I wanted to make this post because I'm in the middle of a major house remodel project and need to blow off some steam. Let me preface thist by saying that not all contractors are terrible (as much as it feels like it right now). We recently had some concrete steps replaced by a couple guys that did an amazing job. They gave us a very reasonable bid, were on time (in fact called ahead and were early!), did the work right, and left the job site very clean. They were amazing. I left them a glowing review on Angie's List. I'm thinking about sending them gift cards to thank them. I don't think they realize how great they are.

Now on to the bad. Our boiler was replaced this past winter and it was awful. The pipes are a mess. He ran them as the crow flies instead of plumb. When things didn't line up he heated up the pipe and simply bent it. He let solder run down and splatter on the floor. He installed the pump before the expansion tank rather than letting it pull water away. The *only* request I made was to ask that the owner of the company send someone else over to verify it was safe given the shoddy work before I make the final payment. He refused and instead charged the final payment to my credit card without authorization. This is supposed to be a reputable company with good ratings. Fun times.

Next: Skylights. The list of certified installers in my area limited us to about 10 companies. Of those only about 5-6 got good reviews on Angie's List. 1 of them only did refits which narrowed the list further. After the boiler fiasco I sat down and wrote out *detailed* plans for exactly which models I wanted, where exactly I wanted them to go, measurements for the spacing between trusses, angles involved, locations of pipes/hvac/etc in nearby trusses, etc. I wanted to make sure everything was planed out and made sense before we started.

1st company: The first guy we tried to work with screwed up the order despite having a copy of the plans that listed the model we wanted and a verbal discussion at our house regarding what we wanted. Amazingly he ordered the skylights before we signed a contract. His contract listed the skylights he ordered rather than the ones we wanted. When I added my plans to the contract before agreeing to sign it, he got really ellusive. Eventually it came out that he had already ordered the wrong ones. When I asked why he ordered the skylights before we had agreed on a contract he said he was just trying to expedite things for us (who knows, maybe he really was). When we insisted we wanted the skylights in the plans he got angry and launched into how much this setback would cost his company. He then tried to roll the restocking fee into the price increase for the correct skylights without telling us, but did tell us we'd have to wait 6 more weeks. At that point we walked away.

2nd company: We really wanted to work with these guys. They seemed detail oriented and appeared to know what they were doing. Got an initial quote from them, but they never sent us a real contract. Eventually after 2 weeks of asking them to send us something they told us they were too busy and couldn't do it. I guess at least they were honest. Too bad, they had potential.

3rd company: We were now about 4 months into the project, back to square one, and getting a little desperate. These guys wouldn't commit to a start date but said they were about 2-3 weeks out. We apprehensively wrote our plans into the contract (which they agreed to), sent them a 50% down payment, and hoped for the best. I called them about 3 weeks later and they said their main installer was too busy and they needed to hand the job over to a sub. The sub came out and retook measurements. No one had ordered the skylights and flashing yet so we had to wait another 2 weeks for that to come in. Fast forward to now. Installers show up at 10am but are missing some of the parts and will need to go pick them up. After a slow start the skylights are finally being installed. The plans weren't really followed. Details we confirmed immediately before the installation started weren't kept. Instead of talking to me about it (I was 20 feet over working from home) they just plowed ahead and now it would take major rework to fix. I think I'm too tired at this point to fight it. Maybe it really doesn't matter if the skylights are 6" off from where the plans call for them to be. I think I give up.

Those are the worst experiences so far, but we've still got a lot of work left to get done. I've become incredibly paranoid that the rest of our remodel will go like this. On the plus side, at least we didn't decide to go with crystal cabinets (we were seriously considering them!):

http://ths.gardenweb.com/discussions/3236981/crystal-cabinetdisastrous-remodel