I'd let it slide, personally.

The vehicle issue--let it slide.
But you can't let the porch project's pace slide. I know you did not ask us for our opinion on that. But...

If he gets this "underbid" contract, how much more of a delay do you think it will be? If that contract is not for a friend or relative, you can be sure he will focus on that and then come back to you "when he has a chance."
I would sit down with him and find a way to get him to realize that you need to set a date for completion. Tell him you want to be able to use the porch SOMETIME before summer ends! And bluntly that you are nearing the top of your budget for him. (Also, I'd be out there like white on rice when I saw him carrying a ladder near the Trex and tell him to pick the darn thing up--he is ruining it (that itself makes me wonder how good a contractor he is--how he treats other people's personal property is important).

I'd probably mention it, but wouldn't ask him to compensate for it. I'd use that as a segue (not sure how to spell seg-way) into the fact that the porch is costing double or more what you'd budgeted and you need it done ASAP.

I'd definitely be assertive about the deck, tho. You can do it in a gentle manner...not coming across as a rabid crazy woman, but let him know it's a big deal.

I'd let the car slide. You should have moved it yourself if you were worried about it (I know it's heavy and a pain and all...but you did take a risk packing it that way so I'm going to say it's half your fault). (Shoot me later?)...But as to the deck. I'd discuss that with him immediately. Tell him that you're out of cash. You can't afford any more and remind him what the original bid was. If he's a good kid, he'll finish it and not bill you, if he's a putz, it's good to know that now.

The sad thing about contractors is that everyone out of work who's ever painted a wall or hammered a nail thinks they're a contractor. He either underbid the job, or he didn't have a clue what he was doing, or he's milking you for cash....either way, given the things you've said about his work, he's not a professional contractor. I'd chalk this up to my mistake in hiring him, and for the sake of family sanity and neighborly love I'd leave it at that.

I also wouldn't mention the sunroof trim since it's minimal, he probably will deny doing it.

I sympathize with your dilemma, he's not a bargain after all.

Add me to the list of 'don't mention the sunroof' gang. And you do need to hammer out the details on the deck now before it gets to the point were you jeopardize your relationship and the possible complication of the project. I would definitely show him how the ladder is scratching the Trex- it's not like a wood deck that you could sand out the scratches.

I would not make an issue of the damage. Sounds as tho he is trying to do you a favor. While I understand your frustration, jobs do tend to go over budget. Our reno was costed at about 35k and ended up at 60k. No plumbing (well just a laundry hookup from an existing plumbed wall), only framing, foyer, office and laundry room.

I have the Trex too and it did take a bit of a beating during construction and I had to replace some boards. If it had been a family member or friend, I would not have ever made an issue of it. Family/friend harmony is much more important to me than some Trex decking.

Have an honest talk with him about your expectations. If he can't meet them, hire someone who will. I think you are going to find that you may, in fact, be getting a bargain all things considered.

I agree that I would blow it off. Not worth mentioning.

As far as going over budget; with our last house, everything we did was like a new can of worms. No matter who you hired; they would run into the same issues but you'd get charged more.

As far as the deck, I would address that nicely. Whether you ask him if there is something better you can put down so that it doesn't get scratched, or find another way to bring it up.

I wouldn't say anything about the car.

I would mention your concern about the deck surface getting damaged.

And I would ask when you could expect the work be completed as you're running out of time and money.

I wouldn't say anything about the car but would ask him nicely to be more careful with the ladder. I'd also let him know that he's already way over budget on what he quoted for the deck and it needs to be finished asap. Just let him know when it comes to him working hourly, you've hit your max.

I gotta agree with Igloo - the damage to your car is partially your fault for putting the vinyl through the sunroof in the first place. My DH would've had a conniption fit if I had done that with my car.

Hiring friends and family is NEVER a bargain. Walking on egg shells can be very costly to your peace-of-mind.

As far as the porch project goes, sit down and talk to him for a time and money update, but I'd be concerned about the quality of work he will deliver if you ask him to finish asap and that money has run out for that project.

I would not be concerned about saying that and drawing a line. If he quoted 400-500 for the job and your now at 1000, that's an issue that needs to be addressed and I'd have no problem saying, I'm not made of money, the job needs to get done, no more hourly, quote me as to how much will it take to finish it.

But, a quote is only a quote. She got a quote at the start, and clearly a quote is not worth the breath it was spoken in (who knew what lurked beneath the porch! LOL!).
How brave would you be to ask him to draw up a written contract now, tho, ajsmama?

I agree that a quote is an estimate. You can't change the amount of work that is required to get a job done well or to meet a certain standard and really can't expect him to work for nothing or for very little. A compensatory lower wage would be expected for a lack of experience or skill level. That can play out in the time and/or quality of the product. Hopefully you got a number of estimates at the outset for a good idea of an experienced professional's estimation of what will unfold. And hopefully you are satisfied with the quality of work he's been doing on the porch itself at this point (if not, call it a day and just move on.)

For him to finish faster (providing he's not intentionally working slowly to make up for the low bid), he will have to shortcut/compensate with the materials or process or not spend as much time on workmanship and details. Or all of the above. Faster is not better except when the process is refined and mastered to meet quality standards. The project simply requires a certain amount of time, effort, and quality of materials. Asking him to finish asap and stop spending money will require some sort of adjustment. His skill level is static.

I'm wondering what he is getting in exchange for working at half-pay or if this wage was set relative to his experience? I would start by finding out where things stand in his mind and ask him why it's costing more than anticipated.

Some contractors do intentionally bid low just to get the job, knowing they will either charge more in the end or plan on short-cuts of some sort to bring it in cheaply but at their own desired hourly rate for the project.

Is your cousin's DH a contractor or a carpenter? We've hired people who have gone over budget in the past but we have an old house and realize everything we do here is going to be a can of worms. There is no way to know how much work is to be done until you get into the job. Is he working hard? How many hours has he put in? How much money per hour do you think he is averaging?

RE: Sliding his ladder verses picking it up, causing damage to your decking. This just seems lazy and inconsiderate. Did you point out the damage? Did you ask him to pick up his ladder verses sliding it?

I'd ask him where things stand in his mind and ask how much more $$ he thinks it is going to cost (like others said).

I agree with Igloo that the damage to your car was partially your fault. I would have had a piece of cardboard handy and made sure he knew you intended to hold it in place while he pulled the vinyl out of my car so it wouldn't saw up the interior. (How you held that bundle up for 25 miles is beyond my imagination. Driving with one hand is dangerous.)

That's funny, I didn't hear any mention of things gone wrong to add onto the costs? Did I miss something? And if a quote isn't worth the paper it's written on, what good is it? We've had over 15,000 in work done on our home in the past year and I've held my contractor and any other people who have worked for us to their quote and didn't think twice about doing it. I still say, if he quoted you 4-500 to do the job then that's what it should have cost. If he underbid it, then that's his responsibility. (And that is what I've also be told by our contractor so it's not unreasonable)

I agree with others that I would let the car damage go. However, you mentioned that you are paying him in cash? Does this mean this income is off-the-books and he won't claim it on income taxes? If so, that says to me that he is an unethical person and that what you are actually paying him is worth more than it would be if he was claiming it as legitimate income and paying taxes on it.

I hope you don't take offense at my comments, as I am sure people do this sort of thing all the time. I just wonder if something goes wrong, what recourse if any will you have? Do you get receipts for what you pay him and what it is for? Does he carry liability insurance? What if he got hurt on your property and sued you? I would check all of this out before I let him do any more work for me.

He's a carpenter, yes he wanted cash but that's b/t him and the IRS. I hadn't thought about liability. DH has been helping him with the high work, so CIL only gets on the step ladder on the deck that he keeps dragging around (but the damage is done, only a couple of bad gouges that look like someone stepped on a dropped screw). Most are just light scratches but I don't like how he makes fun of me saying "oops, don't damage the deck!"

I just needed to vent b/c I'm tired of the men in this family doing the exact thing I've asked/told them *not* to, I told him not to drag stuff out the sunroof for fear of damaging something. I put it in w/o damage and I know if I had taken it out in reverse (perhaps with someone at the back end to support the end and help pull while I guided it out the roof and down b/t the seats) it would have been fine.

Anyway, he showed up 1.5 hrs later than promised today, told me the lady with the deck he demo'd had massive rot and he is going to have to charge her extra, he'd been going all day so I fed him and gave him a soda before he started - only worked 2 hours in terrible heat, didn't get much done, trying to figure out why his saw was blowing out material (bits of melted vinyl stuck to blade, he didn't clean it the other day), couldn't find his pencil, etc. I paid him everything I owed him tonight and didn't mention any damage after listening for 30 min about DW not paying bills so credit cut off, he has to buy materials for tomorrow's job using cash, his FIL (my uncle) is in terrible health and won't take care of himself (I don't think my dad knows his brother is that bad off)...so I was not going to bring up something like the sunroof. I did tell him as he keeps saying "time and money" that my DH is running out of patience and money, and I'd like to get the porch done and furniture back out b4 summer is over. He swears only another 5-6 hours if I finish the ceiling and he just cuts material for me.

I won't let him do any interior work - not the way he treated my Trex. And even his work isn't as meticulous as my cousin who was doing trim for me, so I will just wait til "John" is available again to finish trim (including the trim I now need at top of porch columns since we have a gap front and back - he had to cut material for underside of beam butted to columns, not notched, in order to have enough to finish the open end).

not 25 miles (it was only 10-11 miles, and I had my flashers on and kept pulling over to the shoulder to let people by). DH is still trying to decide what kind of pickup truck to buy - I've been using this vehicle to haul stuff (household goods to storage/moving and building materials) for over 3 yrs. Usually don't have stuff sticking out through the sunroof though. I won't go trade it in w/o DH b/c it's registered in both our names and I don't have any income so it's got to be a joint decision, not like the last car I bought.

The practice of underbidding and charging more later is just dishonest and essentially a scam. But often projects don't go as planned or unknowns arise. This Old House often demonstrates this with their live projects and the budget is adjusted to cover actual work, noting how close they came to budget at the end. I certainly feel the workmen should be paid for the job they do and want to pay them for their good, honest, hard work. After all, no one has a crystal ball. But a change in costs along the way should be discussed.

This is also why businesses often estimate high, say, 3x higher than their guesstimate in order to make sure they're covered without ado with the customer. The experienced ones have got their wiggle room built in. Sometimes estimates are built across projects or customers. I really don't like getting out of the auto shop in an hour but being billed a standard 3 hours designed to cover someone else's car that ended up coming in over the typical amount. Prices just keep going up to account for these things.

Good point about the liability. I don't know if it's true in all states but here if a worker gets injured and doesn't have Workmen's Comp, they can sue you.

I don't think he was scamming us, he really wanted to do us a favor. There were some extras (I had started to type a post but deleted it when he came b/c I was also writing that he hadn't shown up today as promised. There was about $180 for leveling the joists (he said he could tell before he ripped the old vinyl off but I thought it was just the vinyl), and after he pointed out that there *was* such a thing as inside corner and the builder used J channel instead, I checked out the back corner of the garage under the downspout, found the builder used his only piece there, so bought material and CIL spent a couple of hours pulling vinyl off the house and installing that, reinstalling vinyl, when he had only planned on pulling top couple feet of the garage to put the beam in. $20 here and there adds up, but there seemed to be a lot of "wasted" time too on his cell phone, getting ready each day, cleaning up (would have gone quicker if he had just worked 6-8 hr days instead of 3-5 hrs) and we did have a couple of cases of "measure once, cut twice" where at least the first cut was something he could recover from. Also a lot of "adjusting" after he got sections up, even after leveling the joists the carrying beam was sagging in the middle of the porch (he said due to sonotubes sinking) so to avoid the bowed appearance he had to lower the ends and not go strictly off measurements from the wooden beam. That was necessary, I wouldn't want to accentuate the problem, he's really trying to do a good job but he doesn't always think things out ahead of time, measure *everything* and draw it out like John does. John will even make prototypes or cardboard templates, etc (on the clock of course).

But even with all the unforseen things (he was telling me the other day why remodels start at $180/sf compared to $125 for new construction) I we really are running short on $ and patience, I just want to finish this up. I only mentioned the project overruns in the first post b/c while the "nominal" $100 damage "retainer" might seem like a big thing to them, he's also making more than twice what he expected off this project so maybe it wouldn't have been such a big deal? I was torn b/t wanting to make him take the consequences of his actions (esp. since I specially told him not to do what he did, to stop) and wanting to cut him a break b/c things are tough for them right now. Not to mention we have haying to do ;-)

Moot point now, since there is a lot more going on with that branch of the family than I knew, this is piddly stuff.

Oh, my. So not worth it with that one ;) Sounds like you're having to work as hard as he does on this except he doesn't have the emotional investment you do on top of it all. I had a carpenter like that around once. Half the price, twice the time. I think he had ADD or a substance problem ;) I could never tell what he had done that day and the days got shorter and shorter ... much the same as you describe. And all the talking got longer. We were down to 3-4 hours in a work day, plus paid travel time to and from his home at an hour each way ;) I finally had to ask him to go do his thing some place else.

Your guy might just be very distracted by all that's going on at home. This was more of a way of life for this guy.

Good skilled workers are gold.

He's family. Give him the benefit of the doubt. Sounds like you have a much better quality of life, no good deed goes unturned.

I think it's understandable that there were issues that needed to be fixed - thus costing you more. I think we've all read many posts from you about how the builder didn't do a really great job building your house and you've had to fix things as you went along.

But, I do think you need to tell him you need a firm number of hours or price to finish the house because you're out of money for this project. If he says 5 hours then it's 5 hours. My brother in law has this same tendency and so while he does good work, it ends up costing me twice as much than a regular contractor. I've started getting bids and if I offer him the job, I tell him upfront that this is what I'm going to pay including materials - so if he wants the work here it is.

As far as the truck damage - I'd let it go. Some people don't have alot of respect for cars or other people's property. Definitely not a good thing or a right thing. But, since you're going to trade it in soon, I bet no one notices this flaw when you're trading it in, so I wouldn't even worry about it.

OK sweetie...I think it's time for tough love. So, big hug, big big big hug....and while I'm hugging I'm gonna pinch your arse and whisper in your ear...DON'T HIRE FAMILY :o) But one more big hug :)

I'm not (really) complaining about the extra time/costs since a lot of it was justified, there were the extras like the inside corner and unknowns (at least to me, and I think even he underestimated how bad it was) like the joists. But I just want it *done*. He thanked me for the work, they could really use the $. I *did* tell him I want it finished soon but he's got this other job this week, maybe this w/e he can finish.

And I will hire family again - just use John inside, he does a beautiful job, save Evan for rough carpentry like maybe resetting our mudroom door that's never closed right, we don't have trim around it (yet). Though he's hinting at finishing our bathroom for us, I definitely don't want Evan doing tile after hearing his opinions on what's wrong/how to fix our downstairs tile!