So sorry to learn of this issue. Ran into it myself after being in the same house for 30 years...
Things wear out and need replacing.
Our area requires a building permit for just about everything you do to a home, inside or out.
At first I thought this was a curse, just another way for the county bloodsuckers to squeeze some more $$$ out of you...
Boy was I wrong.
The permit is your friend.
It all but guarantees a quality job from the contractor the FIRST time, or the county inspector won't pass it.
Then the lazy f#*&$ contractor has to re do it on his nut.
The bottom line is it won't get passed till it's up to code.
We learned this due to an incompetent AC contractor, and a fly by night concrete guy.
True misrepresentation and outright lying.
Said they were doing us a favor by not pulling a permit, job will be done quicker and we'll save money.
Guess what? It was a bogus job and the AC guy was using someone elses contractors license.
We had zero recourse when all the ductwork collapsed in the attic. We called the name on the license.
They claimed no knowledge of our work and no responsibility.
I called the county, only to be told that the job was done illegally without a permit and I was screwed.
Spent the next few days rehanging & replacing sections of ductwork.
Same with the carport slab. After a year the slab settled over six inches on the outside, as well as several huge cracks.
My carport has close to a 10 degree lean. If you pull in, the car door opens easily. If you back in, you have to open the door uphill.
When it came time for the big money item, the roof, we were educated enough to ask if they needed a permit or not.
Two contractors actually said no, it just delays the project. Oh OK, thanks for your time.
Licensed, bonded, and insured contractors and proper building permits may cost a bit more up front, but at least the job only has to be done once.
Good luck Mike, hope you get a satisfactory outcome.
Have add my share of contractor he’ll too. The worst was in 2008. We had decided to have a pool put in. As part of my real job I was in charge of a large program (defense industry) and had many subcontractors. Our standard practice was to write a document called a Statement of Work (SOW). The contractor would bid the job based on the details of the work scope in the SOW.
So I used this experience to write a detailed SOW for the pool work. It was 10 pages long a detailed the equipment part numbers, who was responsible for clean up, pool design details, payment schedule based on milestones, etc.
We interviewed 3 major pool builders and selected the country’s largest one, Blue Haven pools. The head of the Orange County branch, PJ, came out for the bidding along with his brother in law who was the designer. They brought a laptop and we designed the pool in about an hour (the wife and I spent the previous year doing 7 different prototype designs). I included their design rendering in the SOW and when we signed their contract we cross referenced our SOW which they also had to sign.
So the construction begins, a guy in a bobcat digs the whole pool in one day. I was impressed. Then Bob (the plumber and electrician) shows up and starts his work. I got to know him pretty well as I was doing a new sprinkler system and drains at the same time (we had dozed the entire rear yard for this build). Bob got the pool pump equipment installed and the rebar guys got the structure in the pool hole. Was time for my second payment so I emailed PJ I’d leave the 12 grand check under the front door mat for him to pick up. I come home from work and look and the envelope is still there. Hmmm. Emailed PJ and said I’d leave it out there again tomorrow. Same deal, check still there. I mentioned it to Bob the plumber and he said yeah, I haven’t heard from PJ in a week.
Ut Oh. My contractor is AWOL. A week goes by, then 2 weeks. No PJ. Bob continued to show up but was getting concerned since he wasn’t getting paid. So here I have this big hole in my backyard filed with rebar and no contractor. Fark. No response or contact from PJ. So I finally contact the Blue Haven national office and they said they’d get back to me after they look in to it. A week goes by and i get a call from the Ontario office (next county over). Said they would send a new project manager over. Another week goes by and a guy finally shows up, but was useless. I contact the Ontario office and said I’m going to start scheduling the work since they were not.
Next item to have done was having to yard access gates turned around and have them spring closing. The Ontario office say’s “we don’t do that”. I informed her of the contractually bound SOW. I said look on page 6, section 3.2.1, Gates. States very specifically that the contractor‘s work scope includes the new gates. The Ontario office manager says we’ve never seen a stamens of work like this as part of our contracts. I informed her in was legally binding since it was both signed, dated and cross reference. They send a contractor over to two the gates.
Another half dozen or so things went like that and I told her to look in the SOW, section XYZ. Finally came to almost the final stages and called to ask when they were going to build the table in the pool for and eating area we designed. She says “we don’t do that”. I again told her to look in the SOW, this time at the pool rendering their firm did as part of the bidding. There, plain as day, is a table in the seating area. At this point she just gave up and told me to find a contractor to do it and send her the invoice. It was a $2K job.
Long story, but I finally got the job done and billed them $2K for my effort as the project manager. And it was a permitted job too.
Moral of the story - if you are doing an expensive upgrade, write a detailed Statement of Work. It literally saved me thousands of dollars.
