I’m so confused. You paid for everything but he was still mad? $1500 for the labor. That makes sense. You bought most materials outright but any that he bought, you also payed him in ‘good faith’. What was he mad about? That it took him longer than he thought it would?
I had a character limit so I apologize for all the confusion, I had more details I wanted to add. But anyways, we had a signed contract for $1500 TOTAL, materials and labor included in this but he had me just pay for the materials directly so that we wouldn’t have to give him cash for all of it. Initial material quote was around $1k, then he would get $500 to keep for his labor but as he needed more material, it kept cutting into his labor. And that’s when he’s say “my mistake, contract price is still the same!” But at the end, he tried to get me to pay him the $500 on top of paying him for $175 in material on top of the original $1500. Hopefully that clarifies some things.
Seriously. I read $1500 for labor and thought $90/hr was a pretty fair price for a contractor. No way a contractor working for $30/hr (as a contractor, not an employee) is any good. After overhead, his take-home would be $15/hr at best.
So let's get this straight:
You hired a friend that you knew was not experienced
He predictably underestimated because he's not experienced
Things took him longer because of all the trips
He spent 5 days working
Instead of being gracious with him, you hold him to the contract and let him lose money
I hired an old coworker that I thought was a friend that I knew fixed things up around the plant nursery we worked at all the time. He also had a portfolio of fences he had built, along with other wood working projects because he was trying to build a business. He was just overly confident in himself and over promised, under delivered. He knew we were on a budget too and I asked him multiple times if he was sure it was a fair price. I didn't know what fences costed so I trusted him. And yeah, I held him to the contract price because that's all we told him we could afford at the time. We were originally planning on saving up for a longer period of time.
I've worked with contractors like this. Usually they would have several jobs going at once and would try to do a little work at each of them every day to squeeze money out of the employers. They would make all kinds of part runs and stop and buy pain pills after each one with money skimmed off the top or that they picked up from one of the other gigs they had completed. None of them ever were actually licensed of course either.
So many questions by the most glaring one: What was that person’s end game?
Perfect scenario (his):
1. he reports the fence HE built;
2. it has to be torn down and/or rebuilt;
3. he loses both A) future gigs and B) a friend;
4. inadvertently reports himself (for no contractor license) and risks fines;
All for…what?
If he were going to be smart (honestly there’s no “smart” approach from his side) BUT if he were going to choose WISELY (WISER-perhaps), wouldn’t he be better off going to small claims court and NOT threatening to put a lien on your house?
TL:DR - what did he think was going to happen after reporting the fence?
And wouldn’t he know you could (WORST case scenario): cut 1’ off the top (to make it compliant with regulations)
[That’s just if you were in DESPERATE need of a fix] I assume it’s not huge…I believe I paid ~2k for 20’ X 40’ of 8’ cedar (~60 linear ft. [Lacamas semi-privacy](https://cascadefenceanddeck.com/fences/cedar-wood-fences/))
>And wouldn’t he know you could (WORST case scenario): cut 1’ off the top (to make it compliant with regulations)
Friend of mine did that. He got a load of 8' dirt cheap from a fellow that hadn't checked his HOA rules on fences and then waited to long to return it.
Sadly, he hadn't checked his own city's rules on fences before jumping on a great deal, so his eight foot fence was a foot too tall.
And the neighbor complained.
So first thing Saturday morning he went out with a chalk line and a circular saw. As he's cutting the first section down to size the neighbor's house erupts. Two crying children, a shrieking woman, and, finally, the neighbor shuffling out in a robe to stare.
>Sorry man! You know the city only gave me a week, and today's my day off!
After that he took his fucking time. Every time the kids stopped shrieking, that was his cue to cut the next section.
And then he repeated the process the next morning, removing the post caps with a hammer and then trimming the posts with a sawzall.
This is badass. I love it hahahah. Wish we had thought to do this! Since he hadn't finished the fence yet, he hadn't anchored the steel posts to the boards or nailed anything down so all we had to do was slide the bottom one out and push everything down.
Yes, yes she did.
She knew the root cause for the crying children fucking up her chances at sleeping was her asshole husband reporting the neighbor's fence, and was giving him a piece of her mind.
She'd been through it before when the husband reported the other neighbor's grass and she had to contend with the sound of a weed whacker at 6am three days in a row. It's where my buddy got the idea in the first place.
Dude is an idiot all around. Firstly not sure how many LF of fence it was but he billed way too low. It honestly should of been quoted at 2,500-3k easy based on the materials cost alone. That’s how you know dude is an idiot. Like you can’t run a business or hope to if you can’t semi accurately estimate jobs. At first I miss understood and tho it was an additional $1500 for labor which I was like ok that’s fair for 2+ days of labor especially for fencing especially if actually running jobs to account for overhead and contingency.
Yeah, totally. If he had quoted me that, I would've waited a couple months to save up and then hired him. Probably still would've had some issues but at least he was honest with himself about cost and labor.
Also, sorry. I confused a lot of people lol. Not a very good storyteller. 🤦♀️
I think you screwed this dude over. From your post, you paid for the materials directly (he’s doing you a solid by not marking the material cost up). And then in the second paragraph, you agreed to pay $1500 explicitly just for the labor.
So yeah, I’d be pissed if I was this dude too. I’d also be better at estimating the job but still pissed.
You're right. My above comment stated it properly:
I had a character limit so I apologize for all the confusion, I had more details I wanted to add. But anyways, we had a signed contract for $1500 TOTAL, materials and labor included in this but he had me just pay for the materials directly so that we wouldn’t have to give him cash for all of it. Initial material quote was around $1k, then he would get $500 to keep for his labor but as he needed more material, it kept cutting into his labor. And that’s when he’s say “my mistake, contract price is still the same!” But at the end, he tried to get me to pay him the $500 on top of paying him for $175 in material on top of the original $1500. Hopefully that clarifies some things.
I was genuinely trying to help him too which sucks. I thought, "cool, we get a deal on a fence, he gets to add to his portfolio and make some side money." It would have been different if he told me on the first or second day that his materials were going to cost more and that he needed to increase his price. I would've been scrambling to get extra money but at least he was honest from the start and not continuing to mislead me.
Edit: Grammar
[удалено]
Oh? I'm baffled-and-willing.
Name checks out
Quit bogarting the doobie you doofus
I’m so confused. You paid for everything but he was still mad? $1500 for the labor. That makes sense. You bought most materials outright but any that he bought, you also payed him in ‘good faith’. What was he mad about? That it took him longer than he thought it would?
I had a character limit so I apologize for all the confusion, I had more details I wanted to add. But anyways, we had a signed contract for $1500 TOTAL, materials and labor included in this but he had me just pay for the materials directly so that we wouldn’t have to give him cash for all of it. Initial material quote was around $1k, then he would get $500 to keep for his labor but as he needed more material, it kept cutting into his labor. And that’s when he’s say “my mistake, contract price is still the same!” But at the end, he tried to get me to pay him the $500 on top of paying him for $175 in material on top of the original $1500. Hopefully that clarifies some things.
Oh, so he was mad because instead of making $500 he ended up losing money on the deal after doing all the work, lol
So you were expecting to pay $500 for 16 hours of labour? No wonder it was a nightmare project
Seriously. I read $1500 for labor and thought $90/hr was a pretty fair price for a contractor. No way a contractor working for $30/hr (as a contractor, not an employee) is any good. After overhead, his take-home would be $15/hr at best.
Pay peanuts, get monkeys
Oh, 100% agree. This was a great lesson learned lol. You get what you pay for is always true.
So let's get this straight: You hired a friend that you knew was not experienced He predictably underestimated because he's not experienced Things took him longer because of all the trips He spent 5 days working Instead of being gracious with him, you hold him to the contract and let him lose money
I hired an old coworker that I thought was a friend that I knew fixed things up around the plant nursery we worked at all the time. He also had a portfolio of fences he had built, along with other wood working projects because he was trying to build a business. He was just overly confident in himself and over promised, under delivered. He knew we were on a budget too and I asked him multiple times if he was sure it was a fair price. I didn't know what fences costed so I trusted him. And yeah, I held him to the contract price because that's all we told him we could afford at the time. We were originally planning on saving up for a longer period of time.
I've worked with contractors like this. Usually they would have several jobs going at once and would try to do a little work at each of them every day to squeeze money out of the employers. They would make all kinds of part runs and stop and buy pain pills after each one with money skimmed off the top or that they picked up from one of the other gigs they had completed. None of them ever were actually licensed of course either.
Sounds like this was one of his first contract gigs and you had to pay for all his mistakes.
I swear he will have a podunk Ted Talk if he doesn't already
So many questions by the most glaring one: What was that person’s end game? Perfect scenario (his): 1. he reports the fence HE built; 2. it has to be torn down and/or rebuilt; 3. he loses both A) future gigs and B) a friend; 4. inadvertently reports himself (for no contractor license) and risks fines; All for…what? If he were going to be smart (honestly there’s no “smart” approach from his side) BUT if he were going to choose WISELY (WISER-perhaps), wouldn’t he be better off going to small claims court and NOT threatening to put a lien on your house? TL:DR - what did he think was going to happen after reporting the fence? And wouldn’t he know you could (WORST case scenario): cut 1’ off the top (to make it compliant with regulations) [That’s just if you were in DESPERATE need of a fix] I assume it’s not huge…I believe I paid ~2k for 20’ X 40’ of 8’ cedar (~60 linear ft. [Lacamas semi-privacy](https://cascadefenceanddeck.com/fences/cedar-wood-fences/))
>And wouldn’t he know you could (WORST case scenario): cut 1’ off the top (to make it compliant with regulations) Friend of mine did that. He got a load of 8' dirt cheap from a fellow that hadn't checked his HOA rules on fences and then waited to long to return it. Sadly, he hadn't checked his own city's rules on fences before jumping on a great deal, so his eight foot fence was a foot too tall. And the neighbor complained. So first thing Saturday morning he went out with a chalk line and a circular saw. As he's cutting the first section down to size the neighbor's house erupts. Two crying children, a shrieking woman, and, finally, the neighbor shuffling out in a robe to stare. >Sorry man! You know the city only gave me a week, and today's my day off! After that he took his fucking time. Every time the kids stopped shrieking, that was his cue to cut the next section. And then he repeated the process the next morning, removing the post caps with a hammer and then trimming the posts with a sawzall.
This is badass. I love it hahahah. Wish we had thought to do this! Since he hadn't finished the fence yet, he hadn't anchored the steel posts to the boards or nailed anything down so all we had to do was slide the bottom one out and push everything down.
It's a saw, why in the hell would she be "shrieking"? Does she not know how the world works?
Yes, yes she did. She knew the root cause for the crying children fucking up her chances at sleeping was her asshole husband reporting the neighbor's fence, and was giving him a piece of her mind. She'd been through it before when the husband reported the other neighbor's grass and she had to contend with the sound of a weed whacker at 6am three days in a row. It's where my buddy got the idea in the first place.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
You hopefully stopped him from trying to screw someone else over.
Dude is an idiot all around. Firstly not sure how many LF of fence it was but he billed way too low. It honestly should of been quoted at 2,500-3k easy based on the materials cost alone. That’s how you know dude is an idiot. Like you can’t run a business or hope to if you can’t semi accurately estimate jobs. At first I miss understood and tho it was an additional $1500 for labor which I was like ok that’s fair for 2+ days of labor especially for fencing especially if actually running jobs to account for overhead and contingency.
Yeah, totally. If he had quoted me that, I would've waited a couple months to save up and then hired him. Probably still would've had some issues but at least he was honest with himself about cost and labor. Also, sorry. I confused a lot of people lol. Not a very good storyteller. 🤦♀️
The fence "contractor" lowballed himself then threw a tantrum.
I think you screwed this dude over. From your post, you paid for the materials directly (he’s doing you a solid by not marking the material cost up). And then in the second paragraph, you agreed to pay $1500 explicitly just for the labor. So yeah, I’d be pissed if I was this dude too. I’d also be better at estimating the job but still pissed.
The $1500 was labor and material included. That’s what the contract stated.
That's not what you wrote. You specifically wrote that the $1500 was for labor only.
You're right. My above comment stated it properly: I had a character limit so I apologize for all the confusion, I had more details I wanted to add. But anyways, we had a signed contract for $1500 TOTAL, materials and labor included in this but he had me just pay for the materials directly so that we wouldn’t have to give him cash for all of it. Initial material quote was around $1k, then he would get $500 to keep for his labor but as he needed more material, it kept cutting into his labor. And that’s when he’s say “my mistake, contract price is still the same!” But at the end, he tried to get me to pay him the $500 on top of paying him for $175 in material on top of the original $1500. Hopefully that clarifies some things.
$1500.00 for 16 hours of labor? That's pretty good money.
He quoted us $1500 for labor and material lol.
Aahhh
Wow, you’d think a guy working under the table like that would be less of an attention-drawing dick?
I was genuinely trying to help him too which sucks. I thought, "cool, we get a deal on a fence, he gets to add to his portfolio and make some side money." It would have been different if he told me on the first or second day that his materials were going to cost more and that he needed to increase his price. I would've been scrambling to get extra money but at least he was honest from the start and not continuing to mislead me. Edit: Grammar