Completing and fixing someone else's mess

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vilasman

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I am bidding a job which is a house converted into a 4 unit apartment building. Two other contractors have been in it, 2 floors of the house are more or less completed, it has close-in inpsection on 2 floors and the this floor and the basement are a mess.
The meter stack is in the yard but it is currently 2 low to the ground, mainly because the grade use to be lower.
There are some glaring errors in the place, like no smoke detectors in all the bedrooms (required here) and several violations of the plug rule. You know no space along a wall shall be more than 6ft...
From reading the various post on pricing i really see this as time and material job,...
But i have a owner who after being jerked by every contractor he has seen so far... wants to an idea of just how much he is going to have spend to get things right. After talking to him for a long while today i dont think he is going to play me cheap, but i want to be fair by him...his wife is a real estate agent, the potential for more work here is great.
I know what I want for labor per hour. And material cost are material cost.
My question is...having no idea of what is in those walls, cause like i said the top two floors are 75% trimmed out, how the heck to you put a cap price on this?
OR how to present it so that the owner dosent get visions of spending yet another fortune on getting his house wired?

The last time I ran into this type of treasure hunt, I wasnt married and was living rent free
(AKA with parents) so working all night / not getting the money out of it that I should wasnt a problem
Any thoughts?
 
Re: Completing and fixing someone else's mess

We've done a few of these Vilasman. The promise of more work possibly,maybe later should have nor bearing on what you do with this one.

T&M would be the only way I'd consider this job.

I've heard several song and dance routines about "Help me out on this one because we've got a lot of work for you down the road" And I believed a few of them. Never again.


Then again there'ed be the who's liable for what issue.
If you do it make your money.


Russell
 
Re: Completing and fixing someone else's mess

Vilasman, try to find out why you are the third contractor. Did he pay the other ones? Are you walking into a job that has liens against it? I would look into this. I have done work for realtors in the past and they are determined to do things cheaply which isnt to code. I stopped working for them because one told me he just wanted the lights to work and that they didnt have to be to code. Enough said.
 
Re: Completing and fixing someone else's mess

I'm always wary of half done jobs. I try to find out who started the work and get their side of the story (did they walk off because they didn't get paid?). There's enough work out there to stay clear of these types of jobs, and I agree when people start to tell me about all the work they are going to have for me I let it go in one ear and out the other.


Time and materials is the only way to go and don't let them get to far ahead of you

[ March 04, 2004, 11:39 PM: Message edited by: mjf ]
 
Re: Completing and fixing someone else's mess

How did they ever pass rough inspection, if so much stuff is missing.

If it's suppossed to be done like new work, the walls should be opened. In new work the inspector should not allow you to fish in the feeds.

If they are not open, and never were, price it like you would any post drywalled installation.
 
Re: Completing and fixing someone else's mess

I think Charlie K's advice is right on the money. Don't go into this assuming that the electrician(s) before you purposely did shoddy work. Check to see if there were any permits taken out on the job. If not, maybe they weren't licensed electricians doing the work.

Also, as mjf pointed out, be wary of half done jobs. Remember, if you do one hours worth of work on this job, that means you were the last one there and could possibly be liable for anything done prior to that. But, if you're a gambler, do it on a T&M basis only and make sure you get progress payments. That way, if you get beat for any of the work it will be small money by comparison to the whole job.
 
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