As long as you're willing to pay lots of additional money for the change order you should be fine. It's not on the builder to try and figure out that you said off white but you now mean white. You picked your color and that is what the builder ordered for you.

If its prefinished (you should know this based on your contract specs) it would be on order and I wouldn't want to warehouse it or plan it for another house either.

IMO your builder is not being unreasonable.

Do you know who the supplier is? Find out if the trim is cancellable and what the fee is to cancel it.

The paperwork says change orders are $200 each. There should not be any other cost for a color change, IMHO.

No, the charge for a change order is $200, plus any cost differential. There could be pickup fees or restocking fees, or the other product might cost more.

Only a week out, your builder is right that it was ordered a long time ago, and changing now will be a pita. But it is your house so if you want a different color it will be $200 for the change order, plus any fees and price difference just like ichabod said. You should find out what the lead time is on an order, you may not want to wait that long either.

as Ichabod said the $200 is for the paperwork to process the change order. Anything else to do with material is a completely different story!

$200 + the cost of the new trim. Generally, special order merchandise isn't refundable to the distributor. If the merchandise is regionally stocked, there might only be a 30% restocking fee plus freight.

Ask them to give you a price for the change order.

Well, I don't think you're going to be satisfied with anything we tell you, so I'll agree with you instead. Go get a lawyer.

(I think Ichabod wins this thread).

M Johnson, take what you are willing to spend on a lawyer, and use that to buy new trim, gutters, etc., and beg your builder to install them for you. Or be prepared to pay someone else to do the install, if the lead time messes up your builder's schedule.

I hope you love your new home, and everything else is perfect.

Yes to AnnKH, and to Ichabod winning this thread.

If you really really want to delay things, and encourage further building problems, yeah, go get a lawyer. It's the Amerricun Way. We was built on lawsuits.

If you want to solve the problem, work with your builder, and 1) either be willing to pay what might be necessary so he doesn't mess up his timeframe/schedule, or 2) have that secondary contractor install that portion of the job, in conjunction with the primary GC (yes, this will be at your own expense, but it may well happen faster). Your choice.

Personally, I love having a good working relationship with my GC -- recently I had to make a change, and it will take some time to go into effect, but it was MY fault, and we both know that, and I am not remotely reluctant to pay for that. Because he and I have a great working relationship, I know that the majority of the stuff being done to my house is beyond builder grade.

I know your thought is that your builder is lazy, but you can't prove it. Even with those eager beaver lawyers who may well want to support you for a fee. (And, yes, delays...) I don't know for sure one way or the other, but at least in the low-populated area I am building in, word is likely to get around.

Edited: Also: bry911, great insight.

You guys are missing the point. I am not asking them to take back the trim anymore....especially if it can be painted (because it would take 5 weeks for new trim and I can see that being a "significant" delay). However, is asking them to take a day and paint them the color I want (when they aren't supposed to be put on for 2 weeks) asking too much.....especially considering it will be much cheaper and easier to spray them now versus once they are put on the house (when masking, etc.has to be done and maybe even removal of the pieces again)?

There are not many circumstances where builders are allow to refuse change order directions....especially when it will NOT cause significant delay and when the buyer is paying for it. This isn't a $175k house I'm building. I don't think I am asking much....I even told him I would hire my own guy to paint them....

Somebody's not listening...

Go reread bry's response where he explains how the builder may not want to do so because it very likely will void the warranty. Then if it fails, you're up the proverbial creek without the paddle.

LOL Virgil.

I saw the point. Your subs may have other jobs to do in between, and asking for this on your schedule is biting into their time. And the warrantee, as cpartist explains.

Maybe paint should not be applied over the surface YOU have now chosen? This is a consideration you need to consider.

You guys are missing the point.

I don't think we are; you want something changed, the builder doesn't want to do it. It may seem perfectly reasonable to you, but the point is, the builder doesn't HAVE to do it.

It sounds like you've had a couple conversations about it, and at this point, you have two choices. Go get a lawyer, or have them install it and hire someone afterwards to paint it the color you want.

Perhaps you should now review the rest of your choices far in advance of them needing to be on site. As a suggestion for your next build--engage a designer to assist you to make choices. The money that you save on change orders will more than pay for their assistance and you will end up with a more cohesive whole.

Ply Gem Aluminum trim is factory finished. Actually the prefabricated sheet stock is probably pre-colored. You don't simply "paint it".

you are going to do what you want and think we are all wrong and you are implying we are idiots because you are not getting the answer you want. Well I changed my mind. I agree with you. Your builder must be lazy and I think you need to sue him.

You need to call a lawyer, because at this point, you're more concerned about being right and getting your way than with--IMHO--doing what's right. Don't get me wrong, I actually agree with you. But that's not a legal or defensible opinion outside of what your lawyer that you're about to hire is going to tell you.

i was in this business for several decades, and I'm going to tell you right now this is not the hill you want to die on; it will cost you FAR less financially, emotionally, and in quality to simply install it now and paint it afterwards.

You have to wonder why the OP even bothered to post here, since he obviously has the answer he wants...

I was told by the supplier for the builder that they have lots of different colors for the aluminum in stock so that could easily be changed.

Oh, I get it....PVC cannot be painted over...said no one ever (unless trying to paint PVC a darker color...in which case I understand the added heat could damage the PVC). Come on....people paint PVC ALL the time.

The OP can't even decide (or maybe doesn't know) what material he/she wants painted. But he/she knows better than the ones who bother to 'splain it to him. I feel for the builder. SMH

I have one guy playing lawyer (who, sorry, has no clue what he is talking about).

I assume you are referring to me, and since I do have a law degree I do tend to play lawyer. Let me rephrase it in a way you will better understand. Your builder is so fed up with you that he is willing to turn down the most profitable part of his business just to be done with you. Personally, I completely understand the sentiment right now.

Please go talk to a lawyer...if you are lucky you will get exactly what you deserve. He will charge you fortune to write a letter, the builder will give in and charge you a fortune to paint it, he will then laugh at you because the paint you chose has a 30 day full cure time, during which time he will not install it. You will then have exactly what you asked for, at only twice the price and double the delay of hiring a painter afterwards. But you will hold your head high, sure that you were victorious.

It's about taking what people say on a message board with a grain of salt.

I too find that I get the best advice when I ask a question and ignore all the answers that I don't like.

It's a very simple question at this point. Is it or is it not cheaper to paint ANY part before it's installed

That only seems a very simple question. Did they paint your walls before they installed them? If they didn't then we can assume not EVERY part is cheaper to paint before installed. A field painted surface doesn't have the same quality and is harder to work with. It is the reason that doors are usually installed before painting.

You ain't in the right budget bracket to try to bully a production builder into making the change he doesn't want to make. Double your price, and double the time frame, and you can make any darn change you want. You aren't doing a several million dollar concierge build though. You should have had better design work on the front end. It's even more important to have a good design up front when the funds aren't abundant. It sucks to have a limited budget and unlimited expectations, but it won't be the first time you run up against that one in your life. Learn to live with it.

M Johnson - I actually looked at your other posts and saw the paint colors. Personally, I think you're being a bit over dramatic about the color. I think the color you have ordered, the linen color, looks perfectly fine. Granted, I hate white trim altogether.

I agree with Sunny Days. The white would be way too stark

Y'all really did poor M Johnson in. She's vanished from Houzz altogether!!

You people are really over the top with this stuff. It was a simple question.

Did the OP delete some hostile posts or something? Cause I just don't get the wild eyed responses here.

OP deleted their entire account-- wiped all posts but their original.

That's two newbies committing suicide here in the last 24 hours, lol.

Is that the mama crying for her two slaughtered baby seals?

No, it's a sea lion (probably yawning) in honor of M Johnson's sealioning.

I've never heard the term.

Sealioning

Sealioning involves jumping into a conversation with endless questions and demands for answers, usually of entry-level topics far below the actual conversation (e.g. "please prove sexism exists"). Effectively, this "debate technique" differs little from harassment, running a filibuster[wp]and preventing anything getting done. The questions themselves, when done properly, are normally polite - just an irrelevant distraction. The nature of Twitter makes it particularly easy there. The name is a reference to this comic, and was originally used to describe the Gamergatestrategy of flooding people with a barrage of demands for proof that they are harassing people.

A particularly toxic thing about sealioning is that people who are genuine newbies asking serious questions are easy to mistake for sealions.

Having never heard the term sealioning ...

I think this is spot on:

Zahra, ex-contributor to Quora,

M.Ed. Language Teaching

"Sealioning" is a new term of abuse that has been proposed for use on this site. It's intended to be used to discourage other Quorans from asking questions in comment threads someone else considers repetitive, unnecessary, insincere or annoying. Whether the questions by common sense standards actually are repetitive, unnecessary, insincere or annoying will naturally prove to be less important than the recipient's attitudes about the questions, and the questioner.

In other words, "sealioning" is a gag to be imposed upon people you disagree with if they argue with you for too long, too persistently, or in any fashion that you dislike. Once the gag has been slapped on by a "power user" no one else is likely to consider the context within which the questions were asked or that others' motives aren't necessarily transparent to us. Once this term has been taken up by a clever enough person, it will be used to bully people out of entire topic areas and to alienate writers whose first language is not English and who fear they aren't able to manipulate English well enough or understand US culture deeply enough to avoid ridicule. "Sealioning" will also be a snare for the young, the non-neurotypical, and foreigners little used to American norms of political correctness.

The problems with Quora comments are well known and are mostly identical to the problems on any popular social media site. In a "controversial" topic, they very often read like an idiots' roll call and are rife with abuse. The term "sealion" seems to be a well-intentioned effort to deal with harassment, but unfortunately, it has the potential to harm the Quora community in the following ways:

• It will be thought the product of zero accountability in-group discussions, comfirming suspicions among non-Top Writers that Quora is run by and for socially connected cliques for their own benefit, and in service to their own aggressively defended orthodoxies of opinion.
• It's an uncommon, faddish term that even most Americans won't know, strengthening the cliquishness and Amerocentrism of a website where Americans are actually in the minority, and this all despite the fact that cultural and intellectual diversity is one of Quora's greatest strengths
• It encourages users to police topics and other users, when this is an administrator's duty and perogative. It is a step towards replacing moderation with socially approved of bullying, where there is no objectivity or accountability.

In general, then sealioning is an improvised weapon for doing blunt force social trauma to whoever isn't X enough to your liking. It has the power to stifle debate when debate isn't desired, which means misuse of the term is guaranteed. Even if its use were justified in most cases, there is a reason individual users on this site haven't been granted veto power over others' rights to question, respond and comment. Grasping for this power by pressuring people with ridicule is not an improvement over the existing situation.

The watchers always forget that the watchers need watching more than the watched.

The first post explaining what sealioning is pretty accurate.

The Quora one is not. Maybe that is why Zahra is an ex contributor to Quora. She is entitled to her opinion but her opinion is full of false assumptions. ;-)

I think she probably quit ;-) Or, yeah, could have been railroaded out for not following the crowd's mob mentality. Regardless, I think she makes some good points.

Her post follows the sentiment in the last line of the first definition, I think:

"A particularly toxic thing about sealioning is that people who are genuine newbies asking serious questions are easy to mistake for sealions."

But the "newbie" on here refused to take known facts, many from professions as answers. She was just being contrary to be contrary and that is sealioning behavior in this instance. Ignorance is understandable not something to be mocked but when you argue with facts you become stupid and you can't fix stupid. Her posts were were becoming tedious and good for those that called her on it. I'm just glad she's not my neighbor. Pity the person who ended up building next to her.

Too bad they were deleted. Just have seen this sort of thing many times before where the OP was simply asking a question.

Why are you assuming M Johnson was a she? I made the assumption that the OP was a he.

I don't think it matters one way or the other. If someone is truly trying to guess which sex a poster is, then one assumption is as good as another anyway.

I try to use 'they' when I catch myself using he or she 'cause I know people on GW will go off. Wouldn't want that to happen, lol.

Seems like the people on this forum could benefit from practicing a little more kindness and empathy. I miss the old Building A Home forum where people came to share their experiences and opinions without berating one another.

Amen cski13!

Every so often we see a thread where the poster asks a question, and then vigorously defends their position from every poster's comment. One wonders, in these situations, why the poster came to the forum and asked the question in the first place if they don't respect the comments for what they are worth. No one agrees with 100% of the responses, but at least the responders are commenting based on their own experience. That said, way past time to move on.

I've observed that as well (people who post not seeming to listen to those who attempt to offer their opinion/provide guidance). I just don't understand why (so many of) the offerers of advice/guidance/opinions seem so vested in making their points -- seemingly having to insist that they are right. Makes me wonder why people continue to engage in the conversation rather than just walking away from it.

Looking for validation? Not unusual. I don't think it has anything to do with respect and one can see from these threads that they aren't getting any respect here themselves. So that works both ways.

GW tends to harbor like-minded people, so I don't think it is the be all, end all for opinions on things, that, is The Authority, The Truth.

GW tends to harbor like-minded people, so I don't think it is the be all, end all for opinions on things, that, is The Authority, The Truth.

If I post a drawing of mine on facebook, I'll get all sorts of replies that it's terrific, great, best work, I love your work, and I could go on and on. Which is great if I'm happy with my drawing. However if there's something nagging at me about my drawing, all the accolades will not help me the problem in my drawing.

So when I don't want the accolades but honest to goodness advice on how to improve a drawing, I show my drawing to those I know will give honest opinions about what might be the problem and who are experienced artists themselves. And almost always, those experienced artists will hone in on the same problem with the drawing and what needs to be done to correct it.

Why? Because sometimes what you call like-minded is really experience, and education in their field of expertise. And what you perceive to be crowd mentality might just be that same experience.

P.S. Not everyone buys into other's opinions so easily. That's a good thing.

And I think not readily agreeing to everything recommended is a good thing too.

However, a critical element missing here that's there in the real world is trust. Most questions, be it about a window trim color or a design for a $600k build, are just thrown out there with really no leap of faith required by the poster as to reevaluating their thinking in the context of alternate advice received.

In the real world, when one comes to another for advice, there's usually some sort of compensation involved. Now please don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that should happen here and I can say for myself and probably for many of the other architects here I don't make recommendations here for glory, sometimes I've even put pen to paper!

But in the real world that compensation represents far more than just an owner paying my bills. It represents the critical element of trust. An owner has put something on the table to hear or see yet unspoken or see undrawn advice. And that's a leap of faith. The element of trust is inherent in the relationship.

A key ingredient, perhaps THE key ingredient to a successful project, is owner trust. During my initial meeting with an owner they will often reveal their ability or inability to trust others. More so, whatever is on the table also serves as a strong indicator that the owner recognizes a skill set that they are deficient in.

In design forum like this one the potential to incorporate that critical element of trust is very small. Sure, there have been ample success stories here so don't misunderstand me in thinking I'm detracting from those. After all, there's a reason I actually provide a drawn solution on this forum from time to time!! But for each success story here the numbers are legion where it's "Trainwreck in.....trainwreck out" because there's been no leap of faith required as to the value of alternate advice. The project is just thrown out there with it being very easy to discount advise with just a simple "Nope". Sometimes there's sixty "Nopes" by the OP to sixty different suggestions!!!

And all the above is ok. I don't fall on my sword here like I would in the real world where I'm passionate about best spending an owners six figure sum the best way possible. Here, I just move on.

I'm just sayin', for better or worse, the internet environment is different than the real world environment and it is what it is.

Oops!! Suns up!! Time to head out for a run!!