I still think the house is probably not framed with dimensioned lumber; its just too much money.

We can't help without more information about the design of the house structure.

The person who can answer your question is the author of the contract documents. What is that person saying?

thank you RES2, I appreciate alll the info on your earlier post but I have to be honest, I'm uneducated in terms of construction so it's difficult to understand. But the hangers were missing on plans but they did use them and hangers are def on my house. They just didn't tell me the cost of all those hangers until months after the house was framed. You mentioned "laminated above". I did a search and i do have invoices listing LVL (laminate veneer lumber) that was used. Where and how much I dont know but one invoice said $7K worth and I'm sure moree was used. is that ok? I'm sure w/ lumber shortage in the past yr, builders had to find new suppliers and maybe other alternatives but hopefully that was an acceptable framing material.

LVLs are a premium product, not an economical substitute.

...the hangers were missing on plans but they did use them and hangers are def on my house.

So the question is, "was their use justified as correcting an oversight of the architect" or just on the builder's whim because they thought they were required.

*******

These issues always seem like "Judge Judy" with only one party in Court.

Is your house still in progress or done? When we built there was a final invoice that came and we released the 10% we had withheld through tie build only once it was confirmed there were no more bills coming. An invoice of this cost, so many months later, with jo real explanation is atrocious.

@WestCoast Hopeful, It's supposed to be done in about 2 months. The unusual thing is, we found out about the $20K in hangers (material) in an unrelated email. We were having a random budget discussion regarding Framing and they blamed "bad plans that didn't call out hangers" for the unexpected cost. But then I looked back at all monthly billing documents including every single invoice and didn't see anything that corresponded to the $20K. So I'm in the process of getting clarity from our builder.

So they haven’t actually billed you for it yet? If you get invoices for everything and they don’t have one for this that is very alarming. They and your hopefully have been taking photos throughout the project. Do you have pictures or what was done?

I did not read all the comments, but the question comes up in my mind of what the builder included in his bid for the connection between the joists and the bearing plate??

I don't understand why the OP is tryng to understand the problem by searching the internet and invoices. Its seems like a simple question for the designer of the house.

@WestCoast Hopeful I believe they have billed us for it bc I can't imagine not having received it when Framing was completed in April. The problem is, I dont have a change order and I can't find the invoice(s) for the hangers so I've asked the builder to find/send to me. But I looked through every invoice and all I see are invoices for "hangers" here and there and probalby amount to about $8K if that.

@Mark Bischak, ArchitectYes, that's a big question so I've requested the bid for Framing Materials. But in our final approved construction estimate, I do see "hangers included" in the notes section next to Framing Material.

@res2architect You are correct and I have asked this question. Sorry, this is an issue that JUST arose so while I'm asking on this forum, at the same time I have asked these questions to the architect and builder. The only reason why i'm here posting is bc I'm trying to educate myself a bit. This is the 1st time we're building and we've been very lax/naive about the whole process and have never questioned anyone/anything because we wanted to trust everyone but we've run into several issues in the past week which is making us re-examine many aspects of the home. For ex, we have 1600 sq feet of flat roof area that was suppoosed to be ballast roof. Their contract said ballast roof, their invoices to us said ballast roof. They charged us $35K ($27/sq feet) but didnt give us a ballast roof. I looked at site pictures and it turns out it's a EPDM roof with no ballast (they did tapered insulation, Dexcell, EPDM) They came back and said "woops, our bid didn't include the cost of stones/applying stones so it would be another +$13K on top of the $35K. This incident triggered us to go back and look at all paperwork carefully. We are NOT happy because we're 80% into our construction and it upsets me to think where else did they make these types of mistakes?

How does your builder send you invoices? Ours used an app and everything was collated there. They also provided us with a tracking program that showed budgeted amounts and then when we went over and why. This helped us know what was going on. Can you have a meeting and check in overall on progress and overages and what is left?

@WestCoast Hopeful they send them monthly via email. they have a summary of the budgeted amounts and current costs to date. They lured us before signing contract with this online platform that kept track of eveything - job reports, change orders, just about every facet of the jo but 1 month into the project, they just stopped using it. Yes, it may be a good idea to have a meeting to review what's left of the job. But we are 80% complete :(

Perfect time to meet so hot further blindsided

SS hangers we use down the shore run about $20, so they used 1000 hangers on a 6k SF house I doubt that?

You could have a few structural hangers carrying a beam, let's pick a hypothetical number of $300 per hanger... How many beams a 6k foot house can have that need to be supported by structural hangers? 3-4 beams perse 8 hangers "@300" 15 min to install all over them...

Joist hangers for engineered lumber let's say top-flange they run about $6-7 how many do you actually need on the house unless the entire floor system is suspended. My house is 4,200 SF all structurally designed and I only used 20 hangers in one location.

This 30k sounds like someone are looking to score on a nice Christmas bonus, or they underbid the job and now looking to make it up.

I can see something was changed or added let's say worth 2-3k -5k tops, this would be addressed right away prior to commencing any work...That is how it's always been done.

Now 8 months later you wake up and tell your customer you owe me 30k because we missed "1000" hangers?

I don't know I'm not a big builder, only did about 55-60 homes and countless remodeling projects and I never came to the customer after the fact to request money for something that was missed, especially 30k worth, it just doesn't make any sense.

Good luck, I hope you get this straightened out.

They charged us $35K ($27/sq feet) but didnt give us a ballast roof. I looked at site pictures and it turns out it's a EPDM roof with no ballast (they did tapered insulation, Dexcell, EPDM) They came back and said "woops, our bid didn't include the cost of stones/applying stones so it would be another +$13K on top of the $35K.

So they charged for a ballast roof (in the plans presumably) but didn't install it. And instead of a rebate, they want $13K more to put ballast on an adhered roof and call it a ballast roof.

Someone who can afford a luxury home can afford a lawyer to bite back. Assuming this is the whole story.

(But, of course, I've sued my own solicitors twice and won.)

Its been 3 days and your architect has yet to explain the issue to you or offer a solution?

Do architects in Utah perform a different role in building construction than those in the rest of the US?

I can assure you that you won't resolve anything by quizzing people who know so little about your project.

@RES2, Unfortunately still no word from the architect of builder.

The architect simply said "I think I might know what happened...I'll touch base w/ the builder" but that was 4 days ago and still waiting to hear. I also asked our builder whether all the hangers were missing or some hangers missing and no response yet. I agree this is really not incredily productive posting here but I do feel like I'm getting somewhat educated on things I know nothing about. Prior to this week, I had no idea what a hanger was or looked like.

Posting here is totally helpful and a good idea. Even if just for a vent or to lament your woes. Everyone always needs to go to their real people to really solve anything. I’m glad you posted and have found it helpful.

The only thing the OP has learned for sure is that the contractor's charge is not for typical steel joist hangers and its not possible to guess what it could be without knowing the nature of the structure. Are there no photos of the structure of the house during construction?

I find it strange that the charge did not contain a detailed written explanation of the work and materials involved. At this point, if you want to play guessing games, the high charge is just as likely to be due to an invoice typo as anything else.

I suppose another thing the OP can be sure of is that professional management is absent from the project.

Well maybe the OP is quite content with what they have learned. In fact I believe they said they were. Sorry this isn’t getting resolved as quickly as you want it to RES and that you feel this has all been a wasted effort. Since OP doesn’t feel same what do your comments add? And 3 days 4 days is really not that long of a time to head back.

I've advised clients regarding such issues for 50 years and believe its important for the OP to understand that there has not been enough information provided to begin to explain the contractor's overcharge, that wild guesses are counterproductive distractions and that an architect should respond within two days even if they haven't yet found the explanation unless, of course, they're traveling or otherwise indisposed.

In any case, OP's don't need someone to criticize those trying to advise them.

Oh they just need people to criticize them directly? That is what you have done. They know there hasn’t been enough info provided and are trying to get answers. They’ve said that over and over. It’s great you would have responded within two days, also possible that for many, that is not a realistic timeline. This person isn’t sitting idle hoping it gets resolved. They actively are trying to figure it out with their team. OP keep us posted. Hoping you find a reasonable explanation and then resolution that makes you happy.

Why have you become a troll?

Here's what I got from my architect. The builder hasn't responded about the billing issues (e.g. them telling us hangers were $20K in matereial when none of the invoices combined come to that total, not having rec'd any change order forms citing that). BUT, here is the architect's response. "The initial pricing was done before the Structural Engineer had provided all the detail that was in the final package and the required hangers were not included in the bid. The hangers are absolutely required, so they would have had to be part of the pricing in the end. Let me know with questions."

The thing is, the Construction Estimate has a footnote saying "based on permit set plans". And it's my guess we HAD to have all the structural details in place at that time. Would love to respond based on any insights i can get here on this forum. My questions are - how many hangers were missing? Were all missing? And if they were missing, wouldn't the builder have told us?

Unfortunately in my case, the builder/architect spearheaded all the permitting and things like that since we live out of state. So we were removed from this process and relied on them to get this squared away.

Determne who was the Structural Engineer. Contact them a nd request copies of all reports pertaining to their work on your house. Ask for material list and look for time stamps on the info.

"BUT, here is the architect's response.

"The initial pricing was done before the Structural Engineer had provided all the detail that was in the final package and the required hangers were not included in the bid. The hangers are absolutely required, so they would have had to be part of the pricing in the end. Let me know with questions.'"

This is a case where the order of operations managed by the "professionals" was wrong and the client will most likely end up paying the price for the error. If key structural details weren't included along with the plans as part of a complete bid package, then you weren't ready to competitively bid the project.

One of my pet peeves is when a credentialed professional rationalizes their failure to protect the client's interests by saying, oh well, you would have paid for it, had it been included in the information in the bid package. That's amateur not professional.

It’s so frustrating that you don’t know what you don’t know. As a homeowner your hire a team to help you that you assume knows process and steps and is the expert. It’s impossible for the homeowner to be an expert most of the time. It’s such a hard journey. We had changes along the way with structural engineer that increased our costs but we were told about them quickly and it was explained why they were happening with designer, builder, and structural engineer all meeting us together to go over.

@littlemansion90210, "no word from the architect of builder"

The builder's architect? Or, is this your own architect?

Ask architect about # hangers and approx cost/unit? See GN's comment above.

@strategery, sorry I mean "architect or builder". They are separate but are supposed to work together obviously. They are different companies. and yes, I plan to ask how many, the cost, and hpefully there's a "structural plan" that shows the exact placement of these(???). Is that a reasonable request? Or is it imposible for them to map our hundreds of hangers??

I think your builder and your architect are full of s^*t...

Even if the hangers were not included in the proposal, when they got engineers complete drawings with everything listed, and they knew the contract has to be revised and adjusted in the amount of 20k in materials +labor...

If they forgot to tell you at that time, someone had to dish out an additional 20k in hangers and there is no better time to bring this issue up with the homeowner and get this straightened out.

I mean it was a whole year to do that...

Something definitely smells rotten here.

OP: post the number and the types of hangers so we can judge. If they are HUC or LU*. HUs are much more expensive but rarely used on residentials. They are not difficult to install today with little Palm nailer.

All we know about the contract is it was "bid" but its possible that term is misused and this is a Cost Plus a Fee contract and the actual Cost of this line item has exceeded the original Budget amount because the scope of that work was not known when the contract was negotiated. This is what owner contingencies are for.

Also, there is probably something we don't know about the structure of the house that would explain the unusually high cost of hangers.

Maybe it looks like this:

Or maybe I-Joist floor and roof framing isn't orthagonal.

Irrespective of the type of contract, the owners should have been made aware the project was being "bid," "estimated," "costed" or that "cost proposals" were being sought without the benefit of all the structural details. The cost implications of the details should have been communicated to the owner as soon as possible after they were available, not during the course of construction. In some cases, that might have initiated a value engineering process.

This was an error in the process for which both the architect and builder share blame, but probably not in equal amounts.

@res2architect i certainly smell something rotten too.

@BT - i looked through existing invoices and see "HU". $16/piece. top mount hangers $4.49. Retro PL hangers for $165 a piece (no idea what that is).

Spent hours through paperwork:

405 total hangers

$6,120 in invoices (so I'm not sure why builder told us $20K on a call)

I finally heard back from architect (builder has yet to get back to me but we have a call tomorrow). Architect said "The initial pricing was done before the Structural Engineer had provided all the detail that was in the final package and the required hangers were not included in the bid. The hangers are absolutely required, so they would have had to be part of the pricing in the end. Let me know with questions."

My response to that will be: 1) The Construction estimate clearly has "hanger" in the notes section and 2) our construction estimate reflected all the structural plans or at least that's what they told us back then. Btw, neither builder/architect have answered my question of whether all or some hangers were missing. But am guessing all.

My questions to anyone who can help:

1) at what point do hangers need to be included in plans? Are we able to get a permit without the county seeing those?? Doesn't the county need to approve all plans (including structural) which has the hangers info? I guess I'm unclear as to how this happened and I'm afraid the defense we'll get will simply be "hangers were not called out at the time of bid".

2) What's the name of the structural document that has all the # of hangers and the placement of them? Id like to request those.

3) Is it possible there is some other building component that works w/ the hangers that are included in that $20K cost? So when the builder said hangers were $20K, maybe something else is included in that? I've heard "bearing plate" on this thread. Could that be included in hanger costs (not that that would let anyone off the hook but just curious

If the floor systems in your home include engineered I-joists, then hangers, where required, would typically be shown on the I-joist manufacturer's plans. The plans our supplier provides show the hanger locations and type and include a bill of materials indicating the required quantity of each. If dimensional lumber is used for your floor system, then hangers would typically be shown or noted in the framing plans, but you wouldn't likely have a bill of materials.

If you have invoices which include hangers and are operating under either a cost-plus or management-fee contract, then you likely already paid for the hangers when you paid for the framing materials. If there was incremental labor associated with installation of the hangers, I'm betting you paid that at the time you paid for the framing labor invoices.

@Charles Ross Homes, wow that is helpful and I had not thought of that - hangers are a an essential part of framing construction (what I learned here on houzz) so yes, when framers bid job they more than likely that as part of framing labor. Instead, they are charging us +$11k in labor for those missing hangers.

I have no idea if dimensioal lumber was used. I just had to google what it was.

As for our contract, we have a Construction Estimate. Then their "cut" is adding:

10% overhead (costs of project manager, staff, company operating expenses) to the bottom line job total. That 10% gets added to every line item - material and labor.

Then another 5% profit to the bottom line

Separately, we pay a full time job superintendent + general laborer (total of $175K) and thats a line item in the construction estimate. They do add the 10% and 5% to this line item.

"Retro PL hangers" may refer to simulated antique connectors for "Parallam" PSL (parallel strand lumber) beams. If so, those beams would be exposed as major features in the house so you would be aware of them. Is that the case?

GN Builders mentioned the smell; I'm still trying to figure out the design of the house. There's got to be something unusal about it.

@littlemansion90210

Seems like you have a cost-plus construction contract. With this arrangement, all direct costs (materials and trade labor) invoiced to the builder flow through to you and the "plus" part gets added. You should receive copies of each supplier's and trade contractor's invoices for which the builder invoices you. Unless an invoice was lost and not billed to you much earlier in construction, you should have already paid for the hangers when you paid for the framing materials. Any incremental framing labor and the associated "plus" part should have already been paid.

@Charles Ross Homes Yes, everything has been paid unfortunately. All framing was completed vy May. the $20K in hanger material was only verbally mentioned to us on a call recently and put in an excel worksheet. My reaction was "I dont recall seeing/hearing a change order." So that's how this all came about. I looked through every invoice from Jan 2021 and I dont see $20K in hanger material. Just $6k. So I am guessing they underestimaed the framing and are simply just finding reasons to explain why our framing materials cost jumped 91% vs Budget.

@res2architect we have no exposed lumber beams. we did have 1-2 big beams (steel) but they came out of nowhere so we decided to drop ceiling to cover them up.

this is a mountain modern house. nothing terribly unusual. single level w/ a lower level walkout. open layout. that picture someone posted above is a big exaggerated but similar style.

So just to be clear you aren’t actually being asked to fork over a fresh $20k right now? It’s paid for and randomly came up in conversation?

@littlemansion90210

I don't understand why a change order would be presented for a cost-plus-percentage construction contract. By definition, the owner pays whatever costs are incurred and the builder invoices for the "plus" part on top of that.

There can be a number of reasons why the actual cost of framing materials exceeded the estimate. The extent to which it does depends both on the accuracy of the original estimate and whatever price changes were experience subsequent to it.

I suggest you keep your wallet and your checkbook closed until there is a legitimate accounting of project costs.

@WestCoast Hopeful sorry to confuse! i believe everything has been paid for. the only reason why this $20K came up is bc we asked for an explanation for the 90% increase in framing materials. they didnt provide a clear breakout but did cite "missing hangers" as a +$20k driver. And labor cost us a extra $11K. the thing is when we were framing, they ordered 90% of the projects's lumber upfront and that $ amount was about 8% over budget. We did some ceiling drops in some rooms following that. But even with that , and the remaining 10% lumber that needed to be ordered towards end of framing. I just dont know how that could amount to a +$139K overage n framing material costs.

Sorry your framing is 139k over budget? Ours was about 40% over in 2017/18 because of softwood lumber issues and costs rising. It was ugly. How big is your house? I know all houses are different and it’s hard to compare but I just looked back and framing cost was $120k total. Our house is 4500 square feet

I've designed and managed many projects from hospital wings to house additions using a Cost of the Work plus a Fee contract. For all of these projects the contractor proposed a "Budget" with anticiated costs listed as line items on a spreadsheet many pages long. There were columns for the budget or "scheduled" amount, the buyout cost amounts to date, the % completion (buyout cost/budget amount) and the balance to completion.

If the cost to date for a line item exceeded the budget, the % completion would be greater than 100% with a negative Balance to Completion so it would be easy to spot. A Change Order would only be proposed for a change in the scope of the work, i.e., something not in the original design documents. Such a document would be in different formats for different contractors.

The spreadsheet was normally edited every month and submitted with an invoice along with receipts to the owner's representative who would review, approve and pass it on to the owner for payment.

If you and/or your architect didn't receive this kind of documentation, you have not been well served by the contractor or the architect.

Since the contractor is certain to have such a document, you should ask to see it.

@WestCoast Hopefulour is about 6600 sq feet (or that's what the framing labor was based on). this includes garage (1050 sq feet). Does not include patios or mechanical rooms and such. $260 K (budgeted) and $440K (actual billed)

@res2architect, we get those documents monthly. and i guess this is where we are at fault bc we assumed everythign was fairly on track bc otherwise the builder would have mentioned to us. and i suppose a change order isn't something i should have expected bc inclusion of hangers isn't a change in scope of work. it was only when we saw the amt billed for framing materials that we asked why and that's how we found out about this hangers issue as one of the factors. as for the remaining overage, they are looking into it.

As a builder, can I ask you at what point do you know where and how many hangers are needed for the job. And is it true that they won't approve the permit without seeing these on plans? is there a plan or blueprint document that shows where all these go? I just heard from builder this AM and he said a couple hundred hangers were missing for the fascia. How can hangers be missing and still get approved/permitted?

@littlemansion90210 "it was only when we saw the amt billed for framing materials that we asked why and that's how we found out about this hangers issue as one of the factors."

The reason it was the hangers, that is something you cannot see or count to verify at this time unless there is an invoice that they were purchased.

"At what point do you know where and how many hangers are needed for the job"

You know how many hangers you need at the time when you make your lumber list, they're indicated on the drawings or on the detail section.

By the way, can you please take a picture of your house so we can get an idea of what type of house that is...

Also, a Change Order might not have been needed unless there was a Guaranteed Maximum Price (GMP) that would need to be increased.

I'm an architect not a builder but I always represent my residential clients during the construction phase and, of course, I'm required to do so for larger projects. So, what was your architect doing during the construction phase? Were you attempting to manage a Cost Plus project by yourself? Have you done that before? You should always learn on someone else's project like I did.

In what categories of work did the buyout exceed the budget amount? There might be a single line item for framing/rough carpentry since that work is usually done by a sub contractor with a lump sum contract.

The fact that a building official didn't catch missing code required items does not relieve you or, by extension, your contractors, agents and representatives from complying with the building code. You should not accuse an offical of negligence regarding something you are ultimately responsible for.

However, I suspect the hangers are a small part of the cost increase.

We really don't know much about this project.

My 2 cents...

If you feel like the builder is not on the up and up, speak to a construction attorney. Don't ignore your gut. If something smells rotten, there is a good chance it is. I understand the desire to educate yourself, but frankly there is not enough space or time here for you to bridge the knowledge gap between you and your builder. Your best bet is to engage someone who is already capable of reviewing your documents and the charges.

Now a word on cost plus contracts. A cost plus contract does not remove the builder's duty of due care. A builder can't simply omit items from the estimation/bid process and then add them to the project along with their markup and be more profitable because he was deceptive or negligent in the bidding process. That is not how contracts work. It is entirely possible and reasonable that you were over budget because items went up in price, but there are several concerns with items that should have been in the bid being omitted.

Having said that, scope matters. I didn't see where you discussed the cost of the entire project, but a $30,000 omission on a $3,000,000 project is unlikely to be material enough to be a breach of due care. On the other hand a $30,000 omission on a $150,000 project would likely be a breach of due care.

Good luck