# What do you do to keep contractors in line and



## Alan (Jun 18, 2008)

keep you informed of whats going on at their jobsites? This nonsense is getting out of hand, and we can't come up with a feasible way to deal with it without the possibility of losing work to other people who are willing to put up with contractors calling at 2pm thursday and say, we are pouring concrete tomorrow morning, we need you over here by 10am friday to fix __________________. (insert anything you want here)

What do you guys do?


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## smellslike$tome (Jun 16, 2008)

I stopped this problem by telling all contractors to take a hike. We deal only with hos now which of course means we do no new construction and very little remodeling. We get paid when the job is complete.


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## Alan (Jun 18, 2008)

:blink:

We've done that on a couple of jobs before, and it seems like the HO is a bigger pain in the rear than the contractor is.


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## user4 (Jun 12, 2008)

Alan said:


> keep you informed of whats going on at their jobsites? This nonsense is getting out of hand, and we can't come up with a feasible way to deal with it without the possibility of losing work to other people who are willing to put up with contractors calling at 2pm thursday and say, we are pouring concrete tomorrow morning, we need you over here by 10am friday to fix __________________. (insert anything you want here)
> 
> What do you guys do?


I'd calmly tell the GC that it is really going to suck when he has to jackhammer out his new concrete so that my guys can put in the underground, and if he starts to protest I tell him to call the architect if he has a complaint, I don't schedule work at his whim.


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## A Good Plumber (Jun 18, 2008)

That's a good point Killer.

The way we do it, to try and avoid conflict, is to stay on top of these guys and keep an open dialogue. I make several calls before and during the project to let the GC know I need a few days notice before he needs us or he'll get the response Killer suggests.

Sometimes we can respond on a moments notice, but he should never expect it.


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## user4 (Jun 12, 2008)

A Good Plumber said:


> That's a good point Killer.
> 
> The way we do it, to try and avoid conflict, is to stay on top of these guys and keep an open dialogue. I make several calls before and during the project to let the GC know I need a few days notice before he needs us or he'll get the response Killer suggests.
> 
> Sometimes we can respond on a moments notice, but he should never expect it.


Most of the GC's we work with do just that, work with us, I visit jobsites on a regular basis to check the progress and gauge how soon until they are ready for us, but every once in a while we will get a GC that thinks he can order us around like he owns us. Delaying a basement pour by a week or two usually gets the message across.


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