# why to hire a gc



## bct p&h (Jan 19, 2013)

So the owner of a gas station/light service station decided to buy some land and build a used car lot/5 bay garage. Instead of hiring someone with experience doing something like this he thought it would be a good idea to do it himself. On top of that he hired some hack company to do all the excavation and site work.

Day 1: meet the owner and talk to the hacks about the placement of the sand and gas trap.

Day 2: go to tie in the tank and its square  I've done a couple dozen of these and they were all round. They say because of the high water table they got this tank that is shorter and wider. They say all the specs on the square tank are better than the round one, capacity compression test monolithic over sectioned blah blah. Call the inspector to ask him about it and he came right out to take a look. While waiting the owner tells me that he already talked with the inspector and he said it was OK and I could even do the outlet piping inside the tank hmm. The hacks say they have put tons of these in without a problem. I tell them the inspector is coming to look it over before I start making holes in this thing and to get some paperwork together for this thing. Inspector shows up and just shakes his head. He gets first look at the papers and right on the first page it says "Septic: title 5" hacks and inspector go at it for a while before they give up and take the tank out.

Day 3: they finally get the correct tank and I started the piping. They were too lazy to dig deep enough to use all the sections so now they have to core the vent hole but the inspector approved it. 

Curious to see how the rest of this job will go.


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## Relic (Sep 30, 2012)

I smell a non-payment post coming lol


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## BigDave (Mar 24, 2012)

^^^^^^^^^ hope he got a signed contract...


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## bct p&h (Jan 19, 2013)

So far it's all t&m. Looking at about $1,500 in materials and 8 hours for me and my helper between actually working and wasted time for them not being ready when they were supposed to be and the wrong tank fiasco.

I spent a couple hours there today actually stubbing the waste and both vents into the building.
Of course the holes they cored weren't in line with anything and I was short a couple fittings and 10' of pipe but I'll finish it up on Monday.

I had a feeling that this guy wouldn't pay from the first time I met him so he'll be getting billed often so as soon as he doesn't make a payment we'll walk and cut our losses. Only part that sucks is that he's about 20' on the hard side of the state border. He's on the MA side so all the underground waste is sv cast iron, nh cast and copper above. Probably going to need a dozen or so lead and oakum joints, rest will be push gaskets. If he was on the NH side I could have used pvc and pex. I like doing cast and copper but when you're dealing with someone that you don't think will pay I'd rather use the cheaper materials so it doesn't sting as bad.


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## phishfood (Nov 18, 2012)

I did a whole house remodel for really nice lady who was her own GC last year. No problems with getting paid, but the job took forever. She would have been ahead money to have hired a good contractor.


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