Day 81-82

This has not been a good week as far as feeling good about the project and that our contractor is on top of things. First off, when I found out we were having a site inspection the first thing I said to Brad was, “Why would they have the inspection when we don’t even have the support pole in the garage bays yet?” Currently there’s a temporary wooden support in place of the permanent metal pole the structural engineer put in his plans (last June). David had told us the pole had been ordered after the slab had been poured (last July). Lo and behold, yesterday I got an e-mail from David with an attachment for the pole receipt (placed the same day!). Therefore, the pole was not ordered in July and he wasn’t honest with me when I asked him about the pole several times in the past. He kept telling me it had been ordered.

Note the temporary wooden support pole on the left side in the photo. The photo's from August 24, but the pole has been in place a lot longer than that.

Lately I’ve been asking him about the garage doors (where are they, what happened to the two-week timeframe it was supposed to take to make them). He simply replies with, “We don’t want them here yet. We’re not ready for them.” And then I double-check to make sure they were ordered and he says they were. From my point-of-view the garage doors can go in anytime. The openings are framed and trimmed, the electrical wiring has been put in place, and the plumbing has been put in place. I don’t think you need siding on the garage before the doors are put in.

Here’s yet another good David-the-contractor story. Lazaro and Arturo showed up after not seeing them for over a week. They got started on putting in the windows in the garage bay and found out the windows are too small for the openings they made. David suggested to Brad that it was our fault—that we changed the window size on him. And here’s the thing: David had us change the window size. This is taken from an e-mail dated May 20 (note that he always writes in all caps for some reason):

YOU WILL NEED TO MODIFY YOUR FIRST STORY WINDOW PLACEMENT TO ACCOMMODATE THIS. THE STUDS AND PLATES OF THE FIRST STORY WALLS WILL NEED TO BE 2"X6" AND NOT 2"X4" BECAUSE OF THE SECOND STORY. THE COLUMNS CAN BE BUILT DIRECTLY INTO THE WALLS AND SHOULD BE FOUR 2"X6" STUDS NAILED ONE TO ANOTHER. YOU CAN DESIGN THIS INTO YOUR NORTH FACING FIRST STORY WINDOW WALL

My opinion is that David didn’t convey this to Lazaro and so they used the original window sizes. He also has the order form with all of the window sizes, so he should have given that to Lazaro. I really don’t see how it’s our job to notify Lazaro of the change. What I need to do is make sure David covers the cost of the time it takes Lazaro and Arturo to make the windows fit. I don’t feel we should have to pay for that.