Lack of capable "tradesmen"

[redlite]

Since there is only a hand full of us tradesmen on here that exchange stories I need to vent about the lack of capable "carpenters" these days

Here in westport there are pretty much 3 big well known contractors with multiple crews that primarily deal with remodeling and I have come to the conclusion that they all suck. they are sending out the most incompetent workers with absolutely zero attention to detail or quality control. I have spent the past few months coming behind redoing their work. It has been very frustrating and heartbreaking for the home owners wallets.

One job is an apartment remodel. I have come to the conclusion that the guy's levels were out of calibration. I have had to carefully remove and completely rehang 7 brand new interior doors that would not close. they were off a 1/4 inch at the bottom. Jambs were not plumb. A brand new exterior door leaked like a sieve. He was too lazy to break back the vinyl siding and flash/ tape it in at all.

The brand new blue kitchen cabinets have been a nightmare. Of course none of them are plumb or level (see level comment ). well not only that but before they threw the cabinet hardware on they did not plumb or align the doors. so when I did properly tune them up, all the hardware not plumb so required some tedious creativeness to correct. As far as the drawers go, he put the wrong width pulls on the wrong drawers. I had to putty and try to match sprayed paint as best as possible. To top it off I think my kids could have done a better job painting the place with water paint brushes. I know they certainly wouldn't have gotten so much wall paint on the ceilings. Been good for my wallet, not good for homeowner. Crazy how much they charged for such shoddy work. Disgracefuly shameful

Another job I have working on was an exterior remodel (roof, siding gutter, trim). well this particular contractor did not have gutters installed even remotely correctly. Pitched wrong, peeling off facia as brackets not installed at all correctly, most spinning out. Full of water and #^&#^&#^&#^& and leaking in corners. Well after getting water out of them and examining they sealed all seams up with about 12 tubes of silicone. a nightmare to clean up and correctly seal with gutter goop. The icing on the cake again makes my face turn white thinking about. After dealing with gutter leaking issue (still gotta go back with boss and properly rehang and pitch gutters, I am doing a final inspection and notice that the house service from the pole is bowed out around the gutter. Holy #^&#^&#^&#^&. I am lucky the wires hadn't rubbed thru and electrified the whole gutter while I was working on them. Unbelievable. Lots of other obvious bad mistakes around that job.

Now I get a call from another member here last nite that I need to go behind another contractor on his in-laws house. The rakes and gunstocks were rotten and some had gotten knocked off by a faling tree. Work was an insurance job. well apparently rather than replace the rotten trim, they just wrapped in aluminum and now that has all fallen off because it is hard to hold a nail in rotten wood. Apparently way, way over charged as well. Ridiculous.

We have also had to deal with 3 mega houses in a development that gutter guys put gutters pitched towards cheek walls instead of down spouts. Rotted out Hardie plank, and sheathing, etc Just looking at from the ground could tell was wrong from the get go.

I don't know if it is a systemic issue of not given an F, get in get out get paid and on to the next job, but there has to be someone with at least some small clue on these jobs that could say hey, that aint right. We pride our selves in the attention to details and live by our motto that we do every single job as if it was our own house. Wish more would do the same, but then again wouldn't have as much work if they didn't