Summer Construction @ LVH
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With the comming of Spring here at LVH a flurry activity erupts and continues to Fall's crisp snap. It's as predictable as the seasons themselves.
After talking with some of the folks over the years I have a question or two about those of you that have chosen to re-side your homes. Your insight will probably help with the decisions that those owners that are faced with this problem next Spring.
There is a project going here that looked like it may need siding so the owners had a materials list prepared to reside the whole home and it came to a reasonable sum of about a $1000 ... That's the entire home we are talking about. Yet the estimate to do the house by a contractor was in the neighborhood of $15,000. Now we realize that the contractor must make a profit but is this reasonable? What do you think?
Probably, those of you that have had work done are the best experts to reply to that question.
I have seen two construction styles going on here. The first involves a one man operation and that seems to me to be time intensive. One man doing a job where two or three or more would be more efficient but is it less costly? You can see the one man is going to be slower and tire sooner. Where a multi person task force is going to be faster and more expensive in wages but will finish sooner.
One multi task crew may use what looks to me to be cheap, unskilled labor but charge the same as another crew that is skilled but faster. One contractor may not like to bid your job and simply tell you he works for time and material (translation: you pay whatever it takes for him to finish the job and probably he doubles the cost of the material he purchases and passes it along as his cost).
Another funny thing we've noticed is that the finished and complete job if done badly is not guaranteed. The home owner just receives a lot of flack and is usually told that it's ok.
Some contractors have a practice that is laughingly called, "Coast Time" That means your contractor just starts a job and does not show up for a number of days to do anything else. That may continue on and off through out the job. What recourse do you have when your home is sitting their flayed like a big fish with its ribs showing?
A lot of us do something I heartily approve of and that's let word of mouth carry the reputation of our community service people. Remember, we also have the , "You Rate It" page here on the website. This is setup to help all of our neighbors know about the GOOD experiences we have had with local bussiness'. The way it works is if a person emails a good report about a bussiness they have dealt with to us then they get listed on the services list. Each succesive good report is indicated by a star (asterick) next to the bussiness name. Each negative report cause the removal of a star. Finally, no stars the bussiness is removed from the list.
The U-Rate-It list is for any excellent or poor dealing you have had in the community. To make and stay on the list we are rewarding the good services for their excellence to our community and for those that are not on the list we simply say that they just have not received a good report from anyone in the community. It is up to them to impress you enough for you to write on their behalf.
We also do not use any resident's names in the reviews and do not post negative reviews. Negative reviews cause the loss of stars and eventually removal from the recommended list.
With the comming of Spring here at LVH a flurry activity erupts and continues to Fall's crisp snap. It's as predictable as the seasons themselves.
After talking with some of the folks over the years I have a question or two about those of you that have chosen to re-side your homes. Your insight will probably help with the decisions that those owners that are faced with this problem next Spring.
There is a project going here that looked like it may need siding so the owners had a materials list prepared to reside the whole home and it came to a reasonable sum of about a $1000 ... That's the entire home we are talking about. Yet the estimate to do the house by a contractor was in the neighborhood of $15,000. Now we realize that the contractor must make a profit but is this reasonable? What do you think?
Probably, those of you that have had work done are the best experts to reply to that question.
I have seen two construction styles going on here. The first involves a one man operation and that seems to me to be time intensive. One man doing a job where two or three or more would be more efficient but is it less costly? You can see the one man is going to be slower and tire sooner. Where a multi person task force is going to be faster and more expensive in wages but will finish sooner.
One multi task crew may use what looks to me to be cheap, unskilled labor but charge the same as another crew that is skilled but faster. One contractor may not like to bid your job and simply tell you he works for time and material (translation: you pay whatever it takes for him to finish the job and probably he doubles the cost of the material he purchases and passes it along as his cost).
Another funny thing we've noticed is that the finished and complete job if done badly is not guaranteed. The home owner just receives a lot of flack and is usually told that it's ok.
Some contractors have a practice that is laughingly called, "Coast Time" That means your contractor just starts a job and does not show up for a number of days to do anything else. That may continue on and off through out the job. What recourse do you have when your home is sitting their flayed like a big fish with its ribs showing?
A lot of us do something I heartily approve of and that's let word of mouth carry the reputation of our community service people. Remember, we also have the , "You Rate It" page here on the website. This is setup to help all of our neighbors know about the GOOD experiences we have had with local bussiness'. The way it works is if a person emails a good report about a bussiness they have dealt with to us then they get listed on the services list. Each succesive good report is indicated by a star (asterick) next to the bussiness name. Each negative report cause the removal of a star. Finally, no stars the bussiness is removed from the list.
The U-Rate-It list is for any excellent or poor dealing you have had in the community. To make and stay on the list we are rewarding the good services for their excellence to our community and for those that are not on the list we simply say that they just have not received a good report from anyone in the community. It is up to them to impress you enough for you to write on their behalf.
We also do not use any resident's names in the reviews and do not post negative reviews. Negative reviews cause the loss of stars and eventually removal from the recommended list.
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