building an outdoor deck/patio to which we have some brick columns to be built - 4 of them about 7' high. The contractor was supposed to find matching brick, and they found a couple that were not even close. I then got on the phone, called around, visited multiple brick yards over the course of a 3 week period and found the best match we could. The brick was located in New Braunfels (I am in Austin). I did all the work to find it.

The contractor is now asking for a $250 delivery fee, and then I said I would like to keep the remainder brick (less than half a palette) to which he wants another $250 to "buy it back from him". The amount of brick purchased was $194/palette plus tax (since I coordinated finding the brick I spoke with the person at Meridian).

The draws on the contract include "brick columns", which says nothing about extra delivery fee, or the fact that whatever is left over isn't mine (which I am arguing I already paid for).

I can't believe this company is making me buy something I have already purchased and done all the leg work for (saving them hours of phone and travel time).

Who is being unreasonable here?

my perspective -

i pay a draw to cover the "brick columns", yet I did all the leg work to locate it, now he wants a delivery fee and wants me to pay for the brick again to keep it. I am somewhat ok with the delivery fee even though it is excessive. ClayMex brick in NB was going to charge me $75 to get it to my house. $250 is excessive.

Also if I really wanted to push, the delivery fee was never communicated to me in a change order, and so far there has not been a shortage of those whenever we make a slight change, and it must be signed and paid right then. I guess I could claim it was never part of a change order but then he might leave my project hostage and it gets messy since I have paid a draw for some upcoming work....

I have such little respect for the construction industry at this point (after two crummy projects)...it's sad. Just do the job right the first time and do the right thing. Out of the 56 possible working days on this project (since start date of March 19th) - they are STILL not done...that's 56 working days, and they have not even shown up to work for 35 of them...that is a 62.5% absentee rate. This is what has me so irate. I get bent over and my house is held hostage because nobody shows up to get the job done.

brick has already been delivered and columns built.

txag2008 said:

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It's either one or the other. If you have to pay the delivery fee, the product is yours and you shouldn't have to pay extra to keep it.

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this was my take too. if the contract specified they would match the brick then getting this brick is not a change and so there shouldn't be additional charge to you. however if they are going to charge you for delivery of a pallet of brick then you should receive a pallet of brick.

as an aside, due to my own experiences, i would have answered your title question in your favor without even reading the scenario.

He's way over budget if he's 56 days in so he's just trying to scam a little off you to clean up the deficit a little. IMO no way should you have to pay for the left over brick. And call the brick supplier to see how much the actual delivery fee is and only pay him that much for the delivery.

Not necessarily over budget if they haven't shown up for 30+ of the 56 days.

His bid would have been for the amount of brick he needed. If you are keeping extras, you should pay.

His bid should have been based on an estimated cost of the brick. He should be able to tell you what he based his estimate on. You could reasonably be expected to pay the difference IF the brick is more expensive. The same if it was only available from somewhere outside his normal supply, you could be expected to pay for increased shipping. Ideally you would have been given these allowances up front.

I operate my construction business with primarily fixed price contracts. I try to limit allowances and pass thrus as much as possible for a few different reasons. I would agree that technically if he charged you a flat rate for the columns then any extra brick is technically his. However he doesn't seem like a very good business man since he's most likely paying someone to haul the extra brick as trash anyways. I happily leave those type of materials if requested.

However this seems to contradict the delivery fee issue. That delivery cost should have been accounted for in his flat rate fee. If there was any extra delivery fee due to distance it should have been negotiated and discussed up front after you located the brick. Our guys here in Houston drive that far regularly and it's fairly amazing how cheap delivery fees are. New Braunfels to Austin doesn't seem to add much cost versus a local Austin delivery fee to me. $50-$100 more, max!

as the contractor he was supposed to supply brick and perform the labor for "brick columns"...that is all the *contract* says. His effort to find me matching brick on a scale of 1-10 was about a negative 3. He made no effort, so I had to step in, drive all over Austin area to locate it, and told him here it is, please go get it. I feel the time I saved him doing that saved him money - maybe not.

Verbally he talked about delivery fee, which I assumed since it wasn't in Austin proper i would probably have to pay it. Then he tells me $250. Then he tells me I can "buy the extra brick from him". So, I have paid for the brick in the contract draw, paid to have it delivered and now I am being asked to pay to keep the extra. That just doesn't make sense to me, sorry.

I had discussed delivery with the brick yard and it was $75, but I guess my contractor's mason drove down there and got it instead. What I feel is - the mason is charging my contractor $100-$150 to make money on the delivery, and then my contractor is passing that plus another $100 to squeak out extra cash. That's what I think at least.

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Sounds like you hire crummy contractors based on your threads.

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as far as this go-round, the quality of the work is at least good. Not disappointed at all with what has been built or how it has turned out, It is coming out exactly like I designed it. It is just the lack of attention and absenteeism that has driven me nuts. Any issues I have brought up have been addressed or corrected.

The Change Orders are I think a bit sketchy in some areas. Example - this deck will have a staircase to the yard - it is a straight 8 step staircase, about a 4' drop. The staircase will have railing and covered in decking material, and this was accounted for in the contract. I was told they did not account for decking material to be put on the outside stringers (to cover up the pine framing, as shown in an example image below). I am being told this is going to be a change order. I will be ok with that, if the price is reasonable...but I am anticipating some gouging.

Always get the price of a change order before you approve the work to start.

Just like you got the original estimate before you signed the contract.

They still have some leverage, but you can decide if the cost is worth it.

I do get the price before. Delivery fees were never provided to me on a change order. If I get a CO that is outrageous for the stair stringer trim I am not having them do it. Will find someone after they are done to do it. They wanted $2000 additional dollars for some incremental brick work when the materials and labor were already present...about 3-4 hours of masonry. I told them to go pound sand. Gonna go with a different option I have in mind.

CapCity12thMan said:

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Sounds like you hire crummy contractors based on your threads.

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pretty much. So apparently online reviews mean nothing, BBB means nothing, court records to see if there are any liens filed by the company mean nothing, interviewing other homeowners in the neighborhood who have used said contractors means nothing, getting slightly more homeowner favorable terms in the contract means nothing and viewing their work first hand means nothing.

Other suggestions about what I should do when trying to find someone reputable? You seem to have it all figured out.

There is nothing about the remodel or residential construction process that is owner friendly. You have to pay huge amounts of money up front, and there is never a timeline commitment for completion, so you just get bent over to have a bathroom remodeled or a patio deck built.

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Don't know you, don't follow many threads here...but if you have consistent trouble with contractors and do the research on them you say you have, there is only one other common denominator. You. And, right wrong or indifferent, difficult owners get charged more and contractors are less likely to be in a good mood when pricing and negotiations start. May or may not be the case, just pointing that out.

As far as the brick - the contractor paid for the pallet of brick. He doesn't get to take them back and get credit for the leftover bricks, so unless there is a clause in your agreement that state leftover materials are property of the owner, the Contractor owns them. Is he being silly for wanting to charge you for the leftovers? Yep, I'd leave them in a heartbeat because all that is going to happen is I pay to haul them from one place to another and they likely never really get used. But that is me, and contingent upon the Owner being a good person to work with. I have an Owner on a project of mine right now that I won't do a single extra favor for, no matter what the favor is. Anything above and beyond my contractual scope comes with a [purposefully high] cost. Sometimes a relationship just sours, sometimes it's a case of me wanting to get the hell of the job as soon as possible, sometimes its a case of the owner wanting to take a mile after I've given an inch (my case right now).

If the vendor was going to charge you $75 to deliver, and the GC had his mason go pick it up, odds are you are looking at a couple of layers of markup and time to pick it up.

Drive Time - 1 billable hour each way @ $50/hour - $100
Time at Vendor - nobody ever gets in and hour, so figure another billable hour - $50
Fuel & Equipment Use - 15% of cost - $22.50
You are at $172.50 right now, that doesn't include OH&P - figure 20% on top of that, now you are at $207 - call it even $210, and that doesn't include lost production time from the mason going to pick it up.

Your GC is going to throw his markup on it, so $250 isn't out of the realm. A bit high for what it is? Sure, but you also missed the chance on just buying the pallet and having it delivered and negotiating a deduct in the line item for columns with the GC by providing materials instead of having him farm it out.

You're not being unreasonable at all. Keep holding their feet to the fire or you'll get a crap job no matter which contractor you hire. Don't be afraid to fire his butt and move on.

IMO those bricks are 100% yours. Unless I'm misunderstanding you are already paying more than originally contracted because he didn't use his original brick source, correct?

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Don't be afraid to fire his butt and move on.

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It's not that simple, unfortunately.

For those that have suggested I am being difficult. Before I bring up the following issue/question, please look at these photos: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Mu7i28qbFQhYwiGvWSNSRR3LxIRj8ouZ?usp=sharing

Some of these are from the underside of the deck, where some horizontal blocking was put in so that the iron railing can be secured into structure. There should be horizontal blocking between floor joists underneath where the iron railing footer (4x4 loag bolts) are supposed to go.

Note where the nails come into, through and even sometimes completely miss the 2x they are trying to secure. Do I have a reason to complain now? Does this look structurally sound to you?

bid was the third highest out of 7 I got.

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Maybe, what is the decking on top of the joists going to be?

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It's very much material...


The horizontal blocking is not for the decking, but for the posts that are gonna secure the railing to the decking - those posts will go through decking and need to go into structure, hence the horizontal blocking that was put in per my photos. The decking material is irrelevant. Iron railing will be similar to these in the photo, secured to through the decking and into structure:

Also - my FIL is a structural engineer, so they are about to get handed his report:

BLOCKING FOR RAILING: Note that anchoring of the railing has to rely on attachment to the horizontal framing of the deck. Vertical attachment at this stage would require anchoring into brick veneer which is not acceptable. Therefore, the blocking necessary for the anchorage is critical. Four photos are shown here as indicative of the faulty and unsafe anchorage of the blocking to the floor joists. Additional photos are available if there is any question of the ubiquitous installation faults. The flat 2x blocking between joists should be removed as presently installed. The toe nailing is improperly done and, in most cases, will offer little to no resistance to the prying action resulting from lateral pressure along the top of the railing. This is akin to using a hammer to pry a nail out of wood. A 2x4 should be nailed to the side of the joist on each side with a minimum of six 10d nails. Then a horizontal piece of 2x lumber should be anchored into the Joists and the side pieces with #12 x 3" screws: 4 to each side.

Foamcows said:

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this forum has taught me one thing... you want it done right, do it yourself... learn a new skill, have a little fun, buy some new tools. Even if it doesn't cost less, you don't have to deal with issues like this...

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So much this. I've learned basic residential electrical, plumbing, sheetrock repairs, tiling (& waterproofing), and trim installation (doors, casing, baseboards, & crown) all because of the crap work I have witnessed first hand or heard about from friends. Granted, this has caused our remodel to run much longer than most people would tolerate, but I know everything is done correctly vs. the dishonest beat-to-fit/paint-to-match approach that appears to be the MO for 99.99% of all residential contractors. Those guys are on the same level as tow truck drivers as far as I'm concerned.

I wouldn't necessarily argue with any of those needing attention. But that wasn't the question in the OP either. You are talking about completely different issues between this post and the fact that you think a contractor charging for their time and materials they purchased at your behest being more than what you think it should be.

I prefaced my statement by saying that I don't know you, haven't followed a single post of yours - only that I've noticed a few other comments made about the fact that you seem to have bad luck with contractors. So either you really suck at choosing contractors, or the manner in which you deal with them contributes to the fact that yo have trouble with contractors. Maybe both. But the expectation of good work isn't in question.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with the expectation of good work for the price you agreed to, and for work on any changes being done in the manner in which you agreed and will be paying for.

I'd rip the contractor for some of the framing in your pictures, but without being there its impossible to gauge how the interaction goes. A whole lot of things can be attributed to the relationship between Owner and Contractor. That's part of the business, and a huge part of residential contractor business (which I wouldn't get involved with to save my life, the whole industry on that side of things sucks for a host of reasons).

Just observations from a GC on a message board, nothing more.

CapCity12thMan said:

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bid was the third highest out of 7 I got.

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what were the actual bids ?
Or difference between the highest and lowest ?

I guess I suck at picking contractors. I'm 0 for 2. I brought the blocking/framing issues to the attention of the PM this morning. It is going to be re-done, no questions asked. And now it will be re done in the manner specified in my report I provided.

My issue with it is now this delays things - AGAIN. It's just one more incident piled on another.

This is in addition to the staircase framing that was done completely wrong yesterday. Its getting re-done too. The PM is just as frustrated as I am because he is getting lied to by his subs and the whole thing is a cluster. These guys can't get out of their own way to get the job done at a minimal level, yet I have to pay for it both in time, money and frustration. Supposed to rain the next few days too :/

Again, how am I being difficult here (since some seem to be gravitating towards this notion)?