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SMDH
Aug 17, 2023 13:09:48 GMT -5
Post by Dave's Not Here Man on Aug 17, 2023 13:09:48 GMT -5
Have you ever heard the song by John Prine that goes
If I ever see another salesman Come knockin at my door I'm gonna pick up a rock and Hit him on the head And knock him down on the floor
Yesterday we had the first company come by to give us a quote on updating her bathroom with most of the emphasis being the shower and vanity. Might have mentioned my plans for this previously. Anyway this kid comes and oh my friggin gord. I mean he had power points, videos from the owner of the company, a tube of caulk (he called it their "proprietary sealant LOL) and cutaways of the installed products as well as multiple samples.
I've been arounnnnnd, you know? So I knew.
15k just for the shower and they don't do anything other than showers, and bath tubs of course. Our budget for the entire bathroom is 10-12k.
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SMDH
Aug 17, 2023 15:01:02 GMT -5
Post by minx on Aug 17, 2023 15:01:02 GMT -5
WTF? Of course they do want to baffle you with bullshit so you think that you're getting something super fancy when you're not.
Friend wanted to update her kitchen cabinets - custom made of oak by her former husband. So she went out looking for quotes. Couldn't find cabinets that would properly fit in the space she had (hence her husband custom building them).
So she looked into refinishing them. Because she's disabled, she needed to have sliding shelves installed in the existing cabinets as well, and she wanted to add a small pantry next to the stove and get a new sink and countertop. Home Depot said "We can do that!" So she had them come out. Guy measured everything at least three times and told her that this was all quite doable - no issues here!
So since they had 0% financing at the time, she signed a note and told them to come on out.
You can already see where this is going, right? First the contractor came out and realized that the sliding shelves weren't going to fit properly. This was after she had packed the kitchen into boxes with help from friends. She told the guy before he started that the replacement shelves he had looked like they weren't going to fit. HA - he took out all of the existing shelves and their hardware, and lo and behold, they didn't fit. Said he'd come back with the correct ones. Again, HA!
Took her TWO years and numerous calls/letters to Home Depot to get everything installed properly. And that only happened because the final contractor took a look and told her that he was truly, truly sorry - this was beyond a catastrophe and he was appalled at what happened to her (tears may have been involved by then). So he personally guaranteed that he would do whatever it took, and he did. Even then he was jury-rigging a lot of stuff to get it to work (with her permission). He told her that he was dumbfounded that the guys who did the original estimate told her that half of this was doable without a brand-new cabinet, and that most of the cabinets could have been replaced.
So yeah, I get where you're coming from.
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SMDH
Aug 17, 2023 15:45:46 GMT -5
Post by Dave's Not Here Man on Aug 17, 2023 15:45:46 GMT -5
Never. Ever. Trust. Those. Stores. to do your projects! Every person that comes to your house will be a subcontractor. No bueno.
One of the things I used to advise people about was that you want the person doing the work to quote it whenever at all possible. In the 15 years I was in business for myself as a contractor, I never had a pricing dispute with a customer. Not one, and I might add very very minimal communications/misunderstandings about the work, what was incvolved, and how much it would cost. It is not only in my best interest to get it right the first time, you have to feel really bad for the customer when all this is avoidable. I get that some, many actually, companies operate under a way different business model. That model is built on volume, which I never truly aspired for when I was doing me. I wanted to stay busy but had no real desire to run an operation. Can you even imagine the shit nowadays with employees and government shit too? Nope.
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Post by minx on Aug 18, 2023 12:18:45 GMT -5
Yup - we did have them install countertops, but only because the spouse didn't feel like it, and while it wasn't cheap, it wasn't a major expense either. And we kept the old countertop just in case.
When we had our deck rebuilt, we had 4 different contractors come out. The one we chose sketched out his idea for the build (it can't attach to the house on the left side because it will violate fire code due to the height of the bedroom windows. Then he gave us a detailed quote within a week and several references, including one within walking distance of us.
Got the job done within a week on budget. That's how you do it!
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SMDH
Aug 19, 2023 11:52:33 GMT -5
Post by Dave's Not Here Man on Aug 19, 2023 11:52:33 GMT -5
I'm going to try some locals again but the last one was a no-show for the appointment. This is fairly common these days for some reason which makes for a poor business climate overall. Hopefully we'll be able to find the right people. If not, then I may order the stuff from Lowe's or whever I can get what I want, and call up a handyman type with a good reputation.
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SMDH
Aug 20, 2023 13:12:10 GMT -5
Post by minx on Aug 20, 2023 13:12:10 GMT -5
That's something I never got. I know that stuff can take longer than you estimated, and shit sometimes happens, but how hard is it to pick up the damn phone and CALL?? I'm sure most people would be accommodating, and if someone isn't, well then you've saved some time in figuring out that you don't want to work with them, right?
What infuriated me were the guys who came out and looked at everything, then completely ghosted us - no quote, no follow-up, nothing. We had one guy say that after checking some more and doing some research that he wouldn't be able to do what we were asking unfortunately. He did offer to come out and give us an estimate for a open deck but also said that he knew we didn't really want that and he was sorry.
When the work was finally done, guess who the two contractors were that we recommended to others? And guess what we said about the ones who ghosted us?
Hope you can find someone reputable John.
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SMDH
Aug 21, 2023 9:39:05 GMT -5
via mobile
Post by Dave's Not Here Man on Aug 21, 2023 9:39:05 GMT -5
. Once I get my new laptop I'll resume the search.
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