You're entitled to a $5,900 credit against the total cost of the doors. If the total cost, including the specialty doors, is $9,900, then yes, you owe $4,000. My question is, why didn't he advise you along the way that the allowance wouldn't be sufficient to cover the cost of the doors?

That's what I want to know too...I would've liked a heads up that the allowance wouldn't actually get me all the doors I needed.

If your allowance was $5900...less your specialty doors ($3335), that leaves $2565 for 12 interior doors, 4 exterior doors, and 3 french doors. That might cover two french doors!! And if you want specialty design, wood or anything custom...the cost will be higher than builder grade.

I'm not sure why you're shocked it went up that much.

The french doors are $435ish from lowes, not anything crazy. I expected a $1300 overage because my doors I picked out are about $100 more than the cheapest hollow core door.

I assume that installation is not included in the numbers above?

A good takeaway is to request a list of the doors and windows that will be installed before signing the contract. Then you'll know exactly what you're entitled to receive for the cost. It's possible that your GC missed a few doors and/or windows or low-balled your estimate. Without having that in the contract, there is not much you can do.

Why not ask him/her to provide you an itemized invoice so you can see why it went over by $4,000?

Like The Kitchen Place said, $2565 for 12 interior doors, 4 exterior doors, and 3 french doors is way too low.

We were given allowances for stuff and to avoid exactly what you are going through, we did not get an allowance for "doors" we would get an allowance for (for instance) the bathroom vanity. We picked out only the things we cared to swap out and got an allowance for that.

Now, the drawback is, you don't want to bug the heck out of your contractor for every little thing. You pick the things, like you did, that you care about.

For instance, your "door allowance" may have been $5900, but the front door may have only been $1000 of that, so you get the allowance just for that.

We were able to save a lot of money in some areas, doing that, so we could allocate the money to other areas.

Otherwise, you are right.. it is an all or nothing deal. When they say "door allowance" they mean you get $5900 to put all the doors in and the house has to sell with all the doors in it.

Good luck!

Russ

If he knew up front that $3335 was already set aside for some specialty doors, I would expect that the remainder of the allowance would reasonably get me all the rest of the doors, at the cheapest available price, right? It's not like he can just make an arbitrary number that doesn't cover enough cheap doors, but fits my desired overall cost to build and then tell me the rest of the doors are overage! That's unethical, right?

If you had an allowance and their was an additional cost, isn't it in your contract that any change orders (and this is a change order) would need to be signed off by both you and the contractor?

Amy - Totally feel your pain. It is really hard to know who is right, just based on these forums.

If your allowance for "ALL the doors" was $5900 and in that you could pick "specialty doors" for a total of $3335, the real answer lies somewhere around the question of "how many doors?"

i.e. if you have $3335 for 3 specialty doors and the rest would cover 12 interior, 4 exterior, and 3 french doors with the remainder, then you would only be responsible for the overages of the specialty doors you picked out.

If the specialty doors was, for instance, 3 specialty doors and each was $100 more, you would owe $300.

The problem is, you state you have a $5900 door allowance. That means $5900 for every door in the house.

Hard to see a house having 3 "specialty doors" and 14, int, 4, ext, 3 french doors and all that for $2656.

A low end bottom of the line "french door" from lowes runs $400 not including tax. Now, I am again assuming they do not count the installation as part of the allowance.

So, you spend $1300 on the three french doors right off the bat, if you go with the lowest cost doors they have.

If you get lucky and pick the cheapest interior door you can find, not even pre-hung, and there is $400 more. Forget the fact they do not come with a door jam, which you may very well have to get as well.

That leaves you with $865 for the 4 exterior doors.

Forget the fact those are a lot more expensive....but you have $216 for each of those.

So, no.. I think you and your contractor are on different pages here. He/she said "$5900 door allowance" and that means count all the doors you have in the house and figure out how to pay for all of those doors with the $5900.

The math on this sounds like either we are getting half the facts and if it is confusing for us, it sounds like it is also confusing for you.

Sorry you have to deal with this, but this does not sound like the contractor is not following through, albeit they may not have explained it well, but some responsibility falls upon the owner to sit down and go "ok.. I need to buy however many doors... the price does not add up right, where am I off?" and then work through that with the contractor. The "right answer" is not always "the contractor is charging me wrong here"

Good luck either way! :(

Russ

I agree with Russ. It's temping to throw the contractor under the bus, but we don't have all the info. Did he come-up with the $5900 number before he knew about your special order doors? Did you ask for the pricing difference when you chose the upgraded doors? Also, you can't just use Lowes for pricing. There are many grades of doors available, and the pricing could easily be much more. The contractor is not obligated to use the cheapest doors possible, especially because that might mean he has to return to replace something that warped or settled out of place in 1 year.

I think the best next step is to call the contractor, explain your concerns, and see what he says. I also think asking for an itemized list of the new doors will help you understand where the $4000 is coming from.

He knew about the $3335 before coming up with the total $5900 allowance.

I was just trying to make the point that the remaining balance wouldn't even cover the cheapest of cheap doors for the rest of the house. I would have no problem if he had priced cheap builder grade doors, and I chose an upgraded version. But the remainder of his allowance didn't even cover the rest of the doors using cheap ones :-( I wish I would have at least been given a heads up that his allowance was not actually realistic. And Lowes is where all my doors besides my special ones came from.

My answer would be, if he gave you a total allowance of $5900, before you got your heart set on the doors you chose, you would have gone through the math and came up with what we also came up with. Then, you do exactly what you are doing now and you go back and work it out with him as to what the overage is and what his "total allowance" would be based upon.

Whether he came up with the wrong numbers or it is a misunderstanding or what, you can get real numbers now and maybe he is getting some really really nice interior doors and you can go "I want the ones from Lowes" to offset the costs.

This is not about drawing a line in the sand, this is about having a place to start where you can understand each other.

Think of it this way, you only have "X" number of doors. The math is a lot easier than having some arbitrary number of objects that could change.

So, go talk to him and find out why it went up $4000.

It's easy to come on here and let us work ya up...heh.. you probably have a very easy communication issue you can work out with him/her and when you figure out where the misunderstanding is, you'll both go "oh yea..." and figure a way to make both sides happy.

Russ

My contractor provided me with receipts from of all items not included in his bid. I had no question where overages were. I don't think getting receipts should be an issue. I never had to ask. He just showed them to me and had them added up for me to see.

I wish I would have at least been given a heads up that his allowance was not actually realistic

I've never been party to a contract with "allowances" (every remodel I've ever done, we bought all the materials except for general construction materials). But from what I've read on GW for the last 10 years, it seems like allowances are often not realistic.

"I wish I would have at least been given a heads up that his allowance was not actually realistic."

I have always assumed that allowances are NEVER realistic.

I'm betting that the $5900 allowance is for the doors that are not the specialty doors. Since you knew the exact price of the specialty doors, it wouldn't have been necessary to include them in the allowance. The allowance is for things that haven't been chosen yet.

I think catbuilder is spot on.

If that's right, are you saying the $4,000 "overage" is $3,335 for the specialty doors plus $665 because the "other" doors went over the $5,900 allowance by that much? So the OP thought the $5,900 allowance covered both the specialty doors and all the other doors, but the Contractor intended the $5,900 allowance to cover all the other doors and the specialty doors were a separate item. Certainly possible.

Yes, that seems the most likely scenario. But what I don't understand is why you are finding about this now, rather than when you decided to go with the upgraded interior doors. Shouldn't he have shown you the various options and prices, and then you would have realized what was going on?

We all have been there, every one of us. When we first started a reno or a build, we knew nothing. After we have done a few of these and been burned due to our own lack of knowledge as well as contractors inability to communicate on the same level (this is in no way a slam on contractors), we learn to ask, think about the answers and question how those numbers exist.

The first time I built a deck onto a house we owned, I had a huge fight with a retailer over stuff that was never shipped and barely made it out without losing a lot of money.

The last deck I built, I calmly walked in and told them we were short about 900 bucks worth of lumber. Makes me laugh even 7 years later. He was an assistant mgr for a big box chain and was all "Well, I can tell you I counted it all myself and it was all there.."

My answer was, "okay, so you counted it all and it was all correct. So when you had to come back out because you delivered 2 cases of 8ft light bulbs instead of 2 8ft lights, that was you that counted it... correct? When you had to come out a 3rd time in one day because you had delivered 2 boxes of shingles when the order clearly stated it was 2 pallets of shingles, that was you, right?.. and listed all the things wrong that had them out 4 times in one day".. heh

There is some responsibility to think of the numbers and add it all up and ask yourself, "is this realistic to ME?" if the answer is no.. then you would not be surprised when you go back to the contractor and they give you the news.

Not trying to be mean to the OP, but we have no pony in this race and it took us less than 20 minutes, based upon the numbers given to us, to realize that something was off.

This is a miscommunication/misunderstanding. Chalk it up as a learning experience, but the contractor, in my opinion, would not be responsible for making up the difference. Maybe they did not speak clearly, but maybe they thought you understood too.

Either way, your choice should be to learn from this issue and apply it to the future ones and either pony up the difference or let them put the doors they want into the house and replace them later as you go along.

Three C's of building, carpet, counters, cabinets.. everything else is easy schmeasy to replace later.

Good luck!

Russ

sjhockeyfan - yes, that is how I interpreted the billing.