Hiring Workers

Although Mr. Remodel had the ability to do most of the work himself, he wanted to hire others to do some of the major projects. Sometimes it was necessary because some jobs needed two or more people to work on it at once. Although I was not always otherwise engaged, some of the work was simply too hard (because heavy lifting was involved) for someone of my size.

Another issue was time. It would take Mr. R longer to do some of these jobs because he, unlike the professionals, wasn’t doing it everyday. Add all the extra time together, because there was so much to be done, and it was going to add more weeks and months to the remodel. Then there is Mr. R’s profound aversion to doing anything related to plumbing.
We needed to find a balance because, although professional cost, doing it yourself costs in time off from work, less free time, loss of sanity, loss of patience.

We decided on general construction work help, which came in the form of Mr. Fix-It and his helpers. Because Mr. Fix-It is a friend, it was an easy choice for us. But it’s not a given. You can lose friends from doing business with them. Mr. Remodel is more of a perfectionist than Mr. Fix-It (which has its good and bad sides) so there were differences of opinion at times and there had to be some give and take. Mr. Fix-It is very easy-going which also helped. Generally it is working well. But hiring friends has its risks.
In our case we hired Mr. Fix-It at an hourly rate since he could not commit his or his helpers time exclusively for the time of the project and because Mr. R was one of the workers as well as the supervisor (owner/contractor) and carried on with the job when Mr. F was elsewhere. But for the plumbing and tile work we were looking for them to do all the work on a ‘fixed-price’ bid.
For both our plumber and tile man we asked for recommendations. We got Mr. Plumber through Mr. Fix-It and Mr. Tile through Mr. Flooring we didn’t use. Mr. Plumber seemed to know what he was talking about so we decided not to look elsewhere. We spoke to three Mr. Tile men and chose one from them. He wasn’t actually the cheapest but we thought he understood what we wanted and he dropped his price a bit.
We have ended up being generally happy with the people we chose but we did make some mistakes.

When you interview workmen you have to be clear that the bid you receive coincides with what was discussed. You have to remember that these sub-contractors can be working on multiple bids and jobs and they mix up details or forget things (like the rest of us). We didn’t check the bids properly to see that all the work that was agreed was included. We just presumed it was all on there though we had looked at it. So the price ended up being more expensive. Not that this was unreasonable because the original didn’t include everything. But you get a price in your head so it is a shock when you have to pay an extra $400 or $500, which you hadn’t realised. We aren’t stupid people but there are times when we just get overwhelmed by all the things that need to be done at once. It’s like juggling, trying to keep all the balls in the air and failing because there are just too many balls.

You also have to be prepared for additional expenses because some aspect of the job turned out to be more difficult or because you need unanticipated materials. This was the same whether it was a project we worked on or on a ‘fixed-price’ bid. For example Mr. R and Mr. Fix-It estimated a certain number of two by fours needed to frame the new walls. They were off by more than double. There were weeks when Mr. R seemed to be off to the builder’s yard every other day for more, and more, and more two by fours. Even if you hire a contractor or sub-contractor with what you think is a fixed price, something will come up that needs extra time and materials. The contractor my absorb some of this but they will not pay for something he or you didn’t know was there before the job started and that couldn’t be known until walls, floors, or whatever are taken out. There are usually surprises because you often have to deal with something non-kosher that the original builder or a prior homeowner might have got away with. The walls are never as straight, the floors not as level, the corners not as square etc. etc. as you thought they were or should be.

The truth is that home projects always cost more than you expect and they always take longer which also has a cost effect. You have to build that into the budget. This is why people run out of money before they run out of project.