when they ask for them (90% of the time the materials sit in the garage for a week+)

3) I don't badger them much at all. Again, just 1-2X per week I'll send them a message or they'll call/text me for something

What do you think?

Theresa Harris · Answer

If they are good, they should be able to plan.  The fact that he put down the new flooring on a subfloor that was problematic is HIS fault and he should cover the cost of the new LVP.  By not working everyday, I didn't mean wait until the last minute to do it, rather know how long each step takes and if someone gets sick part way through and they loose a few days or work, it is still finished on time.

Joshua Parr · Answer

You should probably fire them and get new contractors, if this has been going on for this long then it will just continue. They might not be bad guys and they might do great work but you can't have them delaying your project this much because the longer it takes, the less money you make.

To answer your question, there needs to be communication up front between you and your contractor about the project timeline and expectations. There needs to be a contract between you two as well outlining all of the details. If a contractor states it will take 4 weeks, I don't care if they are on site 6 hours a day or 12, it just needs to get done in the timeline we established at the start. I understand that they may have other jobs/projects but they should take that into consideration when giving you a timeline.

At the very least sit down with this contractor and see how this problem can be resolved. One tip I always hear is to establish a realistic timeline and have a contract with contractors that states if they finish early then they will get a "bonus" for each day done early (and the work has to be evaluated by you) and they get penalized for each day it goes over the timeline. It's a strategy that can help you going forward.

Great contractors can be very difficult to find but they are out there. You don't have to put up with mediocrity. Hope that helps and best of luck on your project!

Jaysen Medhurst · Answer

@Joe Cassandra, you just need to get this job done and move on from the GC. He's showed you his work style and it doesn't work.

In the short term, you could offer him the carrot of a $1-2k bonus IF he is COMPLETELY finished by your original due date. That may sound like a lot, but if you go another month, you'll probably lose at least that much in holding costs.

Make sure before you give him the final payment that you've received all of the lien waivers from the subs. If he's this bad at communication and management with you, he's probably just as bad with the subs.

Joe Cassandra · Answer

@Jaysen Medhurst Thanks Jaysen. I agree. I'm someone that forgives easily, but with this just being a cosmetic flip, I worry what would happen when we get into super guts.

@Theresa Harris I was talking to my wife about that. "If they get done by the deadline, why do we care?" Well, we got that answer today. Turns out the subfloor that we know was uneven from Day 1 is not suitable enough for good, level flooring. Worse news, we found that out after we put on the LVP. Now, we have to replace the subfloor which takes a few days, more money, LVP we spent is now down the drain. The GC admitted they should've figured this out early on so they could've used those "dead" days to instead fix the subfloor.

On top of that, subs are now crawling over each other rushing to get work done...are they cutting corners? Don't know.

THanks @Joshua Parr, see what happened in the above paragraph. I think you're right about sitting down and making a schedule. Yes, they have 5 weeks, but they are stuffing 30-40% of the work into the last week which means the quality of work couldn't be as good as if they did the work without the pressure.

Some may disagree with that as deadlines do get us hopping into gear. But, now that we have "last minute" delays that could've been avoided and taken care of throughout the weeks with many 'dead days', I think I'd like the work to be consistent throughout and not...do a little here, little there, push everything into the last week.

NOTE:

I've talked to the GC about timeline stuff all along. He admitted that they are experiencing growing pains and having trouble scheduling subs. Like I said, nice guys, just disorganized

Theresa Harris · Answer

If he gave you a 5 week timeline to completion, he should be done in 5 weeks.  Talk to him and say you are a week away from the 5 weeks that he promised and want to ensure it will be done on time as you need to turn it around.  It doesn't matter how often he's there, what matters is he's done in the time he stated.

Should I expect a contractor to work everyday?

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