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As a landlord, I have to deal with material issues on a regular basis. I refuse to use places like HD/Lowe's for major material supply. This includes ceramic tile, paint, carpet, major landscaping, and roofing. I DO use HD/Lowe's for minor plumbing supply, misc electrical, and some lumber. I would never even think of using these jokers for labor/installation.
There are many mom and pop specialty supply stores that would love to have your business. Sometimes you pay less, and sometimes you pay more, but the hassles are magnitudes lower. I can hash out enough stories to make the head spin. Sorry to hear about the troubles. Hope things get straight soon. jurgen |
good luck... fingers crossed
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T-minus three hours...
I got a call last night from the flooring manager. He's going to be coming to my house with the contractor to personally supervise the installation. |
Quote:
I regularly rehab properties as a side activity, and used HD or Lowes to get the lowest prices, so I thought. A couple times I used local building supply shops as a matter of convenience, and was shocked to see that prices were basically similar on true building materials (some lower, some higher, but generally on a par). AND, I walk to the counter, never more than 2nd in line, they deliver the materials on site for free, are helpful when I have a problem, etc etc etc. Needless to say, I've changed my thinking on the subject. |
This is certainly a lesson I learned the hard way. This town has a well-established group of independent skilled professionals (plumbers, contractors, etc...). They obviously have something the big boxes don't as they manage to stay very profitable. That said, I never posted the problems I was having with drywall contractors pryor to this. It ended up taking so long to get a contractor lined up that I had finished the work myself before I found someone. I had one promising to fax me his estimate "in five minutes" for 3 weeks!
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Take some pictures of the install for us :D It'll drive them nuts with you "documenting" everything. They deserve a little prodding.
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They just showed up--14 minutes late. I suppose that's pretty good by contractor standards.
I've got plenty of "before" pictures, I'll take some "after" pictures tonight. Hopefully I can get them posted tonight (assuming I can get my home computer put back together). |
Just got off the phone with the wife. They're actually installing!
The people at Lowe's keep telling me that they're going to give me money back to compensate me for my troubles. I figure since I didn't have the use of my house for two months, I should ask for half of two month's mortgage payments. I also thought since I wasted six hours of vacation on the two previous install dates, they should pay me six hours of my hourly wage. I added it up, and it comes out to $125 more than I spent on the carpeting. |
We finally have carpeting!
The installer was there until 5:30, which means the installation took roughly 7 hours, not the 3-4 I was originally quoted. How can you be so off? Oh, well, at least it was installed right. I thought it was very nice of the installer to leave the scraps piled up in my laundry room, bloody fingerprints on my toilet, and not to vacuum when he left--but at least these were things I could correct. I'll post pictures tomorrow. We're still getting the downstairs put back together and I didn't get to the computer last night. |
You shouldn't complain so much. . . I for one would LOVE to be able to afford a house, even half of one.
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Move here to Bloomington, you could probably get a 6,000+ sq. ft. house for a mortgage payment that is less than your current rent payment.
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Pictures...finally
My wife left the digital camera at work for a whole week, so I couldn't upload the pictures...
The before picture: http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1111262157.jpg |
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