A building contractor is responsible for the results of any particular job they engage in, to the extent of the contracted work, as long as the materials are not the cause of any failure and the contractor could not know in advance about such failure.

Problems related to construction claims of any kind should be looked at and distinguished from problems related to failing materials or improper installation procedures.

The separation in between adverse results caused by installation problems and adverse results caused by materials failure is a very important factor to define the contractor’s responsibility on any matter pertaining to adverse results on a building project.

That being stated, adverse results due to substandard, poor quality or defective materials that were chosen by the client, should rarely be the contractor’s responsibility unless that the particular defect or result was obvious to the contractor and can be proven scientifically and/or proven from a technical point of view AND contractor deliberately installed in a different manner than the manufacturer recommends.  Remember that the keyword here is — AND. Keep in mind that some materials don’t even have a recommended installation guidelines, specially chinese tiles and other imports.

To obtain that kind of proof, one would have to go to unimaginable levels of forensics and exploratory work, sample collection and other procedures that would not justify the expenses.  A new installation, specially for cheap materials, would take care of solving any problems with installations of finishing products.  If anyone goes to the extent of doing lab tests, exploratory work and incurs such expenses only to obtain some kind of proof of culpability of a contractor, I would immediately discredit the results as a reason for financial gains.  Nowadays, anyone can get an expert to prove just about anything to corroborate your case. Insurance companies do that all the time! But I digressed.

A very common complaint I have experienced in these 20 years in the building and contracting business is the failure of lower quality finishing materials. These materials are usually anything that you can look at once a building is finished.  Now here is where this post takes a twist. Since you read this far, keep reading to the end no matter how you feel about this post. My posts are designed to help our friendly network of sub contractors, but I am sure that customers and prospective customers are reading this too, so hold on to your chairs.

At least in the cases that I helped, these failures are always caused by a particular type of customer, yes I said customer, whose main goal is to save money by choosing the least expensive materials, haggling over prices and never giving one single thought to the reasons behind a price.  These clients are the first to call a contractor like you and request a free redo if an adverse result comes up.

Tiles chipping, locks failing or braking, floors getting easily damaged, wood getting cracks or weathering too quick, the list goes on an on, but this particular kind of client will have one specific characteristic that is impressively similar in all claims of defective installations or complaints about contractors, I wont tell you what it is yet because other factors also play a part here, but it is obvious to anyone that have been doing this kind of business for an extended amount of time who these customers are.

These customers are easy to spot during the contract negotiation process. They will compare your price with a hand-written price on a back of a napkin and insist that you should beat that price.  They will say that you are too expensive, they will compare your professional proposal with unlicensed, unregulated, home-depot day laborers.

For that particular kind of client I recommend a time and materials contract with a fair low hourly rate. In this kind of contract, the client can be responsible for picking and paying for whatever materials they would like to use and, at the same time, agreeing to take responsibility for adverse effects and/or failure of any of these materials however they get installed.  In this link you will find the guidelines I use for my business, feel free to use it for your own business. http://www.ultimate-handyman.com/rates-policies

Since it is a known fact that cheaper materials are often more time-consuming to install, this type of contract will also assist in transferring back to unfairly cheap customers the financial burden of any increased price due to materials that break easily during handling and extensive preparation to assist on the installation of substandard and cheaper materials.

But make sure to do everything in your power to install the materials to the highest standard because being cheap material it will most likely develop a problem with a minimum hick up and also explain to the customer verbally, and on as many clauses on your contract as you can, that you will be paid for, based on the time that the jobs takes and the materials that they choose. Keep track of every workers time and all receipts. This way, any contractor can be legally and financially safe doing the work that they love and the dirt-cheap kind of customer will get what they want as well.

If you are not a contractor but you are reading this, or you are looking to blame your contractor, you should reconsider your money-saving negotiation practices. If you are a customer, you are not helping anyone by insisting in rock-bottom prices when it comes to construction. All you are doing is creating situations that some less-experienced contractor will be caught in, which can be clearly a predatory technique if you insist in a close-end agreement and a cheap price combined.

There are a lot of good contractors out there, them all have a particular set of skills and want to deliver a good job on every job. I meet and deal with hundreds of sub-contractors on a monthly basis. Most are seasoned craftsman, some are newbies, but they are all trying to make a living in a hard world by using their particular set of skills. No one goes out on a job with the intension of doing substandard work or delivering bad-quality materials. As long as your general contractor is overseeing the installation and you are satisfied with the price vs. results ratio you should not go after a contractor to repair problems on finishing materials – unless you overpaid – in which case is easy to prove based on the hours a job took and the materials that were used, what brings us back to the need of a time and materials contract.

The bottom line here is that the common denominator in between construction problems and claims of defective installation of finishing materials is always the cheapest price!  So you, my contractor friend or you, my client reader, be aware and ask for insight before pushing for or accepting the cheapest price out there — or have a time and materials contract instead!

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This job is going well as planned, we are building some partition walls, installing hospital-style track for curtains, installing one door and one window. Seems simple and straight forward enough, so when we drew the work agreement and had the client sign it, we never thought that new doctors that happen to be as well decision-making partners would show up out of nowhere!

What seemed to be simple and approved on paper had to be put on hold with many layers of changes, proposed changes, what if’s and at that point I had to put my guys on hold to discuss the current state of affairs.

Pains me to be paying wages, workers compensation, and the cancellation of appointments that could have been very profitable to discuss changes made on the fight to a small contract….but it was clear that we had to stop everything and review their requests… So that is exactly what I did. I cancelled all my appointments and went back to the job site. Ask me why most of the building contractors turn down small work.

While 4 of my guys were snacking and talking in the parking lot, I was going over the changes that the client wanted implemented. He decided that a portion of the work I had already done was going to be done by somebody else instead! If I understood well, someone mumbled about his cousin would be doing the installation.

I pointed out that undoing work on a drop T bar ceiling was out of the question and he immediately came to his senses once I suggested to look at the document signed by, the first Doctor who represented himself as the decision maker.

The second decision-making doctor agreed to keep the ceiling tiles as is and agreed to allow us to continue and install the hardware they were ordering. Although we reached agreement, I still sensed that he was not totally happy, perhaps because some family member must have offered to do the work for less, so I offered to remove a $600 change order we made to make up for the money he would have saved by doing that work with “somebody else”. His mood instantly changed to the better and he accepted the offer, so we moved on with the project.

Beside making the client happy and minimizing losses by getting the workers back producing, I started to think about ways to stop this from ever happening again. The first lesson I learned since I started contracting is that we should get things on paper and well explained — in the most details as possible, then get a signature from the decision-maker.

How do you know when one decision-maker (while the work is being done) turns out not to be the only one? The answer is, you do not know even if you ask. I DID!

So, the lesson learned here is to have another paragraph on our work agreement stipulating that only the signer has the right to contract and make decisions regarding the work that is being accepted. This is going to be just another clause in a work agreement that I think is too long already — 6 pages!

Please tell me: When is the number of clauses in a contract all-inclusive enough?

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So what type of carpenter do you need? Well, at a broad level, there are two categories of carpentry: rough carpentry and finish carpentry. And the kind of carpenter you need depends on the type of woodwork you need.

If you’re building a home or doing a remodel that involves erecting interior walls, exterior walls, beams, or roofs (basically, anything structural), then you’ll need a rough carpenter. A framer is a common example of rough carpenter.

If you’re remodeling a home or you’re in the later stages of building a new home, you’ll need the work of a finish carpenter. A finish carpenter will add the “finishing” touches to your home that require more care and precision, such as wooden cabinets, window and door trim, molding, baseboards, fireplace mantles, stair railings, deck handrails, etc. Finish carpenters also sometimes specialize in crafting custom furniture or musical instruments.

And because it’s hard to imagine a situation where you would need a rough carpenter and not need a finish carpenter later, these jobs are frequently done by the same person. A carpenter might start off doing rough carpentry, and then study (often alongside a more experienced carpenter), the fine art of finish carpentry. When you can find one carpenter, or a team of carpenters, who can serve all your home carpentry needs, then your home renovation project will run a lot smoother.

And finally, if you’re a filmmaker, you may need to employ a scenic carpenter to build the set for your next big hit. That is, unless you’re filming on a boat, in which case, you might just need a ship carpenter.

Recent advancements have allowed toilets to use 20 percent less water than the current federal standard, while still providing equal or superior performance.

Over the course of your lifetime, you will likely flush the toilet nearly 140,000 times. If you replace older, existing toilets with low-flush models, you can save 4,000 gallons per year with this simpler, greener choice.

And Price?

Low-flush toilets are available at a wide variety of price points and a broad range of styles. EPA estimates that a family of four that replaces its home’s older toilets with low-flush models will, on average, save more than $90 per year in reduced water utility bills, and $2,000 over the lifetime of the toilets.

Additionally, in many areas, utilities and Government offer rebates and vouchers that can lower the price of a low-flush toilet.

Whether remodeling a bathroom, starting construction of a new home, or simply replacing an old, leaky toilet that is wasting money and water, installing a low-flow toilet is a high-performance, water-efficient option worth considering. If every American home with older, inefficient toilets replaced them with newer low-flow toilets, we would save nearly 640 billion gallons of water per year, equal to more than two weeks of flow over Niagara Falls!

Across the country, our growing population is putting stress on available water supplies. Between 1950 and 2000, the U.S. population nearly doubled while the public demand for water more than tripled! Americans now use an average of 100 gallons of water each day—enough to fill 1,600 drinking glasses! This increased demand has put additional stress on water supplies and distribution systems, threatening both human health and the environment.

There’s a reason that water has become a national priority. A recent government survey showed at least 36 states are anticipating local, regional, or statewide water shortages by 2013. But by using water more efficiently, we can help preserve water supplies for future generations, save money, and protect the environment.

The Ultimate Handyman is making it easier to identify water-efficient products and practices.

Check out our website to learn a little more about the daily impact your water use can have and how small actions can have a big impact.

Saving water is very important, especially here in California!

Did you know that an American home can waste, on average, more than 10,000 gallons of water every year due to running toilets, dripping faucets, and other household leaks?

Nationwide, more than 1 trillion gallons of water leak from U.S. homes each year. That’s why we are promoting Fix a Leak Week from January 24 to 28, 2011, to remind our local homeowners to check all plumbing and irrigation systems for leaks. If you need help fixing your findings, when you mention this, we will give you $50 off on our plumbing bill.

Spread the word about our Fix a Leak Week! Email or call us for more information.

Click here to find out more

All the lack of talent producing this video is the assurance that we will stick to what we do best, construction work.

The work depicted in this video is an actual job done in Beverly Hills, CA. in December, 2010.

Voiceover Talent FAILED! on Facebook.

YouTube Video

For the last 20 years our company has worked for reality TV, Movies, also assisting studios in making good on bad damages caused by actors and crew on location, and most importantly we have participated on transformation home improvement shows in order to make unskilled actors look like pros.

During construction and filming, we see how much goes into the activities they are portraying, but they fail to account for those costly unforeseen repairs and extra work on the disclosed images and final budget, giving the idea to the audience that everything goes smoothly more often then not, which is not reality.

Construction, specially in remodeling projects, often there are extra activities and associated costs that are only found during the unfolding project. TV shows are paid by the advertisements, product placements and service providers hoping to increase their sales. In a home improvement TV show, it is not advantageous for the advertisers to reveal difficulties, related extra costs and portraying all those inconveniences could also lead to a negative result on advertiser’s bottom lines.

That is why you can se a room remodel with a $500 budget go effortlessly beginning to end. No one mentions that geographical labor costs, employment obligations and governmental fees were left out for the sake of altering perception of the consumer, which in turn will increase sales for their advertisers.

Their thought: “Once the consumer bought the products, who cares if they can install it or not.” It is sad but truth, HDTV’s main goal is not to inform consumers, it is to increase sales to their sponsors.

If you are unskilled in construction trades or just a layman, always talk to a construction professional before embarking on a project that you saw on TV, it can turn into an unmanageable endeavor. No matter how simple the TV show may portray the activity, it could take a toll on your budget with no way back. Good contractors will talk to you for free and explain what could go wrong.

TV, when is it safe to believe in it?

Roney Monteir – Home Improvement Expert
with The Ultimate Handyman a Construction and Maintenance Company

Phone (323) 651• 0635
Roney@ultimate-handyman.com
Contractors License # 831700

www.Ultimate-Handyman.com

8350 Melrose Ave.
Los Angeles, CA. 90069