[Greenbuilding] firing a roofer--update and 2 questions

[Speireag Alden]

Sgrìobh Ben Pratt:

>question 1: The ceiling in the living room is sheetrock covering
>plaster and lathe. There was a lot of moisture coming through the
>light fixture, and there are a few spots where paint is bubbling.
>Does that entire ceiling need to come out?

     Not my area of expertise, so I won't offer an opinion.

>question 2: I want to do the right thing. If the inspector says the
>part of the roof completed (roughly a third to a half) is OK:
>1.should i pay the guy for his materials and a part of the labor. 2.
>Should i wait to make sure all the damage is corrected, and then pay
>him if i don't have out of pocket expenses?  3. should i consider
>that the inconvenience of working on it for 25 hours this weekend,
>having to live in a torn apart house, etc, is partially or fully
>equal to what he did on the roof? 4. let him take me to court and let
>the court decide?

     I'm inclined to go with option 4.  He represented himself as a 
professional, did the work wrong, and covered it so incompetently 
that it caused lots of other damage.  Suppose your library or your 
file server or your collection of rare origami had been under that 
light fixture?

     My brain says to pay him for the work he completed.  But my gut 
is reacting to my elderly mother getting shafted by contractor after 
contractor when she trustingly paid the tab and expected them to come 
back and finish up work which they said they would, but never did.

     I recognize that there are many honorable and hard-working 
contractors out there, so I'm not looking to shaft all contractors. 
But this guy has proven that he's a nitwit, and has cost you time and 
probably, in the end, some amount of money.  I don't think you owe 
him much, if anything.

>I must say, it is great that my wife was able to stop  payment on the
>check for the half upfront. I once had an experience where the guy
>made a bad mistake the first day, took off with half the money and
>lots of my tools. Then i had to pay to fix the damage.

     It's because of this kind of thing that I work alongside 
contractors.  I'll mix the mud, or carry the wood, or hold the idiot 
end when they're cutting, or whatever, but that way I learn, and I 
can get the job done the way I want it.  Since much of my 
construction is non-standard and there's not much in the way of plans 
and blueprints, it's pretty much essential that I be around anyway. 
However, it has proven time and time again to be a good thing that I 
was around.

     That means that the building gets done very slowly, on my days 
off and during vacation time.  But it also gets done just the way I 
want it, and I know how it all happened.  If something doesn't come 
out right, then I'm the one responsible, and I prefer it that way.

-Speireag.

-- 
Anger, if not restrained, is frequently more hurtful to us than the 
injury that provokes it.
--Lucius Annaeus Seneca, philosopher (BCE 3-65 CE)