While we skipped last week’s poll due to my annual April Fools Day post, the week before I asked if you were looking forward to more summer or more winter. While a few people responded they weren’t a groundhog and a few more chose, “more winter” incorrectly, the majority of people went with “more summer”. While it hasn’t been winter lately, it certainly hasn’t been summer either. Boo. Are you still enjoying this year so far weather-wise or would you prefer we get back to summer already?
This week’s poll comes after we made plans to wall off an open area in our house (called a “loft” when it’s really just an open space) as an extra bedroom for the baby-on-the-way. Because this will involve some potentially big changes to the house and will serve as a selling feature in addition to the fact that we’re just totally incapable of such work ourselves, we’ve been working to find someone to come in and do it for us. This process, so far, has been fairly painless. We asked around for recommendations on contractors and have seen two so far. They have offered their opinions on what will need to happen, the process, and have all offered basic timelines before promising to write up an estimate for us.
While we haven’t yet made our way through all of the contractors we’ve selected so far, it is interesting to see the differences and similarities between them:
- Taking measurements vs eyeballing it.
- Wink-wink: do you really want to get a permit vs suggesting it would be a good idea
- All of the timelines were estimated at two weeks
- Continually cancel and reschedule estimate meetings
While there are others, these are the main points we found interesting so far, especially the dude who was pushing pretty hard for us not to get a permit from the city even though we’re upstanding citizens and would never consider any such thing.
So what about you? Have you done any home improvements over the years and how many times have you hired a contractor to do them? Did you like the work that was done and the person doing it and did you have any simply not seem all that professional during the initial screening? How many times have you heard a job will take two weeks and how many times has it been done in less than that? Whatever you have to say about this one vote on the sidebar and then comment on below. After you do both of those things feel free to check out our expired polls in the archive or read through the previous posts about polls here.
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April 8th, 2012 at 7:59 am
The permit is protection for you. A contractor who wants you to not bother will certainly cut corners. Actually call some customers who have had work done by the company before you agree to anything. We used Great Lakes Windows and Siding a few years ago. They do remodeling too. They did everything they said except a few years later when a piece of the new siding was damaged, we were left to try to find it ourselves. It has been two years and we still have not found it. Alcoa Structure is a top of the line siding, but just try to buy a six foot piece of it.
There used to be constant commercials for something like service magic? Like an Angie’s list for Twin Cities contractors with superior ratings. We used them twice and were very pleased with all who gave estimates and did pick a contractor for each job, after the siding job.
April 8th, 2012 at 8:32 am
I’ve lived in my townhouse for just over 10 years. It was new when I bought it, but I’ve done improvements over the years, all without permits. Nothing major, but things like adding lights in closets, adding a utility sink in the garage, etc. I’ve done the work correctly and to whatever codes are applicable, just without ‘permission.’
A few years back I bought the townhouse next door to me before it fell into foreclosure, with the thought of fixing it up, finishing the lower level, and flipping it. Then, the bottom feel out of the market. Oops! Anyway, for that one, I’ve pulled permits for everything I plan to do, so that I’m protected, and so that when it comes time to sell it and have it inspected, there will be no surprises for the buyers (or me).
It is kind of ridiculous how many permits you need for the simplest of things, though. For instance, I found out I would need a permit if I wanted to add insulation to the garage. Their explanation was so that they could ensure I used the proper sheetrock to go over the new insulation. My explanation is that they just want another fee to collect.
April 8th, 2012 at 9:15 am
The biggest project we’ve attempted is re-tiling of our basement shower. We started it two years ago. It’s still not finished. It’s trickier than an normal shower because of the way it’s built, but we still should have finished it by now.
We will have to hire someone to fix the water leak in our upstairs shower and re-tile that though, because we’re not wiling to take it on ourselves.
Otherwise, our home improvement projects consist of things like painting, hanging a chair rail, and building furniture. Nothing crazy like adding a wall or anything.
April 8th, 2012 at 9:20 am
FWIW: I have deep loathing and contempt for Budget Exteriors.
April 8th, 2012 at 9:41 am
I’ve used a contractor three times, not counting for things like furnace repair. The first time was to remove a ceiling fan and install the new one, which was a pretty minor job. The second was to repaint the entire interior of my condo, remove some wood trim and wallpaper, and patch up a hole from a cat door. The third was to install a new bathtub and surround after the original tub/shower developed a crack in the bottom. The first two experiences were good; the third was not (even though it was using the same company that I had used on the second job). Basically, the installer said the surround didn’t fit, so I looked at it for a few seconds, and pointed out that they were trying to install it upside down. Surprise, that did the trick.
While I have ideas for other things I want to do once I have the money, I’m loathe to spend any money on this place that I don’t have to, with the housing market being what it is. Maybe repainting and possibly new flooring, but that’s it.
April 8th, 2012 at 10:13 am
We’ve completed a few big projects, and have used a few different contractors. We’ve had some misses, but the most recent one we liked a lot and are very likely to use on future projects.
I have zero home improvement abilities or desire. My husband has the desire, but lacks the know-how. He is learning from a handyman friend though as they tackle renovations on the attic (a good place to test out new skills).
April 8th, 2012 at 12:58 pm
I had a bathroom remodel done. I used a contractor from Rosemount. I was very specific about everything. I had him redo the sub floor twice because I did not like how it was done. Once we got past that, the quality of work was good. He did not charge more than quoted. I am very happy with it. I had 6 quotes before I started and they were all over the place. One contractor even told me that he hopes he is dead by 50 and he was 48. Scary. Make sure you also know who they are using for subcontractors and check them out also. He had excellent drywallers. His plumber was mediocre. Good luck!
April 8th, 2012 at 1:58 pm
I’ve never hired a contractor, although I’ve hired a number of tradespersons to things along the way. I always struggle to let other people work on my house because I’m the kind of guy that wants things at my house done my way.
TG’s recommendations to scope out the subcontractors is excellent advice. The contractor himself may or may not ever actually swing a hammer once throughout the whole process. His employees and subs will do all the work, and he may show up for as little as 15 minutes each day to check on progress. I don’t mean that to be a criticism, that’s just how it works. Ask him how many other jobs he’s working on at the same time.
April 8th, 2012 at 3:49 pm
I am a DIYer and especially like working with wood. We finished our basement last year and there are a number of things I hired out for : Spray insulation, rough framing, rough plumbing, gas fireplace install, electrical, and drywall.
There were a number of things I did myself: flooring, painting, installing plumbing fixtures, installing lights, building stairs and railing, building bookshelves, cabinet building, doors, casings, and baseboard.
I took out the permits for the job as I want to be able to make sure all was done to code.
I hired experts in each job and I think this ended up being the cheapest way to do it. There are some hungry people out there willing to do a quick two day job. I hired an expert framer, expert plumber, expert electrician, etc… rather than hiring a general contractor and I am sure I got a better result this way. I found all of these contractors through word of mouth or Craigslist and got multiple prices.
If converting a loft to a bedroom I would definitely recommend you hire a good drywall guy to do the taping. Do not try on your own. For that type of small job, I would attempt the framing myself if I had time. Just make sure everything is perfectly straight, square, and level. If you are doing the wordwork, make sure your corners are perfect and you don’t leave large nail holes (use an air nailer)
April 8th, 2012 at 6:06 pm
I try to be a DIY, but it keeps getting harder and harder to do any of the work due to the increasing cost of permitting. A recent bathroom remodel of a smaller bathroom cost $3000 in materials and cost nearly $1200 permit fees due to wanting to put in a new bath tub, sink, toilet and update the electrical to a non dangerous status.
April 8th, 2012 at 6:58 pm
Hired a contractor to gut and remodel our master bath several years ago. Your post made me laugh. For the estimate was told it would take 2 weeks. It took 12.
April 8th, 2012 at 7:12 pm
My dad always tried the DIY route growing up. He sucked at it as much as I do. We bought a move-in ready home 4 years ago. We had a new patio door installed for us as well as a new furnace and A/C. Even when we did interior painting, my brother-in-law, a professional painter, came and helped. My father-in-law, a carpenter, has lent a hand on a few things as well. I prefer to leave home projects to the professionals.
April 9th, 2012 at 10:40 am
I’ll never understand why home contractors don’t use the Scotty Principle like the rest of us.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9SVhg6ZENw
April 10th, 2012 at 3:35 pm
Holy shit, I totally missed Twoboot’s 100th comment. Congrats dude!
April 10th, 2012 at 4:19 pm
Your poll doesn’t offer “all of the above.”
We’ve done a lot of work on our house ourselves, but we’re getting a contractor to install a bathroom in our basement. The plumber and electrician he’s working with have done work for us before and we’ve had satisfactory experiences with them.
I’ll let you know how I feel about it all when it’s finished.
April 12th, 2012 at 5:00 pm
About 3 years ago my wife and I did a major remodel job on our house. We took our living room, dinning room and kitchen, knocked the walls out between them, completely gutted them and built one big great room. I really had no idea about who to use for a contractor. I really didn’t know anything about contracting at the time. We went to The Home Depot to look at cabinets and stuff and while there found out that not only could they design our great room but that they could do the job themselves since they had contracting company that worked for them. So we had one of their designers work with us in designing the room and decided to have their contractor, Crew2, do the job. I have to say we were quit pleased with the work Crew2 did. The whole project took 6 weeks to complete (most of the work was done in 4 weeks. The counter top people came in at the end of the project to measure for the counter tops and there was a 2 week wait for them to get made). Crew2 uses sub contractors and they all did great work. We had all types of sub contractors in our house. Demolition, Cabinetry, Flooring, Electrical, Plumbing, Dry Wall, Windows, etc. Crew2 had them all stacked up one after the other. I don’t think our house went more then a day without someone working in our house. In the end we were pleased with the results. Crew2 did a great job
Now I know a lot of people scoff at using some place like Home Depot and their contractor for a project like this. I am sure we paid a little bit more by using them, but there was one big caveat to using them. We qualified for their Home Depot card and qualified for enough to put the whole project on it. And there were no payments for a year. The reason why this was important to us was because they weren’t going to get a dime of our money until the project was complete and we were happy with it. With most contractors you have to pay up front. Maybe not 100%, but certainly a sizable amount down and if something happens (like they go out out of business in the middle of your project) you’re pretty much screwed. I had heard whore stories about that happening and did not want that to happen to us. Back then contracting companies were struggling. My neighbor worked for one and they went belly up and lot of their customers got screwed when it happened so having that year before having to make a payment was a big deal to my wife and I. It worked great for us. Once everything was done to our liking and everything passed city inspection we paid them off.
Anyway, I would recommend Home Depot and Crew2 and would use them again.
April 12th, 2012 at 5:18 pm
Ooh, I like whore stories!
April 12th, 2012 at 5:22 pm
Sometimes I wish there was and edit or delete post function on this site. Should have been horror not whore. Just got done watching the latest Game of Thrones so horror got spelled whore!…LoL
April 12th, 2012 at 5:40 pm
Why am I not surprised that Old Chicago Hamburger guy did the gut wrenching research to work out the finest contractors in the area and decided to give 20% of his money to Home Depot.
Way to support small business Bud Light!
April 12th, 2012 at 5:52 pm
Actually, Crew2 is the contractor. They work for The Home Depot, but do stuff on their own too. As do all their subs……..
And its cheeseburger (bacon cheese burger to be exact), not hamburger….
April 12th, 2012 at 6:20 pm
Yep, and by using Big Depot, Crew2 and all their contractors worked for 80% of what they would make if you would have hired them directly. Way to keep it local Mopey.
April 12th, 2012 at 6:35 pm
Mopey is right. My brother-in-law gets a lot of work installing doors for Home Depot. HD is just the sales arm for a lot of small businesses like his. I don’t know what their percentages look like but my BIL makes good money.
April 12th, 2012 at 6:44 pm
Wait a minute. If they worked for 80% of what they would have had I hired them directly, then I saved money buy not hiring them directly didn’t I? And, I don’t buy that anyway. I had one problem with Crew2. They quoted me a price for a flat finish ceiling. I thought that meant knock down, which is what I wanted. It didn’t. They wanted another 1000 dollars for a knock down finish. So they said they do the standard popcorn finish for the same price they had quoted me for the flat ceiling. Their sub asked me what I “really” wanted, and I told him and we worked out a deal on the side. He did the knock down for me for 500 dollars cash instead of the 1000 Crew2 would have charged me to have him do it.
In the end, lefty, I don’t really give a chit about small or big business, local or otherwise. I care about the best business. Who does the best work for the best price. Had I hired the small business my neighbor worked for to do the job I would have been screwed because they went under mid project on a few jobs and mine would have been one of them. Those jobs didn’t get finished and their customers didn’t get their money back. They had to stand in line the rest of their debtors. Those that did get finished. A lot of the subs didn’t get paid and put leans on peoples homes. That all makes for messy civil suits in court.
Yup…I paid more to have Crew2 do the work. But, I had piece of mind doing it, because I knew The Home Depot was on the hook for the entire project and weren’t going to go under in the middle of it. And, I knew they weren’t getting a dime of my money up front. They got paid in full on completion of the project. Had something gone wrong with them, had their been issues, at least my money would have still been in my pocket not theirs. They’d have to try to get my money from me. I wouldn’t be stuck have to try to get them to finish a project I’d had all ready paid for. When your talking about that kind of money I don’t want to dropping it before the project is started. With them I didn’t. So for me it was worth the extra I paid in the long wrong to not worry about getting screwed in the short run.
If you want to throw that kind of money away before services are rendered and risk it should something go awry just to support a small or local business, be my guest.
April 12th, 2012 at 6:56 pm
As a hater of Walmart, I still like this guy’s take on mom and pop stores vs. big box companies.
April 12th, 2012 at 7:15 pm
Um, Home Depot took the other 20% for the referral. You didn’t save a dime.
Joey’s BIL has to take a hit on pay when Home Depot gives them the job.
I am just saying. If you would have taken the time and effort to find a local contractor (maybe even the one you ended up using), done some research to ensure you are protected, you would have saved money, had the same peace of mind and gotten a good job done and your contractor would have made a few more dollars to keep in the local economy.
But you took the lazy American route, just like how you won’t be bothered to drive more than 3 miles to something other than a shitty chain restaurant.
That’s our Mopey.
April 12th, 2012 at 7:55 pm
I can’t speak for Joey’s BIL. He may take a hit on the jobs he does get from HD, but he also probably gets more jobs through them then he would on his own. In the end he may work for less money but more then makes that up by getting more jobs. That’s way business works. Sometimes to make more you have to work for less. In the end, he probably makes more money by taking the HD jobs then he would if he didn’t.
And, the way I look it, my money did support the local economy. Many of the subs who worked on our project lived in the south metro.
As for research, I didn’t know where to begin. I talked to my neighbor and another buddy who work in the contracting business, but didn’t want to go through them because mixing friendship with business isn’t always a good idea, especially when there is a lot of money involved. I only had 1 friend who had did something similar to ours and her brother did the job for her. She highly recommended him and he probably would have done ours too. But, he would have done it as a side job. I took him 6 months to get hers done. I didn’t feel like waiting that long. Try living without a kitchen for a month. It ain’t fun. No way I’d do it for 6 just to save a a few bucks.
You’re right. HD was convenient. But, sometimes convenience is worth paying for. You can try to be your own contractor and hire subs to do the work directly and save money by doing so. But good luck getting them stacked up one on top of the other. A 4 week project can turn into a 3 month project in a hurry if you do it that way since you might have to wait weeks before one sub can schedule you in to do their part of the job and the whole project stalls until they do. The organizing of the subs can be a real pain in the arse. In the end that’s what you are really hiring a contractor for. To get the job done in a timely manner. Had I not gone through HD I would have been going through the yellow pages and wouldn’t have known a damn thing about the contractors I called. Sure they will give you referrals, but you know those will all be people that had good experiences with them. You wouldn’t hear about the bad ones. Both my neighbor and my friend said I probably did the right thing by going through HD. My one neighbors company went belly up and I would have been out of a lot of money had I gone through his company. And my buddy said there was no way his could have got the job done as fast. The could not have stacked the subs up the way Crew2 did.
And you are bit off with your 3 mile estimate. I go into Burnsville, Eagan and Rosemount to eat. They all are good 7 to 8 mile drive!
April 13th, 2012 at 9:03 am
Mopey,
Have you tried The Nook yet? It is only about 8 miles from Eagan.
lefty
April 13th, 2012 at 1:35 pm
If a contractor gets more business by getting referrals through HD or another store, then I’m not sure what the problem is. Less money per project should be outweighed by getting more projects, otherwise there’s no point for them in doing it.
April 13th, 2012 at 4:04 pm
Wait. Are Greg and Mopey the same guy?
April 13th, 2012 at 5:09 pm
Um, no. Seriously?
April 13th, 2012 at 6:34 pm
Look at post 17 and 18. It looks like Mopey is saying he meant to type horror not whore regarding your post.
April 13th, 2012 at 7:24 pm
I know that. What I don’t know is why Lefty thinks I’m Mopey.
April 13th, 2012 at 7:35 pm
Do I really need to spell it out?
Mopey posts a correction to YOUR post 4 minutes after you wrote it and I obtained the perception that he may have two screen names. How would he know if you meant to say whore or not? Because he is you?
I am not insinuating that you actually are Mopey because that would be really mean.
April 13th, 2012 at 7:43 pm
I thought it was obvious I was poking fun at his typo since we had been picking on Chow Hound about his spelling around the same time.
Guess I won’t try to be funny anymore.
April 13th, 2012 at 11:08 pm
Lefty…
No I have not tried the Nook out yet. I mean to, but haven’t gotten around to it. It’s on my to do list the next time I am in St. Paul again, which probably won’t be until next hockey season. I really only go into St. Paul for hockey games or tattoos (and my tattoo artist there moved out west last year so I won’t be going there to see him anymore). I know lots of people around here rave about the Nook, but I have talked to a a few friends of mine who have been there and they said it’s not all that. It’s ok, but noting to go out of your way for.
As for me being Greg. Child please…I am happy being me and would not want to be anyone else. I don’t believe in this multiple screen name stuff. Sure, it would be easy enough create a new e-mail address and get a new screen name, but that’s not me. I own what I say, and don’t feel the need to have multiple screen names to screw with people.
April 13th, 2012 at 11:14 pm
And, what the fuck is Chow Hound? I have NEVER been on that. Outside of here the only food site I have posted anything on is Urbanspoon.
April 13th, 2012 at 11:15 pm
Sorry Mopey, we don’t give a flying rats ass what your friends say. They eat at Old Chicago with you and tell you it’s great.
The Chow Hound thing was an inside joke from a recent thread.
April 13th, 2012 at 11:32 pm
Congrats to Greg on comment #400!
April 13th, 2012 at 11:34 pm
It’s all good Bill.
My friends are my friends, and no disrespect to you or anyone here, but my friends opinions mean a lot more to me then yours do. I couldn’t give a flying rats ass about what you or any of your minions think. You all aren’t my friends so I couldn’t care less what you think. Your just people behind a computer screen and nothing more.
April 13th, 2012 at 11:41 pm
Damn. I remember when people had intelligent, rational discussions around here. Now it’s just a bunch of meaningless back-and-forth shit. “I don’t care about your friends,” and, “Who cares what your minions think,” and, “you’re a lazy American,” and blah blah blah…
A few people need to get over themselves and lighten the fuck up. I can’t be the only one who’s tired of this nonsense.
April 13th, 2012 at 11:58 pm
Mopey, listen up douchebag…
You come into a community which has been around for 7 years and spans THOUSANDS of unique commenters and hundreds of thousands of viewers and you tell us that Old Chicago has the best burger and admit you refuse to drive more than 5 miles from your home to eat.
Now, I have reviewed something like 200+ restaurants on this site and eaten at thousands more all over the country. While your opinion is just as valid as mine, for you to come here and tell me that you won’t take my opinion over your friends’ because I have a group of minions behind a computer screen is the most asinine and ridiculous fucking thing anyone has ever said on this site (and believe me dumbass, that puts you at the top of some serious competition).
While I was happy to have you here because you add to the comment count, mostly because lefty loves to push your buttons and make jokes at your expense, much to the enjoyment of many others on this site, including myself, I’m tired of your horseshit.
Your time is here is done. We’ll all miss your insightful commentary and excellent suggestions on where we should eat.
R.I.P. Mopey: 2/11/2012 – 4/13/2012
April 14th, 2012 at 12:07 am
FWIW, I don’t think banning Mopey is the answer. Others contributed to this mess as much as or more than Mopey. My comment wasn’t intended only for Mopey.
April 14th, 2012 at 9:26 am
Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
April 14th, 2012 at 1:06 pm
I thought Mopey added some good laughs here – I’ll miss lefty’s foil. (Besides, sometimes he makes me look intelligent – I hate being the lowest common denominator!) ;-)
April 15th, 2012 at 7:02 am
[...] week’s poll asked home improvement and whether you did it yourself or hired someone to do it for you. Most people offered some great [...]
April 15th, 2012 at 10:19 am
I generally wouldn’t support banning a person that isn’t astroturfing or otherwise trying to intentionally undermine Bill’s site.
But I can totally understand getting rid of this guy. Sure, his human-version-of-Eeyore persona and incredibly low standards of life are good for an occasional laugh, but…..
Joey, I know where you’re coming from…after quickly realizing what this guy was about, I stopped talking to him/about him. I ignored him, hoping he would go away, which thankfully he did for a while.
The thing is, Bill puts a hell of a lot of money and time into this site. And for what?
We can’t forget that beyond the jokes and everything else, this site is Bill’s place to help improve the place he lives — through a community of posters, but also building up unique business options and making people more aware of what’s going on around us (e.g. government).
Post #39 isn’t just a shot at us, it’s a classless slap in Bill’s face too.
This guy has nothing useful to say/add and when asked why he’s even here, he avoids answering, insults us, and makes another post talking about himself, about his purchasing habits, and his mundane lifestyle/tastes.
I would ban him from my blog comments too (although it would have happened a long time ago and without any discussion).
April 15th, 2012 at 11:44 pm
Where is Mrs Marcos when you need her??
April 16th, 2012 at 9:31 am
I’m here. :)
April 16th, 2012 at 4:39 pm
Mrs Marcos, thank you!! The brevity of your levity was phenomenal. It was just what I needed………………..Please update your blog you appear to be on another long break.:)
April 16th, 2012 at 6:23 pm
Mrs. Marcos, I miss you.
April 17th, 2012 at 8:39 am
Will,
Blog was updated yesterday!
dm,
I miss you too :)
Also…still trying to figure out if I should be honored or insulted that my name came up during a rant session about a troll. Hmmm?! ;)
April 17th, 2012 at 10:10 am
Please be honored……. it’s always nice to see a ray of sunshine on a cloudy day
April 17th, 2012 at 12:40 pm
Lefty: I would hardly classify Mopey as a scholar, but what else could you have possibly meant?
April 17th, 2012 at 1:28 pm
sui generis,
I was being sarcastic when I called him a scholar.
lefty