Boy can I identify with you....just completed an addition that is a bathroom for our master suite. You are soooo right. I can't tell you how many times I said "I want X" and the reply was "Well, you think you want X, but I can tell you from experience, you don't really want X, here's what I'm going to do, you will like it, trust me". I want to scream!

The electricians and plumbers are the worst. I probably would say I have 80% of what I wanted, but it's not fun working with these guys.

And my pet peeve is when a sub comes to do work and RUSHES because I am only one of several jobs on his list for the day! I have some REALLY screwed up plumbing....it's too bad that we have to use the subs that the GC provides......

Thanks for letting me vent too.

One possible reason for the screw-ups is that you are talking to the contractor about brand names and versions instead of having a printed list with the information.

If they have a parts list it's harder for them to get screwed up.

Their favorite comebacks: "no one else does it this way", "we never do it that way", "we quit doing it that way years ago'. Your response: "that is beside the point, this is my house and I want it this way". Don't budge from your position. Keep good notes with names and dates.
I had four really great guys who were accustomed to doing it the way that the (retired) father of two of them had taught them. But they willing tried it my way and even made favorable remarks about it.

Another: "the floor is lifted in one area". comeback: "1/4 inch difference is within industry standards"

I had someone else tell me that their architect drew up a house plan that was oversize for city requirements and could not get permits. comback: "we just started with your dream house" --what a let down.

yeah, i've had my share of jerky contractors. i finally found a guy who can do it all and he is trustworthy, honest and a hard worker. the other guy/company I had (as if he thought I was deaf) said to one of his workers , just do it the cheapest way possible, these f-in homeowners don't know anything.... another one, we were taking out a powder room to open up the back of the house.... when he found a pipe in one of the walls that we wanted to take out, he said oh no that will cost more money, you can't do that... well wouldn't you know it was on the original contract that he would take down that wall... he still insisted it couldn't be done...well we found someone else and he moved the pipe back into a connecting wall, and voila he was done in less than 4 hours. us dumb homeowners aren't so dumb...

As much as I enjoyed writing my little screed in the OP, I do want to say that our GC is always helpful in resolving these problems. I've never done such a huge remodel before, and I find it puzzling that there have been so many errors. We tried to provide all the right information up front; sometimes we didn't get it all down in writing and we've had to go back and review things with the builders. But just as often we've had things in our plans that they just missed.

I took an opportunity on Friday to talk to one of the GC partners about their error rate on our job. He didn't think our project was so unusual for their company, but he did talk a lot about this vent fan issue and admitted that there were three opportunities for them to get it right and they missed each one.

After that conversation I went back into the house with my dad and showed him our progress. Then I noticed that the HVAC sub had put an A/C vent outlet in the wrong place. After we'd asked for 3 weeks for him to put it in, showed the project manager WHERE to put it, given him a drawing of the new closets they were building there - still it is in the wrong place.

sigh. Another conversation for Monday morning.

> you are talking to the contractor about brand names and versions instead of having a printed list with the information.
> If they have a parts list it's harder for them to get screwed up.

Good suggestion. What I do is go to the product website. Most have a spec sheet as a PDF. I print that and give it to them with my name and job specs (e.g. powder rm). If no spec sheet then I print the web page.

So far it has worked well for me. If even that failed to work I would print 2 copies and have them sign one that I kept.

I usually also print them the install instrux and will highlight anything I see as a possible issue. many times the instrux are for multiple models, I will cross out the ones that do not apply, highlight the ones that do.

Not sure it qualifies for the category, but, after a few years of living in their brand new home, some friends noticed that a slider to the outside deck no longer opened fully. The whole unit had shifted an inch off plumb. Decided to DIY replace it with french doors. While taking out the old slider frame, they discovered the door had been shimmed with a thick stack of the GC's business cards, which had gotten wet and deteriorated.

This is the same house that, very shortly after moving in, they discovered (the hard way) a toilet hooked up to a hot water supply line.

OMG, that is a great story.

LOL. I don't know which is worse, the business cards or the leaking. My buddy, after several years, discovered that the plumber hooked up his ice maker to the hot.

oh lord, that's amazing about the business cards.
our gem was when we came and looked at all of our new windows installed with a full inch gap at the top of all nine windows. when asked what happened, we were told that because it had been raining so much the wood had shrunk.
uh-huh....
this was the same guy who told me i didn't need footings because the ground hardly ever froze in this part of vermont.
we got rid of that moron asap after the window incident.

I can identify with the AC vent in the wrong place. I stayed home every day to be certain things were done right. The one day I went out to pick up a pizza for the crew, the HVAC sub had cut a hole in the floor for the heating duct in the DOORWAY. This after we had drawn pictures on the floor in magic marker. When questioned he said he never saw the pictures. To his defense came one of the carpenters who told me that he was right, they had piled plywood against the wall and it covered the drawings in the floor.

OK.....so I tell the HVAC guy he can't put it there and that I'm not going to walk over the floor vent to get to the toilet and he still says "why not, I don't think that's the wrong place for the vent". UGH! It took 2 days, but I got it where I wanted it.

I knew that if it wasn't where I wanted it that I would have ended up putting a rug over it so I wouldn't have to step on it and that was defeating the purpose. WHY! do I have to go through this to begin with? Rhetorical....no need to reply. :)