We got so lucky that he was suddenly available. He had cleared his deck for a year for a project that fell through. He is close family, is very good, and is always looking for ways to save money (unlike the other guy we were about to sign a contract with). We don't even have a written contract; it's just time and materials and trust.
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Home improvement - where to start?
- Thread starter Random Guy
- Start date
L/B/I contractor. 5 year warranty.
I have other estimates on the way, dunno how it will compare.
No sh!t. The contractor we were thinking of hiring was calling for a new roof. My brother in law got his roof guy to look at it, and it is totally fine going forward for many years. We absolutely did need a new furnace, but the rip-off guy was budgeting all new duct work to go along with it. My brother in law got his furnace guy to look at it, and we ended up merely replacing the furnace at about 20% of the cost of that estimated budget item. That saved so much money, combined. I guess that the lesson learned is to get a second opinion, in any case.
I'm in the middle of two bathrooms right now. We hired a guy, he bid 32k. We fired him after a week and 5k down the drain. He did do a nice demo job though. We then hired own plumber and tile guy, we are soooo much happier.
Why we fired the guy:
1st day, they failed to completely turn off the water valve to one of the sinks, big mess.
Failed to contain the interior debris, left trash in the yard.
Huge difference in vision, we were not willing to accept cheapo materials.
Failed at installing new windows in the bathrooms.
Used the cheapest wallboar in the store for the new shower.
Tried to install the wallboar on exterior wall with no insulation.
Somehow managed to get wax inside the water pipe, new plumber discevered this.
Installed some drain thing that hasn't been used in 10 years.
Damaged floor tiles, requiring complete removal.
When doing plumbing work, broke throught the wall boar into the living room.
Crew would work 2 hour days.
Wifey can come up with more.
Here's the new tile work so far.
Just finished a massive inside remodel on my 1000sqft shoebox at the beach in NFL.
Thankfully I work from home so I able to devote a lot of time to this project.
Started in July last year, lost 2 months of work due to COVID and ex-wife in rehab, and did ALL of the work except the electrical wiring. Saved about 30k doing this but having almost zero experience (just watch YouTube videos they said!) and shitty borrowed tools the lack of professional workmanship definitely shows on some of the project. Not quite level here or there and off by 1/4 inch or so. Chaulk, paint and repair patches can hide a lot of things. I‘m just glad it’s brand new materials and the my smells and own dirt are now a part of my “newer” house. I also really don’t care, cause it’s just me and my kids are here every other week.
Glad I did it this way but will hopefully never put my body through that kind of abuse again. My hands, knuckles and wrists are beat up from constant jarring movement and my body aches from the weird positions you find yourself in when you’re putting up a wood beam across the ceiling by yourself. SMH never again…
Thankfully I work from home so I able to devote a lot of time to this project.
Started in July last year, lost 2 months of work due to COVID and ex-wife in rehab, and did ALL of the work except the electrical wiring. Saved about 30k doing this but having almost zero experience (just watch YouTube videos they said!) and shitty borrowed tools the lack of professional workmanship definitely shows on some of the project. Not quite level here or there and off by 1/4 inch or so. Chaulk, paint and repair patches can hide a lot of things. I‘m just glad it’s brand new materials and the my smells and own dirt are now a part of my “newer” house. I also really don’t care, cause it’s just me and my kids are here every other week.
Glad I did it this way but will hopefully never put my body through that kind of abuse again. My hands, knuckles and wrists are beat up from constant jarring movement and my body aches from the weird positions you find yourself in when you’re putting up a wood beam across the ceiling by yourself. SMH never again…
We just remodeled our kitchen. My dad helped us measure and layout the cabinets. We bought materials. All we had to do was hire an installer. It turned out well, but people complained about the work the same contractor did on other houses. What an absolute crap-shoot. With the price of modern houses and homebuyers' HGTV expectations, you can't do the work yourself because it has to look show-ready when finished. But it's also big risk to hire a contractor.
Closest is a full day round trip.
My wife is having the lower house rewired, plumbing fixed, rescreened, paint, and some other stuff I don’t want to know about. I mean, I really don’t want to know anything about it.
It is a big risk if you don’t know them.
the well known ones who have done major work and have tons of experience are booked solid and got no shortage of any work
How hard is it to re-tile a bath tub DIY?
The tub itself is quality and fine condition just needs new caulk. Some tiles are damaged - I think prev owner used a gorilla method of re-caulking and damaged the surroundin tiles years ago.
No fuggin way I’m dropping $15k on this for low bidding numb nuts to do worse than me.
The tub itself is quality and fine condition just needs new caulk. Some tiles are damaged - I think prev owner used a gorilla method of re-caulking and damaged the surroundin tiles years ago.
No fuggin way I’m dropping $15k on this for low bidding numb nuts to do worse than me.
Yeah, and here’s the thing. If you know how to do things right and you’re not a contractor and don’t have all the tools and keep driving back and forth to Home Depot it’s gonna take you twice as long and a lot more pain. My dad just finished the two bathrooms in his house, did things the right way, and it looks fantastic. But it was about 1.5 to 2 years of work. Not to mention he messed up his sinuses in the process because he’s old school and of course didn’t need to wear a mask at any point during the demo or otherwise.
Tile is something that needs to be done right…there are a ton of fucked up tile jobs out there. I think it’s the one job it can take a real pro to do the right way. Lowe’s sent a guy that did a good job on my backsplash, was nowhere close to 15k. I only went to Lowe’s because I couldn’t find any tile guy in a timely way.Ymmv.
When was the last time you went shopping for a home? Seems every place I saw had been flipped at some point, a lot of the work was AWFUL and nobody GAF because “buy now or forever be priced out”. This was 6 years ago.
Im going through this right now in ncsd. Plus we are getting our plumbing completely redone. 
Getting the same numbers re: bathroom remodels. Having done some work in the house using youtube as my mentor I know my limits of what I'm comfortable with handling. Add in the tools/time and I'd much rather hire a pro to do it right the first time. Have had luck through nextdoor of all places.
Getting the same numbers re: bathroom remodels. Having done some work in the house using youtube as my mentor I know my limits of what I'm comfortable with handling. Add in the tools/time and I'd much rather hire a pro to do it right the first time. Have had luck through nextdoor of all places.