A year long repair of a serious structural problem in our house is finally done today. A previous contractor (past the statute of limitations and judgment proof) had removed a structural wall claiming that it wasn't structural, and undermined the integrity of a roof joist above the structural wall in a previous kitchen renovation.
We contacted a structural engineer last January when the the kitchen ceiling started to slump (about 3") and a wall was starting to bend.
A large engineered wood support beam had to be installed to hold up the roof. Various other things had to be tweaked as a consequence, from the attic to the basement. A large kitchen cabinet (replaced with some open shelves on an exterior wall), an open shelf unit, two pendant lights, and some crown molding, that were all where the beam had to go, had to be sacrificed.
Two rounds of bad contractors had to be fired mid-job before two good contractors, for whom we had to act as a de facto general contractor, finished the job. The last two contractors had to work around the inferior workmanship of the first two contractors, and sometimes had to just tear out the previous work to redo it. The job should have taken about three weeks once work started in May, and should been done before the 4th of July. Six months after that, the job is finally done.
3 comments:
You won't like the greasy dust collecting open shelves.
We consider ourselves lucky as we have never had a bad contractor.
One major pop-top in 1987 in Bonnie Brae.
One kitchen renovation in 2017 in Berkeley.
I have been keeping a list of tradespeople since 1990. I send it to neighbors when they ask: who would you recommend?
I can't say that we do have a good licensed, insured general contractor to mention, although our later strategy was to focus on people with good Better Business Bureau reviews, but those were basically subcontractors that we hired directly. The trouble is that the good general contractors only want the biggest jobs, lots of GCs don't like to take over a job that someone else has started since it blurs responsibility for bad work done by earlier GCs, and not all GCs who are willing to do small, single family home residential jobs are willing to do a job with a major structural repair component.
I can provide a couple of names for structural engineers if someone needs it, although I'm disinclined to mention the names publicly as it feels too much like marketing.
There are definitely some people whom I wouldn't recommend. But I am thinking more about how to handle our dealings with our first two general contractors who weren't good, and a subcontractor who wasn't paid in full by the first GC, before posting anything about them publicly.
If there is a next time, maybe wear a suitable Halloween mask to properly scare them senseful, it seems your lawyerly visage isn't doing the trick. Have a wonderful and profitable 2024 (you and the whole family that cat included), I enjoy your commentary, stories and wide ranging interests.
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