So by way of follow up all these months later - I never used that bad general contractor again but it took weeks to hire a replacement for the exterior work then forever to get him in. Luckily I had my own electrician and flooring person fix his work in the interim and my time/materials contractor install the final kitchen a month later as planned, and worked with a designer to make it work wonderfully (plus a lot of my own time and effort). The exterior work (window/door conversion) took another 6-8 weeks and wasn’t done until 2 months ago, and while we didn’t save money on the replacement person, we didn’t spend more on them for the same things either. With the money I spent to fix the bad GC’s work, I was probably out a few grand (sad to say) and my designer figured he was going to leave me in the lurch either way either when he did or toward the end - her theory was that he would leave me in the lurch the moment he was a few grand ahead and could safely run and pull out his profit, so she said NEVER to let him get ahead of me in terms of my paying a moment ahead of work (live and learn). The only thing that galls me is a deposit he never returned, so I’m planning on emailing him with a demand for it back. The demand is drafted, the architect who referred him expects it ��" but I can’t seem to push the button on the email because it will be so unpleasant when I do (he'll refuse to give it back, he'll ignore the email, I doubt he'll actually pony up a penny). The architect who referred him to me has very clear backup for what was wrong and knows it wasn’t acceptable. I’ve left it to him whether to refer the jerk to anyone else. My designer thinks I should just walk away from the lost deposit and figure it was a bump-up in price for the job. Other bids from (now I know) better contractors were well more than the cash I left him with. So while I lost money and a decent amount of security (for example, for the first time in 7 years we now had a mouse on our parlor floor, I figure from something not well sealed behind the scenes by the GC, but who knows; plus I'm concerned because the plumbing he did was so bad that I worry a lot about water issues coming up especially ones I don't know about). But what an education. By the way, as it turns out the bad GC's electrician left a ton undone and done improperly so I had my own electrician fix that. The plumber who installed the final kitchen pointed out that the GC's plumbing work was shoddy (range's turnoff valve installed at the wrong end of the wall/range connection; bad height of the plumbing for the range etc.); the carpenter showed me a screw sticking down out of a railing the GC's guy installed, about an inch down where someone grabbing it from below could have torn their hand badly (that one galls me the most, and I don't think that was intentional; the GC's guy wasn't that good and the GC never bothered to come check his work... poor hiring and poor supervision were the culprits there). So beware! I love my new kitchen and deck but who knows what issues lurk behind... not electrical and unlikely structural since I had an architect involved, but more plumbing,,, and some functional like a bad washer/dryer layout because of his poor choices and advice to me on the fly (and I wish I'd had my designer and not the architect for a lot of these decisions, the right advice is so key).

The GC took out the backsplash when he submitted the invoice. He spoke to me on the phone and I asked him if he could find someone else to do our backsplash, he said he would but then never followed through with that. He dropped off the invoice when he knew I wasn't home. And there were no penalties on our invoice. There have been no more tiles ordered, even though I wanted the backsplash at Kato she doesn't seem to want to order it. I've since been working with a tile shop and they've been very helpful. And, I never signed any contracts or was told about a design fee, in fact when I went to Kato for the tiles she had called me and asked me if she could meet me there. She also came to our house one time with granite selection and a few backsplash ideas__again, I didn't ask her or expect her to come to our house. She now thinks I should pay her$250 for these two times. LOL I am a fair person but I'm not a fool! I'm on a teacher's salary and I think it's ludicrous for someone to think they're worth $80 an hour when they botch the job and order the wrong tiles!

Vegiegardnr- Did you talk to you flooring person about thier hours? Not that it really should need to be any of your concern what it takes to run their business as long as you get the finished product that you are paying for (and of a reasonable quality), but there probably is a lot more to it than you seem to assume. You saw work from 10:30 -4:30 and decided that was lazy. There could have been other work that is necessary to their job that was happening during those "lazy off hours": Meeting other potential clients for quoting work, billing and paperwork for jobs done, billing and paperwork to pay supplier accounts, getting quotes or filling out forms for insurance and/or licensing, filling out forms for employees or past employees that need employment verifications for loans/apartment renting/new jobs, picking up materials for jobs or tool expendables, servicing of their truck or equipment that they use to do the work, researching and/or buying a new piece of equipment, going to a class about a new floor surfacing product, etc.. Based on how you present yourself here it seems you don't view contractors as human beings that "just might" be working hard to try to do good work. There are bad guys out there in all fields of work, but most contractors do not deserve the assumption that they are all just trying to find ways to overcharge and be lazy. Or maybe in your experience those are the only ones you've worked with - because as others have pointed out, contractors look at their potential clients in terms of risk of loss/stress/hassle/not getting paid/not getting sued, and the good self respecting contractors who have a good reputation and referral base don't need to take on risky/unpleasant work and probably steer clear of working with someone with those attitudes. Maybe next time - still protect yourself with reasonable due diligence, but treat the contractor as a human, ask (a reasonable amount) of polite and non judgemental questions if you don't understand where charges come from or why things cost what they do. Maybe then you'll have a better experience with your next contractor and start to shift your views away from assuming they're all bad.

Nothing about damages in the contract. GC agreed to pay for damages, but is now tacking on all these coordinating contractor fees. I haven't been a difficult client or delayed things etc, that's not his reasoning. By GC's own words, this fee is for his effort in picking up materials, overseeing subs, times spent driving to my place, talking to my KDs with questions he had etc. BAU stuff. I thought that this sort of thing is already rolled into his profit and general condition line item in the contract. There is a clause in the contract saying any change in cost needs to be communicated in writing in advance, prior to work beginning. I plan to use that if costs get out of hand, but wanted to know if this sort of "coordination" fee is just part of the business.