huryanpost said:
What a clown show. How did you decide this was outfit to use? Were they recommended? References were supplied?
Just curious.
I never mind curiosity.
We looked 3 yrs for a good contractor...the licensed and bonded ones were all busy doing soft story retrofits and the ones that did call back said to get back to them in a year, and when we did call of few of those back, they told us to call back in another year.....the current construction boom in the City is taking all the laborers from the outfits holding the licenses so this is slowing things greatly for the home owner trying to fix up their place the right way.
We got a number of referrals from friends, but most of them were unlicensed 'handyman", so nope, and the others never called back or wouldn't provide a fixed start and end date or wouldn't pull permits ("It is just a govt scam that costs you more, our work would pass if we ever get inspected.")
Then there was another one who wanted us to pay $5000 just to get a bid (this fee would go towards the project if we choose them, but if it didn't, no refund).
Then there was the one who wanted to rip off the front of the house and replace the windows (that we had just replaced 5 yrs ago) so that it would better blend in with the new steps. Replace the front of the house just to 'blend in" with new steps?
Finally it got to the point that when I would ride my bicycle around, I just would look at various buildings that had a contracting licence and I would just walk in cold to see if I could make a personal connection thinking that if I show up, make an appointment, they would actually show up.
So in the Dogpatch neighborhood, not too far from the Hell's Angel's club, I found a well kept building that had their name on it. Warehouse part was tidy, their fleet of vehicles were in decent shape, signage looked nice, and yes, license and bonded (and valid). Did the Yelp thing (4 stars), looked at some of their other projects (a mixture of commercial clients as well as residential clients), and while I did have a vibe of "Well, they are going to try and upsell me on things," the fact the could start on a fixed date, gave me a fixed end date, a written quote, and showed up on time, had an ex-SF City Engineer as their go-to sub for engineering blueprints, well, it just seemed like a good choice and I would just say no to things that didn't need "fixing". I mean, I didn't want to fall through my front stairs like my neighbor did a few years previous (this is when we started looking to replace the stairs) so I had to hire someone to do this properly.
When we finally had three bids, the lowest one was out because it was so scattered and poorly written and lots of parts were left off (engineering, permit, equipment rental costs, etc) and Sweetie-pie got too much of a weirdo creeper skeeze vibe, the highest costing bid was not very detailed, no end date or even projected end date, and very short warranty. And the one we took, while not that much lower than the high bid was very detailed, had good Yelp reviews, good previous work projects we could check out, and they seemed to be both personable and emphasized "a good work product".
So, we did the due diligence, or so I thought at the time. Now i second guess myself endlessly and have sleepless nights.