Dust is to be expected. This isn't anything you're gonna win on and all you're gonna do is make yourself angrier. Let it go. Sounds like you need to either have a "come to Jesus meeting" with your contractor about a laundry list.....or let all of that go too. No use in making yourself sick fretting about things that you can't do anything about. But, the things that you CAN do something about---DO.

Honestly, I'd let this one go if I were you.....and trust me I know where you are coming from since our carpenter was horrible and our GC refused to fire the guy for 2 months.

We finally fired him and had to have some of his work redone, including parts of the staircase. We feel the carpenter owes us at least $2,500 for the things we had to repair but there is really no use in dragging out this lengthy process any longer. He was paid in full and suing him would only cost us time & money. Our build too has taken 6 months longer than estimated by the GC.

I was wondering what kind of a "horrific mess" this sub made. Are you kidding, DUST? OMG, why don't you just clean it up yourself? And next time, buy an existing home. You really aren't cut out for building, IMHO.

For most trades it's beneficial to them as well as you to stay as close to the work area as possible to save some steps and keep the project at hand and rolling smooth. Sometimes it can be taken outdoors or in a garage area but for the most part, there are elements that require it to be done in place. This means dusts and debris. A good tradesperson will do a quick,daily clean up getting set up for the next day and at the end of the project, do a respectfully decent clean up of the area concerned. It's common courtesy for the client as well as the trades coming in behind them and shows professionalism. You have to expect a certain amount of mess and not all trades people are going to show respect by picking up after them selves. It's the nature of the beast. You should focus your efforts on working things out with your builder "friend" and not sweat the small stuff such as cleaning up after a sloppy sub. I have a friend who did the most clean finish carpentry work i've seen as far as tight joints,clean cuts, right on detailing, but was the biggest slob as far as cleaning up after himself. Finish carpenters are typically clean, organized trades people, but as in my friends case, not always. Your concern should really dial in on the workmanship of the stairs as that is what you will be living with. The dust will get cleaned up one way or another and is a miniscule concern, imho.

Ok. I am not some crybaby complaining over some 'dust'. I know building is messy. But what he did is way beyond messy! It is so bad, my two-story ceiling has a pink tint to it because of the Lyptus wood! There is a layer of pink sawdust inside of everything, including the can lights in the two-story living room. In every nook and cranny through the whole house. The areas that he did the actual sawing in are the worst of course. There is a thick layer of sawdust on the walls and ceiling, in every light switch, can light etc. He even left a sawdust pile in the house that was 2 feet high and about 8 feet in diameter. I have been told by other contractors that he should of had a vacuum on the saw, then he wouldn't of left such a mess.

But right now I have bigger problems. Our air condenser line has been leaking in the wall. Our wood floors were just installed and they are now flooded. We had an engineer come and check the damage. We have mold in our walls. One side of our house will probably have to be replaced.

It isn't that I can't handle building a home. Just $hit like this has happened over and over. My builder will be sued. And no, I am not trigger happy at suing. Never done it before in my life. Never threatened it before in my life. Building this house has just been that horrible!

Did you paint before the stairs were installed?

Yes, the walls were painted.

Isn't that unusual?

Is what unusual? The painting? I don't know. The walls were immediately painted after the sheetrock and trim was put in. The finished wood for the staircase was done later.

I think that painters like to go last and floor refinishers also like to go last (in reno projects) because neither tradesman want to have to be the neat one.

I don't *think* that building a staircase would generate more sawdust than sanding the finish off of an entire house full of old hardwood floors. But people do that all the time, often AFTER painting. SO I'm wondering how you ended up with so much dust. The only thing I can think of is that the staircase guy has never gone after the painters before. I think it's odd that your house was painted before the staircase was in. Doesn't the staircase touch walls? Didn't that mess up the paint?

Either way, I don't think you should go after him. Maybe someone dropped the ball, but you don't have a convincing complaint. Especially since I doubt the problem shows up well in photos.

it sounds to me like someone messed up the timing of your jobs. Stair finishing should be way late in the process but building them should be before paint. The stair builder can't help about the mess, cutting wood is messy, sanding is messy, etc. if your happy with the staircase overall consider yourself lucky, you'd be amazed at the number of jack legs that consider themselves stairbuilders. There are carpenters, finish carpenters, and then there are stairbuilders, and of course some can do all, but most cannot.

Unfortunately, it looks like I had a jack leg build my stairs.

Every cut with a saw reduces all the wood in the kerf (about 1/8 inch wide) into dust.
Stairs take a LOT of cuts, and then you have to deal with the carriages.
If the treads and risers are housed in the carriages the grooves cut are wider than the boards and goat least 5/8 in into the carriages. All that wood is turned in to dust.

Was the HVAC on?
That will send dust all over the house, and also can clog up the AC evaporator if it gets past the filter on the return.

Unless your contract called for the stair builder to clean up, anything more than a quick sweep and maybe a vacuum are all you are likely to get.

Even if you win in small claims you still have to get the money out of him.

Balance the time and effort of going to court with the amount of work to clean up.

Who picked the Lyptus wood?

How did he apply a finish in such a dusty environment?