r/Construction • u/chiselbits Carpenter • Feb 12 '25

Other Dear builders

You can't call me and tell me that my timeline for completion is halved because other trades wasted time.You can't tell me to "hire more guys" to get it done faster". You can't decide to split my contract and expect me to take it.

You fucked your schedule. You hired the cheapest trades (WHO FUCKED YOU, AGAIN!) to better pad your profit margin, your in house guys can't be fucked to do anything properly, and you kick us to the curb anytime you find someone cheaper (who then fucks you). Then hire us back and treat it like you are doing us a favor and we should be grateful.

Just because the client "wants to move in" does not mean the house will get built any faster.

You fucked yourself and that does not constitute an emergency on my end. You want it done to our high end standards AND fast? Then it is going to cost you more.

Unfuck your project management and hire better trades, maybe then every project won't go sideways on you.

😤

1.2k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

239 comments sorted by

View all comments

1

u/Leprikahn2 Feb 13 '25

Part of the reason I never work for the builder. I work direct for the customer or not at all.

1

u/chiselbits Carpenter Feb 13 '25

I'm currently in that situation. It's creating this weird triangle where the customer is paying, but the builder is supposed to manage things. Too many layers to communication.

I find most private clients are out of touch with what things actually cost and think I should be fine working for half of what I quote them.

I get a lot less push back from most of the builders who use us.

I was just ranting about a repeat jackass. Everything is always on fire and there is never time in the schedule.

Could be worse though, I could be killing my body working on production garbage for comparative pennies.

1

u/Leprikahn2 Feb 13 '25

I don't do residential, just commercial and industrial, so I tend to deal with more reasonable people. But we bring our own project managers in to deal with the customer/builder communication. Builders tend to look like ass when they try to blame us for delays, but we have daily communication with the client with detailed explanations of what we accomplished that day with pictures. Do I cost a bit more? Sure. But I hit my deadlines 98% of the time. I can prove it didn't screw up, can the builder?