Tis Almost the Season

[ChrWright]

The holidays are nearly upon us. For residential construction, and especially remodeling, that often means deadlines, parties, and stressed clients.

What are you doing to keep folks happy for the holidays?

Over the years I've developed a love/hate thing for this time of year. I have a lot of great memories from my childhood. But I also have some painful ones of past holiday projects that made my life less than magical. It's caused me to be very very careful with scheduling and commitments this time of year.

I'm sure there are many here with holiday memories of late nights and weekends, spent away from our own families, making sure our clients would have a holly jolly Thanksgiving/Christmas/Hanukkah/New Years.

Let's hear your worst holiday experience in construction. We'll have a forum vote for the best and the winner gets a prize. (Don't worry, it won't be a fruit cake :laugh3:)

http://yinvsyang.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/grinch.jpg

[shanekw1]

Last year I finished a mud room addition on Dec. 20 (my birthday) and collected my final 4500 check. It was canceled on Dec. 24.

Merry not so much X-mas.

[Bodger]

I really don't have a story to tell on this one. I've always made it clear to everyone that there aren't any arbitrary deadlines in construction, and in most cases, allotted times go longer due to unexpected delays.

Many have tried to hire me for a remodel on October 10th and expect to be able to assign their own completion date of November 20th.

I never bit on that. If people want a holly jolly holiday season, let them learn to plan more realistically and listen to the professional they've hired when he tells them their time frame isn't feasible.

I've also noticed the payment checks have a habit of slowing down around the holidays. "Can we pay you mid-January?" come up a lot of I recall.

Sure, keep my paycheck in your pocket along with the extra grand I laid out for materials. I'll eat rice and beans to make your life more perfect.

Bah! Humbug! and NO SOUP FOR YOU!

[Blue]

November has traditionaly been the busiest month of the year for us. Usually a job will last past Dec 25 and when it does we wrap up couple days before and stay off site for several days so we have never had any issues.

Its more about the subs and workers than the customer if I was to be honest. These guys don't want to show up and I don't want to be the guy twisting their arm. Plus this around the time we are not bidding or searching for new work because the winter has moved in. I have found its better just to shut down completely for Jan/Feb, so no hurries to finish.

[bconley]

Sorry no stories:
This always seems to be my busiest time of year, and its shaping up to be again this year.
Signed a kitchen+(sand and refinish of all floors and new millwork and painting throughout) last night that will begin 10/25 and have two whole house remodels to fill out the rest of the winter.
All 3 customers have said the holidays will not have any effect on the schedules, all are going away on vacation or to be with family and it will be the best time for them to have the work done.

[Leo G]

Yep, you want me to finish by when Bwa ha ha hahaha.

!st it starts out with the Thanksgiving crowd. I have one of them right now. She wants me to finish it by Nov 25th. But the design isn't set in stone and neither is the color of the finish. They like to make the last minute decisions and expect you to work weekends and 20 hours days to get their project done to their schedule almost never thinking that you may have other jobs in the works.

My standard line is I'm only one guy, I can only do so much in a day. It doesn't take much to throw a monkey wrench into the works to slow things down. And that is only on my end.

The kitchen job I just signed has already had 3 changes in it because of things found behind the walls. I am expected to solve these problems even though they are not my problems.

Merry humbug

And yes, my favorite is can you hold onto this check so my family can have a Merry Christmas and you can tell your kids there is no money for gifts. Nice.

I guilted a client into paying me what was due to me on time by telling them my kids Christmas was now ruined because you are holding back my $15K check. Funny how they had the money all of a sudden when they were broke just minutes ago. Cashed that check 2 minutes down the road.

[kevjob]

Got a referral about 4 years ago from a basement client. Lady was super duper nutso, all over the map with colors etc...

Start in middle of October no problem, moved along while she is dragging her feet about cabinets etc.... I go thru all my inspections, tile painting etc... Now its the 2nd week in november she comes to me and says she see through the paint on the walls, I go by with halogen light, nope cant see through the paint, then she replies thats not the color I chose, i had documented all choices and had her sign off on color, samples etc... I told her 300 to repaint a bathroom with 1 color on walls, 1 on ceiling, trim color etc....

Nope thats too much hires a neighbor loser for 40.00, can see brush marks, cut line is far from straight.

Cabs come in wrong cause she wanted to save my markup and oder them herself. She then tells me they will be out of town at Thanksgiving, I say so will everyone else. She says you not going to come by on Thanksgiving to set the cabinets? oh and BTW you will have to make 3 extra trips cause she messed up the med cab, forgot the filler, told her I would come by after the break when all materials are on site. Nope not good enough for her, told her forget it, took the permit, informed building dept and sent her a termination letter. Some people just don't get that we have lives, kids too.

Same lady tried to build a deck with no permits in a city here that actually enforces code violations, they made her pull all decking, verify flashing, footers, ledger etc... She kept complaining about it the whole time I finally said just follow the rules, easy and simple....

only job i have walked away from....

[Blue]

I thik Kevin has the lead!

Until reading this I was unaware that you could just "walk off" of a job by informing the code office. I would have probably done this more than once if I wasn't scared of what would happen to my rating and license. Good to kow for future nut jobs though.

[ModernStyle]

I was working as a sub for another painter, I had let him get behind on paying me, it had happened before and he always caught me up.
It was about a week before Christmas, he owed me around $5000, he then comes to me and ask can we forget what he owes me and just start fresh ......
I hadnt bought anything for my wife or son for Christmas yet, was planning on blowing everything he owed me on them.
So I tried to hit him with a claw hammer, I was restrained by 3 other painters and the amish carpenter.
I sold some tools and came up with money to buy gifts for my family, and sued him and eventually got my money. It was a major hassle, had to go to the HO and get a paper signed saying that I had worked on the house, both the guy I was subbing for and the builder were trying to say I had never set foot on the jobsite, even though I had done 90% of the house by myself.
The HO was actually a great guy and offered to loan me money for the holidays, but I declined, I didnt want to cause him any more hassle then I already had.
Christmas 2002 wasnt my best holiday season, but I am still here and both the builder and the painter I subbed for have gone under, so I win.

[kevjob]

I thik Kevin has the lead!

Until reading this I was unaware that you could just "walk off" of a job by informing the code office. I would have probably done this more than once if I wasn't scared of what would happen to my rating and license. Good to kow for future nut jobs though.

little more to it than that Blue, she threatend to use a un-licensed plumber to hook up sink faucet etc... Thats when I went to building dept and explained why I wanted cancel my permit as I wont allow anyone ever to work under my permit. They know of her already and wasn't a problem I also left 1k on the table and well worth it as I had about 1k left to do.

[ChrWright]

Bump........

[DavidC]

OK, Back in the early days it was just my brother and I doing mainly roofs. Not much of a clue about running a business, just knew if we did the work we expected to get paid. Very much hand to mouth those days, sometimes only hand to chin.

We had a simple enough reroof to do but were delayed several times with snow storms. We managed to finally finish on xmas eve morning. Cleaned up the site and hauled all of our equipment out and stopped by the clients work to pick up the final check.

She was expecting us and cheerfully paid. We raced to the bank just in time to cash the check and started shopping at a full run before the stores closed. That was the xmas that almost wasn't.

Good Luck
Dave