contractors

I'm coming to understand the true beauty of Do It Yourself renovations, I think. It's not the romance, or the assurance that everything will be done exactly as you want it (or as near as your skills allow you to approximate). It's that Yourself, unlike a contractor, will not come to your house, spend two hours giving you an "estimate" that involves a lot of time spent telling horror stories about other contractors and explaining why is costs $40,000 to do the job "to code," only to immediately drop off the face of the earth. You always know where Yourself is and do not have to call Yourself every single day to stand a chance of ever getting a final bid. Yourself is extremely capable of holding up work in myriad ways, but refusing to return your phone calls is not one of them.

I've had three companies come out to estimate foundation repairs. I have a bid from one. One sent a bid that involved putting new piers in the middle of the yard and I'm waiting for that to be corrected. One has become simply unreachable. Apparently these guys don't need my business, which works out well because I'd probably never hire them now, but I'd still like to see the estimates to better evaluate the one bid I do have. There's another company coming out on Friday. Having learned my lesson, I am not letting the guy leave until he puts the bid in my hand.

Plumbers, if possible, seem to be even worse. I'd heard that about plumbers. Even the guy who was recommended to me won't set up an appointment. I had an appointment to see another company "sometime today," and had asked for about two hours' notice. When he called today, he asked when I'd like to do it. "This afternoon?" I asked, confused. "Or tomorrow morning would work, I guess.." I added after a brief silence.

"Let's do tomorrow morning," he responds.

"Ok. About what time? Around eigh-"

"I'll give you a call around lunchtime, ok?"

I don't equate lunchtime with morning. Nor, I suspect, does this guy. Within the space of a single 30 second phone call I got rescheduled twice. I'm very curious as to whether I will meet this plumber tomorrow. My money right now is on No.

The one group who seem to be reliable are the electricians. No no-shows, no rescheduling, they've been there exactly when they said they would both times so far. Maybe this is a sign that I should start with the electric and wait for the foundation guys to figure out how to operate their telephones. Unfortunately, foundation really needs to come first. I hope that on Friday, I'll be in a position to schedule something.