I would not exactly call this a "nightmare".
Yes, it has been my experience that some (even many)contractors and tradesman do not show up on time, sometimes not at all.
Chances are that they have been held up on their previous job and have obviously not communicated this to you.
I'd give them a call and brace yourself.
Good luck!

Welcome to contractor world!

Well, it is more than just the being late today thing. And btw, they did eventually show up, and they put in the new metal roof we are having installed because we had issues when the wind blew a certain direction with water coming in at the top of the roof of the one story kitchen where it met the two story house. They did a marvelous job, I crawled out and made certain everything is properly sealed, caulked, flashed, etc. They even bent metal around the sill of the window looking over that roof and caulked it all in nicely to assure there are no more leaks. They were late because the roofing material hadn't arrived at the wholesaler...which seems to me like poor planning considering they've been scheduled to put that roof on today for three weeks. The contractor made noises about having to pay the roofing guys for the time they spent waiting for roofing material to arrive, but I really couldn't blame them.

When we did a project, and we already gutted five rooms of this house to the studs, rewired, replumbed in the case of the bathroom, tiled, insulated, drywall, tape, bed, paint, the works. We set up a schedule, arranged for materials to be available at least a day in advance of expected date of need, had all our stuff done waiting for inspection every time, never failed to pass an inspection, and were praised highly by our inspector for always having everything done exactly right and by the book. When extra hands were needed, we arranged them and had everything ready for them to start just as early as we could get them running - we are in Texas and many contractors start work as early as city noise ordinances will allow, and knock off early afternoon due to heat.

The nightmare is probably mostly that we know how we'd do it if we did it ourselves but decided to treat ourselves and have this work done for us. We did everything we could to make it as easy as possible. We met with contractor, who wanted to start immediately based on about an hour of pointing around - I want the stove here, the sink here, a window here, etc, and a handshake. I can't imagine he could ever come to finish up with what we want based on that and we insisted on providing detailed architectural drawings of what we needed done. I can't believe they didn't insist on a detailed contract to protect themselves. I worked in a law office in the town I lived in previous to this purchase and I've seen so many contractors just trying to get paid and no leg to stand on with just a handshake. It's not like this guy knows us at all.

I just think I'm in the wrong job. Apparently contractors in our area are so well paid they can afford to just not show up to give bids, or show up, then never send a bid to the potential client. It's been mentioned maybe because we come across as knowing what we want they think we are going to be hard to work with. I guess in that case too bad. I am the one that has to live with this. I would rather do it myself and have exactly what I want than pay someone to do something that is not what I want.

Make the time and D.I.Y.

Actually, I am finding that this is more normal then not.

I think you're at the mercy of the market here. You can only hire contractors that actually exist, and the only ones that exist are those that can find an indefinite string of customers that will pay for the level of service they set themselves up to provide. If you are significantly more demanding than average, in terms of customer service, workmanship AND the process by which the work occurs, then the contractor you're looking for has got to be someone who is just finishing up with another really picky customer, and has yet another in line after you. Inherently, he's not going to be an easy guy to find at any price.

Remember that to the contractor, it's just another job, just another project, yet another client. It isn't his home, his shelter, or the one flawless example of the perfection of his working skills.

You are paying for someone else to do the work and save you some time. As you have found, the time savings are not always so obvious. Still, even with the time spent on oversight, you are saving some time. Only you can answer the question of whether that time savings is worth the trade-off of less-than-perfect work and the laissez-faire attitude towards customer service that most independent contractors have. Remember, they're usually small shops juggling insurance, hiring, selling, and other admin stuff in addition to running the job and doing the actual work!

I was just watching an episode of Candice Olson's "Divine Design." The electrician had opened up twice as many holes in one wall as planned, it looked like Swiss cheese! Why? Well, he knew she wanted sconces, undershelf lighting, etc. So he put it where HE would design it. Of course, Candice is over a head taller than he is! Her plan put the custom wall unit 8" higher than he thought it was going to be.

He confessed he read the plan she drew for him AFTER he cut the holes! Mind you, this is national TV and he works for her on every episode.

I thought that was pretty revealing about the difference in mindset between the owner/designer and the installer/contractor.

The fact that only 2 out of 25 contractors replied sends up a red flag. It's possible that something in your initial call/letter put you into the category of "no reply". Did you request a start date in the then near future when the best guys were already well lined up with work? I'm married to a former GC now a semi-retired electrician. While he was still working as a GC and attending meetings of a home builders assoc his company decided to draw up a screening method so they could stop wasting so much time doing estimates for people that weren't going to go ahead with the work. Typically it was a budget that was too little for the amount of work that needed to be done. People who wanted too many estimates might fall into the shopping for the lowest bidder category. There were times my husband did not do an estimate because he got the feeling that a potential customer simply couldn't afford him or there was a personality conflict. Before semi-retirement there was one planning session with a customer who was so demanding so rude that his deposit was refunded soon after. He also found it difficult to work with a former co-worker of mine who always acted like she was getting cheated and was very distrustful. One time my husband built a house for someone he overheard referring to him and his crew as "the peons". It is too bad that he very much liked their friends who had given them his name. He has never worked for those people again. OTH he has done additions, remodels and small jobs over the years since he built their friends house over 20 years ago.
Since he is semi-retired my husband will not take every job. He will not work for heavy smokers. He will not work again for people who were slow to pay in the past.
We are currently doing our own project on an old house. Right now the kitchen is completely gutted to the studs and the new garage foundation is in. The framing sub has given us a start date. Despite being only a few weeks into the project we have had to wait a few days because the excavation contractor had another job that ran over, equipment problems, and a Friday he went to a NASCAR race. The concrete sub missed some days because he had to attend a relative's wedding in another state. Some of the subs that are working on our job are fairly new to my husband. His former favorites have retired. He treats every sub with a great deal of respect. He called last year to let them know what month we wanted to start our job. Then called again when we were more sure of our dates to get on their schedule. We are ready for framing but have to wait in line. The garage is not a big job and we are being fitted into an already busy schedule.
I am sorry you weren't able to find the right contractor for you and your job. There's enough things to worry about without having a poor relationship with the person you have to trust to do a good job.

Well, I should have added we didn't just squint our eyes and pick a number for what the remodel should cost. We first provided detailed drawings of existing vs expected finished, complete with materials list, drawings of cabinets, the works to my best friend's father and he priced for us (he's a life long contractor who does this sort of work, just not in our area) He would do the work for us, but would have to charge so much for travel as to be prohibitive. I also consulted with the man who did work for me in the city we used to live in. He's retired, but up until his health problems a year ago did this sort of work, in our area, and he agreed with the price best friend's dad gave us.

Honestly I'm trying to figure out what might put us on the do not bid list. From talking around it has become apparent there is a LOT of new construction in our area, and of course that's easier/more profitable work than our teeny remodel, so we think that's probably big in this whole thing.

We made it clear from the very start, this is what we have, this is what we want, we have cash in hand, we do want to start asap, but understand we must get in line with the varous subs required for the work.

The remodel has in fact turned out to be a giant nightmare. The guy will tell us oh the sub will be here on X day to do Y, and on that day....nada. And he's unavailable by phone. From day one, he hides out from us. Something is wrong, and we say to sub UM...this is incorrect. Oh, we were told this is the way to do it. Um, that isn't even code. The only reason we haven't been graced with two red tags is we called up the inspector, who is a friend of ours, before he came by to inspect and inquired yes, is this ok...let me email you pictures. No, ok skip the inspection slated for X time, we will call to reschedule after it's fixed.

Now we hear he's telling people we are "high maintenance". Whatever. Also we found out he was red tagged for some of the same stuff on some houses our neighbor has him working on for him.

If it is high maintenance to expect the GC to 1)tell the subs to do things correctly, providing drawings where necessary - not one sub had seen our drawings to date 2) check on the subs occassionally as they work 3) call us if a show stopper is hit, not hide out til you want money 4) Know the code! I guess we'll call that our badge of honor.

Our biggest issue to date is we asked how to handle a water heater in a pantry and were told no enclosure needed. I thought it was wrong and kick myself for not checking. Now I have a 5'x4' pantry that is basically a closet for the water heater enclosure. Mind you, this would not be so if he built it 2'x2' which my architect ex assures me is industry standard. He laughed and say why in the heck does the guy think the standard pans they sell for water heater enclosures are designed to fit in a 2'x2'?

All I can tell you is we will NEVER hire anything else done for us. NEVER. Not worth the aggravations. If we had known it would be completely up to us to monitor the subs, inspect the work daily, etc, we'd have never hired a GC to begin with.

From what you have said and the way you said it, I would not respond to you either. First of all, $20,000 is not a major project to anyone but the smallest of contractors. If there are $100,000+ projects to bid on and yours, they will go for the bigger ones. For that alone you are not going to get much of a response. Secondly I would never bid on or sign a contract written by the client. If you defined the hours that your contractor was supposed to be on the job into contract, and he did not comply, then you have a reason to complain about that. Otherwise leave your contractor alone to run his business. If you don't like it, be your own GC and hire your own subs next time. For this job you are obligated to pay for the services you described in your letters and drawings.

It seems to me you have stepped way WAY beyond the terms of any contract I have ever heard of in your demands. For example it is absolutely NOT up to you to monitor the subs. That is something you took on. If I were your GC I would be hiring real attorneys to find me a way to get out of your contract. If you don't like him that much, you could probably reach a mutually satisfactory agreement to discontinue the agreement in about 3 seconds without getting either party's attorney involved.