Articles for November 2013

Oxnard Contractor Finishing another person's unfinished work

by Forrests Ceiling Services

November 1st, 2013

One of the most difficult positions a contractor may find themselves in is having to fix another person unfinished, or poorly performed work.  Most contractors finish their jobs and complete the work properly, but damage control is necessary sometimes when the original contractor needs to be replaced or abandons a project.  Some professional may feel uncomfortable in this scenario as most contractors don't want to step on the toes of other professionals.  It can also be frustrating to observe careless or reckless work, and the client may be apprehensive about any work the new contractor performs because of the preceding negative experience with the previous contractor.

In this example, an Oxnard client had definitely hired the wrong person for the job.  The original contractor, after quoting a specific time frame for estimated completion, had taken over three times longer than originally estimated, and was therefore more than three times over budget.  Even at three times over budget, the work remained unfinished with no end in sight.  To make matters worse there were several critical errors, and work on much of the required repairs had not been started at all.

The required repairs were fairly straight-forward drywall repairs, but proper care and attention to detail was not practiced - the result was a variety of glaring and obvious defects.  To make it plain, the results were not pretty.  Remodeling projects are one of the most difficult jobs because of the required attention to detail and stringent thoroughness.

The drywall repairs were simply not finished, the parts that were deemed "finished" by the previous contractor were not done properly, to understate the issue.  The problems are obvious, as you can observe in the photos of this Oxnard, CA residence.

    

   
Surfaces were left uneven.  Drywall mud has to be applied heavily to finish rough surfaces - this is required in order for the texture and paint to appear properly.  Clearly, the previous contractor had been careless in this area.

The edges of the walls were in particularly bad condition.  Edges, of course, should be square, but they weren't in this case.  The edges will need to be scraped in order to make them even so that the corner bead may be placed properly.

To finish this project I need to properly adjust and set the corner bead, place fire tape, square the edges, and several areas to be imbedded with additional mud in order to be brought up to fire code.

It should go without saying, but sometimes people don't want to take the proper steps necessary to do the job well.  To me, it seems basic.  Of course, to somebody else, perhaps it is not.

When a client hires a contractor, they put their trust in that person.  I do not take such a responsibility lightly.  I value and appreciate all of my clients, and I feel that they are owed complete professionalism and first-class work.  It is a shame when a client has to pay a contractor double or triple the cost of an estimate because the contractor has decided to fore-go proper procedures.