Contractor horror stories

Horror stories. Everyone has heard one, and they are one of the main reasons many people are reluctant to undertake a remodel or new housing project. Building is a complicated, expensive and emotional undertaking and for some people the risk of encountering a problem is too high.

But for others, the challenge and excitement of creating something completely new and unique is irresistible. Designing and building a new home or remodeling the one you are in can be a very rewarding experience, if you’ve done your homework and prepared for the possibility that everything may not always go exactly as planned … as in these two true stories. :

Carved in stone (No)

Chuck and Jim opened the back doors of Chuck’s truck and carefully pulled out the new polished granite countertop. They parked the van in the driveway at the back of their client’s house, lined up with the kitchen door so the counter could enter directly. Large stone countertops are brittle, but this one was especially so because of the holes that had been pre-cut to allow the sink and stove to be dropped later. Inside, Chuck and Jim stood by the cabinets where the countertop would be installed and began to slowly rotate it into place.

Jim heard it first: a soft “pop”, just before the countertop cracked on either side of the sink opening. Heavy chunks of stone slipped from his hands and landed with a double thud on the kitchen floor.

The client was watching when the disaster struck, and the sound she made was nothing like a pop, a click, or a thud; it was more like a gasp. This was too much to bear. It was the third time Chuck and Jim had broken the kitchen counter.

Too good to be true

Jim and Tracy desperately wanted to build their new home in Cherrington Woods and couldn’t believe their luck when they discovered that the last lot in the subdivision was still for sale. Lot 43 was at a dead end and was backing up into a ravine. The price was reasonable, even cheap for the area, and since the rest of the lots on the street had already been built, Jim and Tracy wouldn’t have to put up with anyone else’s construction disaster once they had moved in.

After closing, Jim called the Architect that his real estate agent had recommended and arranged a first meeting. Among the issues discussed was the need to conduct a subsurface investigation of the site, to try to discover any conditions that might require special foundation engineering. But since it was the last lot in the subdivision and no soil problems had been found in the adjacent lots, the probability that the soil or rocks were bad was low. Jim decided not to spend the money on the soil tests.

Which was unfortunate, because a soil test would not have found bad soil; I would have found very little land. What he would have found are tree stumps, old fence posts, driftwood, and other construction debris at a depth that exceeded Jim and Tracy’s planned foundation depth. When Cherrington Woods was being developed, the excavator had used the lot as a garbage pit. Much of what had been cleared from the top of the subdivision during grading had been pushed into the area later known as Lot 43 and then buried under five feet of earth.

In the end, the base had to be dug six feet deeper than planned to reach stable ground. Jim and Tracy ended up with a big hole in their checking account and a nice racquetball court in the basement.

Hold on till the end

When something goes wrong in a construction project, it may be the fault of one of the parties involved in the project, or it may be one of those things that no one seems to be able to predict. Either way, the goal is to get the project back on track and get it up and running as soon as possible.

Some problems should be taken in stride. In the vast majority of cases, the joy and satisfaction of a fresh new living space soon fade the memory of any problems during construction.