Oh I understand the concept of it costing more than just the hourly wage someone takes home. I work in an area where I am billed at 3 times my hourly wage and that doesn't even include health insurance (but the overhead for my boss is still much higher than what he just pays out in salaries). But I sat down and figured out what things should cost for this job from a reality check point of view. I researched the cost of all of the parts and as I said, figured $200/hr for labor for two guys (really around here a plumber gets around $75/hr and helpers less but I was just using round numbers). The guy who had $5k of additional profit built in (his quote was $5k over the guy we went with) was the highly recommended guy by my ex plumber and I believe that he thought the job was his to quote whatever he wanted. The plumber was in on it too (doing the plumbing part of it) so I guess they both had to have their cut. Besides the sticker shock on the price, what REALLY made me look around was how hard they kept protesting that the price was fair. If it's fair, you don't need to tell me every day. That's when I sat down and started running some numbers myself. The guy we went with was just fantastic, did just an incredible job, pleasant to talk to, is very smart, knows his stuff, thinks about how to solve problems before diving into them, comes when he says he will, cleaned up at the end of the job and overall was a pleasure to work with. We are considering putting central a/c in the upstairs of our house and I probably won't even comparison shop and go with him - he lives 2 blocks from my house and thrives on local recommendations and does great work. That's what he earned by doing a good job for a fair price and I would not hesitate to recommend him to anyone. It was still an expensive job but by the time we got to the end of it I REALLY felt like I had gotten what I paid for and that's a good feeling even if you are writing checks for thousands and thousands of dollars. That's what it boils down to with the OP. Maybe after some research they will find out that they are, in fact, getting something reasonable and fair for their money. At 45 miles away you need to add 2 hrs of travel time every day to the cost. There's no way to find out unless you start to comparison shop. The lowest bid isn't always best either - that's something important to remember.

Same story. I picked out a dark grey I think it was Pearl Grey Maipei to go w Cle Tiles Slate plank floor tile. Grout looked awful - like 2-3 shades too dark when I wanted it to match. Thankfully my contractor is lovely, he said if it wasn't what I wanted he'd make it right. He filed out the grout by hand (tile edges are slightly chewed up, but he warned me) and regrouted w Custom Prism grout color Charcoal. I was much happier with the results. Now planning for my kitchen backsplash and this thread is making me reluctant to go with Maipei again, even tho on paper 77 Frost looks like it should be a close to perfect match to my Bedrosians Clara Matte Grey tile.

Live Wire Oak & Ideagirl2 & Rockybird have said it best..... Go Legal - but WITH an Attorney driving your ship through "legal waters" - NOT YOU..... I work as an industry expert witness in the Natural Stone Industry, and I can tell you from 26 years of doing what I do, is that you do have a case, but you can very easily derail any chances you have of actually WINNING - if you attempt to do this "DIY" style. You need an attorney to help you on this.... IMEO - You have a contract, and IT governs how your GC gets paid by you, USE the contract language and any clauses or exceptions that would influence what you want to do (retainage & withholding final payment, cancelation of contract, penalties, etc) - to YOUR advantage, however - IF your GC wrote the contract that YOU signed, it's (your contract document) prolly written in HIS favour... :-( You can start this process by re-reading EVERY STINKING WORD of your contract, and start identifying ANY conditions that effect final payment - or penalties that would be visited on either party for "non-performance" as an example. Get with a real live attorney before you do ANYTHING else. Don't go inventing reasons to withhold monies (even if your reasoning is sound and 100% logical - and 1000% ethical) - if it's not LEGAL under the contract agreement that you signed with your GC - YOU CAN'T DO IT AND WIN IN A COURT OF LAW !!! Consult with an attorney that specializes in contract litigation and spend the money for an hour's worth of advice..... it'll be money well spent to help you find a solution to this issue and help you wake up from the nightmare you've been existing in.... The good news here is this: You DO have some Options - but they will ONLY be effective with the skills of an attorney that is better versed in these matters than you are - unless you happen to have a "doctor of jurisprudence" degree laying around in one of your drawers or shelves ! LOL!!!! If you do, then you don't need my advice! HA! Remember this going forward - "What's RIGHT and what's LEGAL are often too completely different things" hth kevin

he insisted that a GFCI outlet anywhere on the chain would protect all outlets on the chain, has been doing this for 30 years, etc. Oh, he's wrong. It's only the downstream outlets that are protected. But what's more interesting is if he actually believed that... breaker ---- non-GFCI outlet ----- new GFCI outlet ----- new GFCI outlet Why spend money on a second GFCI receptacle on the same circuit?