As far as shorting your GC goes …… if you agreed to a price in a contract with your name on it you’re kind of stuck with that price ….. I’d have wanted to short him as well but that’s not how bids work. If I bid something and you agree to the price and I can do the agreed upon job faster/cheaper than you think I should be able to that’s my win, not your loss. You already agreed to the price. If you hire me to swap front brakes out in a vehicle and I say “$650 parts and labor total” and you agree to it that’s what it’s gonna cost. If I spent 20 minutes on it or 20hrs on it the job will be done for $650. Of course as the guy handing the bid out I want to pad it a bit to allow for unforeseen things. If I decide to pad it to add in margin and you agree to the price without knowing the breakdown you have still agreed to it. If you find out I spent 20min on that brake job and had $100 in parts you may think I screwed you but you agreed to the price and thought it was fair before wrench’s were turned.
Going after the GC for less gravel used was a bit shady IMO if all needs were met with using less. Going after shoddy work with the sill sealing, headers, garage doors not sealing, shoddy electrical rough in etc is different. The quality of work needs to be addressed but really can only be done so if you have things called out in the initial contract and build plans. You can tell a concrete guy you want it “flat” but you need to specify the level of “flat” that you want it. Is 1” variation in 10’ acceptable or 1/4” in 10’ variation acceptable ? If it isn’t called out it’s up to the contractor to do what they want, not what you want.
I don't disagree with you. All the contractor had to say was..."you signed on the dotted line and I'm going to hold you to it". I 100% would have paid it. What am I going to do, not pay something I agreed to in writing? I just wouldn't have paid him that day. I would have stewed on it for a couple days and then mailed them a check to get it over with lol. Not going to drag something out over $2-3k. It's not worth it.
He agreed to help on the price for the gravel and unfinished electrical - we just had to come to an agreement on the adjustment. He just lost his ever-loving mind when I didn't jump for joy at the small discount he proposed. He asked me what I wanted, I told him - He agreed, and took my check.
I witnessed a man who wasn't right in the head and needed medication that day. No one can convince me otherwise. His extensive record with the court system as a defendant and the email he sent out to everyone basically saying God was going to punish me should objectively validate that lol. I have zero record in our court system - because I pay my bills lol.
I chose to fixate on the gravel because it was clearly high versus what was used and it was more of an objective point than asking for a discount due to the lack or rebar or gaps in the sills, etc.. A discount for those issues would have been nice, but I wasn't going to dare ask for anything and set this guy off further.
I've hired probably 20 contractors for various work on projects on my property and never once had an issue with payment. Most times there are no problems or maybe a couple small hiccups. The worst one was a $50k landscape project which we had to hire someone else to completely redo correctly. They pitched the patios to flow water towards the house. You wouldn't believe how terrible it was. Their crew was just incapable of doing the job right. In that case, I just paid the bad contractor in full to get them gone and out of my life. We did talk to a lawyer. They said we had a strong case, but we decided to just let it go... That's when I learned how to look up court records. That particular contractor had a huge criminal record. Everything you can imagine. Tons of restraining orders, etc... So glad I just paid them and got them out of my life. We got so lucky with the new contractor in that case.. They did an excellent job and we've since reused them. In fact, I'll probably reach out to them again for more work this year.
Anyways, the drywaller I've hired has zero criminal record I can find - So, fingers crossed! lol
