I often talk about problems with homeowners who hire contractors who aren’t qualified but give them low prices. Everyone wants a bargain, but this time it didn’t work out for Sam, who had just installed his third bathtub in three years. That’s right, how would you like to pay someone three times to install a bathtub. This happens all the time in the bathroom remodeling and construction business.
The first time Sam hired a bathroom remodeling contractor, he got an offer from a friend of his at work who recommended his brother-in-law. His brother-in-law was a tile contractor and had some experience remodeling bathrooms, but he obviously didn’t know how to properly install a fiberglass tub. I never got to see the first contractor’s nightmare, I only got to see the second.
The first contractor charged Sam $14,000 to remodel his bathroom and it didn’t work out very well. The tile looked great, but two of the pipes were leaking. The problem with the leaky pipes is that they were behind the tiles and connected to the tub shower valve. I’ll stop there with the first contractor and start with the second, who needed to install a different tub because the first contractor didn’t install it properly. The first tub cracked because there was not enough support underneath. I’m just guessing because I never got to see the first tub that was installed.
The second contractor was hired because the first contractor could not be found. This contractor bought the wrong tub. Instead of buying a right-side tub, the contractor bought a left-side tub and didn’t know they made right-side tubs. He redid the plumbing on this project and it cost the homeowner about $6,000. I’m not even going to get started on the problems with this tub, but it was leaking water and collecting a lot of mold and even a fungus that I haven’t identified yet.
This is when I came in, Sam got my name from searching Yahoo and contacted me with a lot of remorse and was extremely frustrated. He wasn’t about to hire another contractor and get screwed. He asked me more questions about my experience than anyone before. I charged Sam $4,000 to install a new bathtub and fix the plumbing and repair the structural damage.
You’re not going to believe this, but Sam sends me a Christmas card every year telling me how grateful he was and that’s not the best part. Sam asks me for referrals of the year and from them, for referrals, I get even more referrals. The moral of this story is simple, don’t hire people who don’t know what they’re doing.
