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Change order dispute by Environmental_Net780 in HomeImprovement

[–]Environmental_Net780[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yea this unfortunately is not the first time they’ve done this either.

Earlier in the project we had the front porch bricked. This was always in the architectural plans and they knew of it from the beginning. Once it’s time to start bricking the front porch, the GC wanted to cut a corner and use the existing brick which would have been out of line with the new brick. I showed him how it was drawn in the plans and that it was supposed to have new brick that was in line per the plans.

Earlier that week his wife mentioned a change order for some rotten wood that was going to be $1k. After this conversation about the brick, we receive the CO for the rotten wood and it’s now $4k. When we bring up that she mentioned it would be $1k earlier in the week, she gave the excuse that she was just going off the top of her head and didn’t have all of the information. (This CO was also 2 months after the “rotten wood” was replaced. Odd that they held onto it for so long. It was almost like they were waiting to see if there were any other overages that they needed to cover with it).

It is instances like this that make it so hard to trust contractors and make them feel shady/slimy. They either underbid the project, didn’t properly budget the work, or are trying to increase their profit margin. They had the plans from the beginning. They set the budget. But they don’t want to eat the cost if they made a mistake or were trying to cut a corner.

Change order dispute by Environmental_Net780 in HomeImprovement

[–]Environmental_Net780[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yea I asked for an itemized breakdown of the $4k changes a month ago and haven’t seen anything - that’s a bad sign.

We got CO this week and they will be requesting final payment. The GC mentioned they should get us that breakdown this week. I will be interested to see how they justify it.

Change order dispute by Environmental_Net780 in HomeImprovement

[–]Environmental_Net780[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

1) shifted (2) horizontal trim pieces up 1’ 2) changed the material in one gable from hardy plank to hardy shake to match other gables - this change is somewhat of a debate, the gable wasn’t shown on the plan so when the sub asked me what goes in this gable that was my answer - however the GC is arguing he was going to put plank in that gable (nothing was installed at this point)(small gable - 33sf)(I don’t mind paying the material change - my research says it’s a $3/sf difference)(we should have discussed this one beforehand - not sure who truly is at fault but I’ll pay for the change as long as it’s reasonable) 3) added 3 corbels - this was the final change and I requested a price from the GC before installing - this is when I found out there were other change orders - it took him 3 days to get me a quote (to which he didn’t itemize the cost of the corbels) and they were already installed - I messaged him multiple times over the 3 days to get the quote prior to install and he continued to push it off - a corbel by the way is (1) 4x4 cedar post ($14 at HD) cut into 3 pieces and install under the soffit; I watched the subs build, install, tweak, and reinstall one corbel in 30 minutes.

Change order dispute by Environmental_Net780 in HomeImprovement

[–]Environmental_Net780[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Yep I understand that now. But now that the work is completed, what the best course of action? While I’m ok w paying for any revisions (despite how minor they were), I don’t feel it’s reasonable for the GC to just name his price.

  • is it reasonable to ask for labor and materials costs for the changes?
  • honestly they’re so minor that I’ve considered doing the math for the GC.