" But why was your current guy not having to make you wait at all?"

Quality. Speed. Price. Pick two.

He, like me, is selling the first two. I have no backlog. I don't know if/when I'll be working next week. That keeps me freed up for the people with money who want it done right and want it done now. They seem to show up just in time as if by magic.

It's run like heck from a ''flipper'' contractor. Cutting corners and doing hack work is the only way to get cheap contact work. No amount of savings--- that WILL cost you later--- is worth dealing with a hack.

You have a contract. You are responsible for paying for the work that you engaged him for at the price you engaged him to do it for. If your current contactors finds ou that you have been cheating on him and dating around behind his back, there goes that good relationship. And there goes that little bit of smoothness to accommodating changes or mistakes. Everything will be a by the book change order, with the additional, change order fees fully enforced.

You can certainly change to whomever you want. After you pay the original contractor the amount the contract says you owe him. Might as well pay him, and get the work done as well.

I agree with Sophie! A "flipper" contractor is used to cutting corners and I'm pretty sure that is NOT what you want, unless you are flipping your home. We used one, recommended by our realtor, to update and fix my late mother in law's home prior to sale. It looked great and we were happy with the dude. Of course, we weren't living there. So then we hired him to completely remodel the home we had purchased for ourselves. HUGE mistake. We actually "cared" about everything, but a flipper contractor just cuts corners. Yep, they are cheap, but you do get what you paid for. I would just keep the first guy and drop the idea of the flipper dude.

Two things concern me about this. First, why was nobody bidding on the job? Something off putting about it? And second, why was the contractor you chose immediately available?

This is a good question, and one I really can't answer. The project is extremely straight forward - a single story remodel with a very simple layout and design. Speculating here but perhaps the other contractors found other bids where they didn't have to work as hard to provide a detailed proposal?

Our contractor perhaps is extremely good at sales, and has all of his stuff together with some minor tweaks for new customers as needed? Maybe a lot of contractors are just poor salespeople and aren't as good at bidding out jobs properly? I'd love to know the answer to this!

The contractor I met 6 weeks before the project start, so he had a slot in the calendar where he could schedule part of his crew to start demolition in 6 weeks. Since he had the detailed proposal that was more convincing. The other contractors didn't have a schedule or any detail to their quotes, other than "this will cost $xx to $xx". All of them had plenty of runway for the project, and all of them had the same grand tour, and description of what we wanted to get done.

Don't compare verbal estimates from a guy who already knows he doesn't have the job to a guy who wrote up a quote. He was being conversational, not businesslike. Or he was tying to scoop up the rest of your job by disparaging the other guy's work (or pricing) without ever having to make good on it.

Sounds a little sleazy, if you think about it.

I love the contractor's work and his crew, but to save 40-50% on a house
remodel, I think it may be worth going with the second contractor. The
second contractor gave me detailed line items of the work he does, and
he doesn't add any unnecessary overhead, or bump up costs of the
sub-contractors of materials. He seems very sincere and honest about
his pricing, which is why it seems trustworthy.

Sounds like second contractor gives you price and maybe quality but if you want it done in a decent time frame he is probably doing it himself and will probably take him a while. Remember the three items Quality Speed and Price you can only pick two. Every once in a while when gambling on a lower priced contractor who does it himself they end up as flakes and only show up here and there instead of being there full time.

Sounds like the contractor you currently have has a crew which is able to speed things up with more hands on deck. The faster it goes the higher the cost, obviously he has to pay his crew.

I have gotten and am getting written proposals to finish the remodel work since the demolition and framing is nearly done. I'm not going by verbal estimates, but the written proposals will be a "not to exceed" number and will itemize the work to be done. The contractors will be providing that level of detail so we can compare apples to apples.

We are talking about a kitchen and bathroom remodel in a 2 months time frame, in a single level home. 6-8 weeks to complete the project is ample time, that the other contractors have indicated they can readily do.

Maybe it was my bad luck at finding crappy lazy contractors who were unwilling to give me a decent proposal a few months ago, but now I actually have a reputable contractor who will give me the detailed proposal with the fixed price. And he did have a point - why does it cost $10k for demolition? It's just removing the laminate flooring, old cabinets to the dump. Those things hit a nerve with me because it shouldn't cost that much.

At the very least, I am keeping my current contractor on his toes, knowing that I'm going to vet costs and just won't blindly accept whatever cost he quotes for each phase of the project. I don't like the feeling I am overpaying, even for good quality work, than what I should be fairly charged.

Don't be surprised if when he finds out your shopping now after you have a contract that he doesn't walk and sue you for what amount the contract was for. Also the next guy may have given you a price but does he know that there is another contractor on the job already? Most contractor do not want to pick up after another contractor has already done some work. Sounds kind of sleazy to me to do what you are trying to do, and you may get royally screwed in the end.

I'm not sure why the guy would sue me for the contract, since I'm paying him for the work he's already done. He has a stellar reputation, pages of references. Would he want a nasty customer complaint and let it be known that he sued a customer over a contract? How much future work would he lose? I seriously doubt this is even a worry.

The other contractors are fully aware that I've got the current contractor doing demolition. The one I mentioned actually walked the site and saw the demolition. We have a future phase house addition project where we are getting bids for in addition to the remodel, so we are having contractors coming to the site to scope out the work, regardless of whether they bid for the current project or not.

Like I mentioned, our contractor is great, but pricey and above our budget for the current phase and the future project. We've told him that already multiple times, but we're hoping he can come down on cost to be more in line with the competitors. Maybe he'll still be more expensive, but not 40-50% more expensive. If he was 10 - 15% more expensive I'm ok with it.

So, you have a 200K project that some sleazy contractor promises to do for 100K? You bet you'd get sued for breach of contract! He'd win too. The bad publicity would be all about you reneging on the contract.

The other contractors are not sleazy, so nice choice of wording. You must be a contractor who likes overcharging consumers, and can sleep at night knowing you are ripping people off.

Bad publicity goes both ways. Even if he wins (doubtful), the fact he sued a customer isn't going to turn off potential customers? If I knew any contractor I was considering hiring had sued a customer who changed their mind half way through, and paid that contractor for the work already done and asked him to leave, I'd run far away from that contractor. No way that contractor would see a dime of my money, no matter how right he was, or how great he was.

Again, I'm (over)paying for the work already done, and stopping the project at that point. What harm would the other contractor have suffered, if all he has put in is time and labor. He hasn't purchased anything (I'm on the hook to purchase the materials), so he's out nothing. How can he be compelled to force me to pay for work that I can't afford for the rest of the project? This makes no sense to me at all.

Two data points very far apart don't indicate anything - you have no idea if one is too high, the other too low, or one or the other is just right. Ditto with his charges for various phases of the project. I don't share the worry with others on here that it's a bad sign if someone is available - there are any number of reasons (both good and bad and meaningless) that could be.

What I would say is that there is a world of difference between 'looks good to make it through a few open houses and some showings' and 'something you'll live with for decades' in terms of quality. Even something simple like painting - one coat vs. two is a big difference in cost, and it's hard to tell when you are just passing through for 10 to 20 minutes.

I'd love to see photos as your project continues. You won't be allowed to come here and have us feel bad for you that you chose a guy who charges less. There is a reason he does so. Think about that.

As a reader of this, I'm still left wondering if the current contractor is actually over priced for the project and area, or if he's within range.

I've read through the comments and don't see this addressed. Or I missed it.

For example: Is 10k for demo normal?

Based on your posts, you would be in breach of contract.

The current GC might be expensive. He probably is. But there is no risk for the flipper GC to say "I would have done that for less" since it's already in progress and there's no way he can ever be held to actually doing it for less.

And yeah, trying to poach a job that is already under contract IS sleazy, and a customer who would go along with it is naive (or maybe also sleazy, but as most of us don't deal with this kind of stuff regularly, I'm going to go with innocent.).

(Note to GCs: most clients don't mean to be PITAs. We just don't know this business model works. :) )

I'm getting multiple comparisons now, through the multiple contractors I'm interviewing for the future phase, along with architects I'm interviewing to help with the design, and realtors I'm getting opinions on to make sure I don't over-build above the neighborhood. So multiple sources, some are independent and have nothing to gain or lose (architects, realtors), which gave me average price per sq foot prices for the work. The prices I'm paying are much higher than the average per sq foot.

The current contractor is great, but he is not the most expensive. I did have quotes from huge design / build companies where they quoted 2-3 times the cost of this guy. But my contractor is about 40-50% about what I think the better value contractors would be at.

I check contractor references and work obsessively, aside from the detailed interview. I check their work, I call their customers at random, and I check license information, complaints with BBB, license board, yelp, etc., so I make sure I see no red flags. If I choose a contractor, that contractor will be vetted as much as possible. I'm not going to choose a shady contractor who will do a terrible job.

Having said that, the new contractor checks out, and has a solid, detailed proposal for the work to be done, and it's a lot cheaper. It's a fixed price so I won't pay more than that.

I hope the current contractor will work with me to bring the prices to be more in line, because I don't want to over-pay.

I'm curious about this breach of contract. I looked over my contract and I see nothing where it states I must complete the project with him. It shows a payment schedule for the work to be done. It shows the scope of work. I'm not reading anything on the contract that states I cannot change my mind to stop the project at any point in time. I mean - what if god forbid I lost my job, or got sick, and couldn't afford the project any more? Am I compelled to pay a contractor for work I can't even afford? It doesn't make sense to me. Please explain this aspect to me.

And looking in retrospect, it seems as if contractors are fearful of competition. All the contractors knew I was getting competitive bids. As soon as some of them heard that, they started to lose interest. What the heck is that about? Do they expect a consumer to just take their word that they have the best service / pricing, and not shop around? I am not understanding this mentality.

Rick, the reality is that you are comparing apples and oranges. The first guy does not save money but is efficient. That is what you are paying for. He subs things and that comes with a premium. The responsiveness, the efficiency and organization is all in the overhead.

I know this is not helping you but you can try to negotiate with the current guy. I would not recommend you stop him because it will be at a price. The flipper guy could be very good and i disagree with the comment that he will cut corner. He may run a lean shop and that saves money. You can still get quality but efficiency may be a bit suffering.

The rule of thumb is always get 3 bids. Contractors don't like it but it is what you have to do. The cheap guy is not always the right guy and the expensive guy is not the right guy either. It is a combination of time, money and quality. Money should cover those three. it will cost you if they are delayed, it will cost you if it is of bad quality so look for hybrid.

Thank you Raphael, I think that is pretty close to what I see as well. I tried to get 6-8 bids. At the end so many contractors flaked out or gave inadequate bids that were next to useless. They all say they want the job, and I waste my finding these contractors, describing the project to them, meeting them on-site to show the job, and waiting for proposals. From 6-8 initial contacts (out of 20 - 30 contractors I called) I get 1 great bid after weeks of shopping around. It's a damn shame the contractors don't act like they want the business.

The new contractor is working a proposal for me on the future phase, but at my request is giving me a fixed-price proposal for the current project to completion. At least it allows me to compare what I'm getting now vs what I could get at a lessor price.

I don't understand why the other contractors bother wasting their time meeting me, and going over the project, and don't follow through with a decent proposal. It wastes my time and theirs. So frustrating. They all expect that after just one meeting at the site, that I'd really like them and sign with them. That's just insane.

I'll add my two cents, for what it's worth.

If I signed a contract with a customer for work to be done at a given price, and the customer tried to negotiate a better price after the fact, I wouldn't be too thrilled about it. Every single contractor is going to come in with a different price, and you cannot expect the current contractor to match the prices you receive from other later bidders. You say you don't want to overpay and that is certainly understandable, but the time to decide if the price was too much to pay is before you sign a contract saying that you agree to the price! If you buy a car on credit and sign that you will pay the full agreed upon amount, would you expect the seller to forgive you the debt and just let you bring the car back if you lose your job, get sick, or otherwise couldn't afford the car any longer?

Why don't you just come clean with the current contractor and tell him what you have in mind? Maybe he will be thrilled to walk away from the project at this stage of the game. But reduce his price? Why should he? Some people think that the "fair" price is the cheapest price and all other bidders are not being fair if they don't match that price or come close. There are all levels of quality out there and you can pretty much count on that quality going down with the price.

"I looked over my contract and I see nothing where it states I must complete the project with him."

Does the contract not say that he will do "this" and you will pay him "that"? You are obligated to let him do "this."

"Would he want a nasty customer complaint and let it be known that he sued a customer over a contract?"

Anyone who has ever signed a contract knows that it is expected that the terms of the contract will be honored or there is a chance that you will be sued. That's what keeps everybody paying their bills. I would not be the least bit put off by a contractor who sued a customer for breach of contract. What exactly would you say in your "nasty customer complaint?" That he wouldn't lower his price after the fact?

My complaint would be that I paid him for his work that he had performed to date, changed my mind about continuing the project, and that he tried to pursue me for the rest of the contract. That may not seem fair to you, but as a consumer it seems fair to me. And if he sued me, how much would damages be? He's been paid for the work to date, is a judge / jury going to force me to pay him for the rest of the contract? I doubt it. He hasn't lost real money stopping the project, he isn't out of pocket in terms of materials purchased. He just lost the opportunity to complete the work on the contract.

Even if he were to spend money to sue me, a Judge would probably give him a few hundred bucks and tell him to stuff it. No judge would award him more money based on the fact he has been compensated (more than fairly) on the work he's already done.

I'm not worried about this aspect at all. This guy would have no chance, if he wanted to go that route, at winning my future project phase, which is several times more costly than the current remodel. The carrot, if he can come down in price and be more cost competitive, he would be the prime candidate for the future phase where we are spending a lot more money as well.

There is no way in hell the contractor would bid on your next phase if you tried to renege on the terms you had signed to on the first deal. What would stop you from doing so again? Also, I think you are incorrect that you can just walk away - he may decide its not worth the effort to pursue things, but I believe (and I'm no lawyer) that he could you sue for the economic damage done to him by your reneging. He will incur losses (overhead) for the time it takes to find his next contract, and there are profits lost. Imagine you had rented an apartment for a year. You can't just walk away after a couple of months on the basis that you paid them for the 2 months already. They can pursue you for economic harm - i.e. the rent lost and costs they incur to re-lease the space.

He is fulfilling his end of the deal. Just because you think you've found a better deal from someone else is not a legitimate reason to walk away.

You are a piece of work, wow. So why sign a contract? Why not just keep hiring day labors as it sounds like that what you really want......................

Of course he could sue you. He has blocked off that time for his crew to do your job. Partway through you change your mind, even though you contracted him for the work, just because you don't like something THAT YOU SIGNED agreeing to. Now his crew does not have a job and may not be able to get one to fill that time. They are out money that they had planned on getting because they contracted with you to earn that money.

That is what a contract is for. If I contract for a hall to have a wedding at then change my mind- even ahead of time- they can collect the full price of the contract (depending of course on how the contract spells this part out) regardless of if they find someone else to take those dates or not. The contract protects both parties.

Rick Tslic, how would you feel if your contractor just walked away in the middle of the job after picking up his most recent progress payment? Would you consider that fair? What if you hire the new, cheaper, flipper guy and he decides to walk away because he's not making enough to pay his bills? Is that going to be okay with you? I mean, if he bids the job too cheap and gets in trouble with it, why not walk away from it and leave you holding the bag?

I am just amazed that you do not find any fault in your reasoning! How do you know that your contractor has not turned down other lucrative projects because he is legally bound by contract to complete yours?

"And if he sued me, how much would damages be?"

My guess would be the total price of the contract plus legal fees.

But you know, legal matters and suing aside, there is such a thing as doing the right thing. You have a perfectly good contractor, by your own admission thoroughly vetted by YOU, with "tons of references and happy customers," who is extremely responsive, and you "love his work and his crew." I don't know what you are complaining about. Because another contractor came along and said he could do the job for 40% less? You can ALWAYS find people to do a job for less. You can't always find people who will do a job well. Take a look at some of the many, many threads on this forum filled with complaints and horror photographs to go with them, posted by people who wished they were in your shoes.

Why not just finish out this phase of the contract as agreed, and go with someone else for the next phase?

Rick:

Your contractor has failed you. He has failed to convince you he is the best value. He deserves what he's about to get and he'll be grateful, trust me. He failed to weed you out and he has to pay for that mistake.

Fair points jelly. I'm going to discuss this with my contractor, see if we can come to terms both of us are happy with. I was under pressure to sign, because the contractor said "if you don't sign now, my crew will be unavailable for a long time", so there was pressure tactics involved.

I'm a fair and reasonable person. I don't over-charge other people for my work. I'd like to think that everyone operates on that basis. We will see how this shakes out.

Interesting, seeing the gang of "pros" who have no problem shaking consumers out of money and ripping them off. I understand that you are entitled to make a living. You are not entitled to take advantage of customers and pressure them into high priced contracts. My contractor is an angel compared to a lot of you. I do really like him as a person and I'm hoping he will come to terms with me. A lot of you sound like shady business people who have no problem ripping customers off.

Thank you for identifying yourself in this thread. I'm sure many of your potential customers will see you for what you really are and avoid you in the future. Best of luck.

Wow! @jellytoast! Well said! Applause! I love your answer. We are always doing projects and are no stranger to contractors. We've had the good, the bad, and the ugly. Lessons have been learned. Thanks for that concise answer. I'm copying and pasting for my next contractor dilemma!

Maybe I'm for paying the big bucks for a quality job is due to experience. Young, inexperienced, had money, new home, wanted a pool. Card left at door by pool builder. Contractor. He had nice eyes. What's not to trust? Price was amazing! Hired him.

Long story short. He didn't finish the job. I had subs putting liens on my property. Had to take him to the state contractors license board for a piece of his bond only to find there was a line of others he had taken to the cleaners. I got a little back, but ended up paying double what I would have and it took a lot longer than if I had just went with one of the top bidders.

Be careful.

He had nice eyes. What's not to trust?

LOL, suzi! Seriously,
though, it really isn't all about money because there are so many things that
can wrong and end up costing more in the long run, just as you experienced.
How awful for you!

Rick, I hope you will stick around and let us know how this
plays out. It will be interesting to see, if you do go with the different
contractor for the second phase of your project, how everything works out. The construction industry
is not exactly a level playing field with all players having equal talent ... not
in skills of the trade, knowledge, business smarts, or even common sense!
Far from it!

Someone charging a higher price is not automatically ''price gouging'' or ''overcharging''. This inaccurate and foolish assumption needs to exit your brain entirely.

Contractors have different overheads for their businesses. Contractor A's business who maintains a 10 M insurance policy, continuing education classes, a business license, and employees with reliable company vehicles and tools will be entirely different than B who has 50K worth of insurance, doesn't have a full remodeler's license, never had any education, has to sub out all the extra work when he gets in over his single person capacity, and drives an 1994 F350.

Contractor's have vastly different skill levels. An experienced guy, who runs his crew well, schedules down to a 24 hour window, and has relationships with backups for everyone, and can pitch in and work along side is much different than a paper contractor with a business degree who doesn't know which end of the hammer to hold and thinks he can schmooze the trades into working well. And is much different than the young guy who was a lead carpenter and thinks he has what it takes to start his own business but can't manage to be organized enough to get anything to happen on time and has zero idea that he is actually losing money because he doesn't know how to calculate overhead.

Just because contractors have different rates, and different methodology to calculate jobs does not make either of them ''wrong'' about what they charge. One may be a wrong fit for someone who values price over quality, but that doesn't make him wrong for someone who values quality over price.

Just because employer A pays a higher rate, but is more demanding of your time than employer B who has a flex time policy and is easier going doesn't mean that employer B is ''taking advantage of you''. People value different things in their employment situation than just money as well.

There is a difference between cost and value. And you are not only thinking of them as identical, you are only valuing one single metric. And it is the worst one to judge any job by.

You must remember the classic Venn diagram. There is NO intersection for all 3 variables that isn't fantasy.

Signs · More Info

He said: "if you don't sign now, my crew will be unavailable for a long time",

You said: "so there was pressure tactics involved."

Did you want him to say: " no problem. When you're ready I'll have my crews drop everything and get right on your project."?

Illtelluwhat im pondering an eloquent statment here hold tite.

I got ripped, I've got a great contractor, but he's slow, and expensive. Can't let my husband see this chart.....

I'm sure the readers here will be waiting with bated breath. Please use spellcheck so our eyes don't burn out in disbelief.

snookums2: Good for you. You got the use of "bated" right. My niece is a grammar Nazi and just used "baited". Twice. Oooo she was mad when I busted her. Both times.

This guy has got to be a troll. If he's not, then he's just ignorant.

My contractor is an angel compared to a lot of you. I do really like him as a person and I'm hoping he will come to terms with me. A lot of you sound like shady business people who have no problem ripping customers off.

Thank you for identifying yourself in this thread. I'm sure many of your potential customers will see you for what you really are and avoid you in the future. Best of luck.

I'm not a contractor. I'm building a house and six years ago we gutted our condo and hired a contractor. And yes, we hired someone who was more expensive. We could have gotten anyone 6 years ago during the recession, but we picked the one who had the references, who's work was top notch and who was there every single day. Yes he cost us about 30% more but know something? He's still around. Some of the others we interviewed are no longer around.

Additionally because we had a top notch contractor, when we went to sell our place this year, we had tremendous interest and we sold at one of the highest prices ever for a condo in our building. And it wasn't because the market is soaring. At the time there were 9 other condos for sale in the building. I think all 9 are still on the market and all have had to drop their prices into the toilet.

This guy has got to be a troll. If he's not, then he's just ignorant.

Or he's a huge derriere aperture!

Actually people rather often ask for help on web sites (and elsewhere) and then attack those giving answers that don't cater to their preconceptions.

And rather often seem to have no sense of self-culpability.

Think of this as the Age of Entitlement.

About 25 years ago, I asked several neighbors for recommendations for someone to do stonework for me. I called them and only one was interested in such a small job. He came over, I explained that I wanted a DRY stone wall, low, really a retaining wall for my brick terrace - about 18" high. I also wanted a concrete retaining wall 5' high, between the terrace and the driveway. He gave me a price for each. We told him we would buy the stone but he needed to pick it up - he would provide all other materials. He showed me lots of pictures of beautiful walls he claimed to have done (found out later he had not done them - just pretty pictures). We had no written contract.

He came to do the concrete retaining wall. Having had one collapse into the driveway of a home we were under contract to buy many years before, I was very specific about how I wanted it built. It needed to be tied into the foundation of the house, and it needed drain holes lined with aluminum downspout. He assured me this was how he built walls. I was working the day it was poured so I didn't really see the total job. About 5 years ago, it started separating from the foundation and I discovered he had not tied it in properly,. Someday, it will collapse into the driveway but engineer says no time soon and it would destroy much landscaping and the terrace would have to be rebuilt at that end, so we're not rebuilding it.

Then the stone and other supplies were delivered. I was quite surprised to see multiple bags of mortar- this was to be a dry wall - no mortar. When he arrived the next day and I asked him about this, he made a fatal error: he called me. "Little lady". I'm no raging feminist but when a workman calls me this, I see red. He told me that I just thought there was no mortar in a dry wall - it really was there, put way back in. I asked him if he'd actually ever seen a real dry wall - there are many around Lexington KY where they're called slave walls, due to the stones on top on the diagonal so the field hands would not sit on the wall when working. Mine were to be the New England type without this addition. He clearly had no idea what a dry wall even was. I told him to leave and I would get back to him. I had no intention of paying him for on the job training.

i called a lawyer friend to ask how to get rid of this guy. I had no written contract. In KY, one can legally fire for no cause. I had a separate price for the concrete wall. I had paid for the stone. I did not order mortar. The lawyer told me to pay him for work/materials done and then fire him. This was not received well. He left my house (with his cashiers check), and went straight to the County Court House and filed a mechanics lien on my property. Of course in due time I was notified of this. Again called the lawyer. He said the man had no legal claim, but it cost me $500 to have him write a strong letter demanding that the lien be removed. It scared him and he removed it.

My husband ended up building the wall, with me sitting there reading him instructions. It's held up pretty well and at least it was free!

You have a written contract. He will put a mechanics lien on your property and he will prevail. Is your contractor over priced? I don't know but you've learned an expensive lesson - take your time, get multiple detailed bids before signing anything. You really cannot legally (to say nothing of ethically) change contractors. Do it right for the additional work you want done.

I rarely work for clients that tell me how they want things done. They get the "what", I get the "how" or I move on.

My eyes are bleeding after reading through this. May as well stick with the initial contractor and chalk it up as a life lesson.

'I rarely work for clients that tell me how they want things done. They get the "what", I get the "how" or I move on.'

So then how will the plumber react if I tell him I want the HUSH sink support you recommend used.

This whole site is based on advising people how things should be done, a large portion of it being hired out.

Plumbers don't install under mounted sinks. Stone fabricators do.

A simple request to any contractor about what methodology do they use for XYZ task is sufficient.

''Have you heard about ABC? Here is the manufacturer's specs. I like Feature DEF that they seem to have. What do you think?''

It doesn't have to be an obnoxious confrontation. Really.

Do you have any idea what his workers are being paid (per hour)? How many are present on the job site? To they all look as if they are working hard? When I had my house recently built, I noticed that his workers were being well paid (their hourly rate was on the invoice), there were enough at the job site, and they were all busy. A few months later, I had reason to find him at another job (which was a second new house for a client he had already built for), and again, enough workers who were busy. I probably paid more for my house than others, but I am happy with the result.

Highly amusing, Sophie.

'Plumbers don't install under mounted sinks. Stone fabricators do.'

Stone is not the only counter top material used with under mount sinks.

HUSH is just the tip of the iceberg. And we're not supposed to do multiple interviews either.

'A simple request to any contractor about what methodology do they use for XYZ task is sufficient. It doesn't have to be an obnoxious confrontation. Really.

Wouldn't seem that way from listening to the discussions here!

"I noticed that his workers were being well paid (their hourly rate was on the invoice)."

You'd have to look at their pay stubs to know their actual hourly rate. What is listed on your invoice and what is written on their paycheck are not necessarily the same amount.