I’m a project manager for a general contractor and our work has a pretty wide range of 10k - 1.5 mil. We’re a pretty small company with 10 ish employees that focuses on remodels, mainly residential, but dabble in commercial as well.
Currently, we’re working on a project where we had a sub give us a concrete bid on short notice fitting into our budget so we accepted. It helped him kick off his spring with the bad weather holding some of their projects back and helped us in a similar fashion. We’ve done work with this particular sub years ago with on par results (work quality is good, dealing with concrete guys is sub par. Kind of a IYKYK situation) so we’re familiar with the process.
He gets finished with forming and notices a few small things he missed on the bid and we made some concessions to keep things moving. The day before the pour, he proclaims he made a big mistake by miscalculating his sq footage and gave us a new bid. We had a very lengthy phone conversation and I kindly told him he wasn’t getting paid for his mistake in full, but I as the GC I would have a discussion with the client about covering material costs so his loss wouldn’t seem so big. I explained this was the best I could do as the new bid would put us way over budget. The sub tried to throw it back on us a bit (I’ll explain in a sec), but took most responsibility for the screw up and told us that would work. He said he’d continue with the work in good faith as planned and “I’ll take what we can get” as far as a form of payment.
Our client was very understanding and covered materials costs. When I relayed the information to him via text (was after hours), he threw a childish reply back and I’ll do my best in a cliff notes way to explain. Basically, “I’m not happy that you settled on such a low number for reconciliation. You as the GC should’ve caught my sq Ft mistake in my bid. We did far more work than what was bid. We’ll bill what we have to bill, but I’m not happy about it.”
I’m not here to burn bridges. I communicate with sub contractors daily. Remodeling is a tight margin business with a lot of unknowns that pop up. It’s why it’s hard to find affordable remodeling contractors out there and doubly hard to work with a sub. But am I in the wrong for thinking this isn’t our mistake? I gave a full scope of work with a full set of plans. He had a few questions during the process, but those were handled very professionally. He just screwed up his numbers.
I feel bad he’s not making what he could’ve on this job. We’ve been there where things take longer than they should’ve or costs end up being higher than an estimate. But we eat those mistakes. I can’t in good faith pass those to a client unless it’s out of our control. As a sub contractor, in my mind, you accept the same responsibility. It’s not on the GC to eat your mistakes either.
I never responded to the guy as 10 pm texts/calls generally don’t end well when it comes to work. Also didn’t want anything he’d use if he decided he was taking this to claims court. I’ll respond by the end of the day to try and salvage a relationship, though. Concrete guys are hard to find that don’t charge you an arm and a leg for their work so it’s important to us (no matter how little we actually need concrete work done) to maintain those connections.
So, what would you do?
Currently, we’re working on a project where we had a sub give us a concrete bid on short notice fitting into our budget so we accepted. It helped him kick off his spring with the bad weather holding some of their projects back and helped us in a similar fashion. We’ve done work with this particular sub years ago with on par results (work quality is good, dealing with concrete guys is sub par. Kind of a IYKYK situation) so we’re familiar with the process.
He gets finished with forming and notices a few small things he missed on the bid and we made some concessions to keep things moving. The day before the pour, he proclaims he made a big mistake by miscalculating his sq footage and gave us a new bid. We had a very lengthy phone conversation and I kindly told him he wasn’t getting paid for his mistake in full, but I as the GC I would have a discussion with the client about covering material costs so his loss wouldn’t seem so big. I explained this was the best I could do as the new bid would put us way over budget. The sub tried to throw it back on us a bit (I’ll explain in a sec), but took most responsibility for the screw up and told us that would work. He said he’d continue with the work in good faith as planned and “I’ll take what we can get” as far as a form of payment.
Our client was very understanding and covered materials costs. When I relayed the information to him via text (was after hours), he threw a childish reply back and I’ll do my best in a cliff notes way to explain. Basically, “I’m not happy that you settled on such a low number for reconciliation. You as the GC should’ve caught my sq Ft mistake in my bid. We did far more work than what was bid. We’ll bill what we have to bill, but I’m not happy about it.”
I’m not here to burn bridges. I communicate with sub contractors daily. Remodeling is a tight margin business with a lot of unknowns that pop up. It’s why it’s hard to find affordable remodeling contractors out there and doubly hard to work with a sub. But am I in the wrong for thinking this isn’t our mistake? I gave a full scope of work with a full set of plans. He had a few questions during the process, but those were handled very professionally. He just screwed up his numbers.
I feel bad he’s not making what he could’ve on this job. We’ve been there where things take longer than they should’ve or costs end up being higher than an estimate. But we eat those mistakes. I can’t in good faith pass those to a client unless it’s out of our control. As a sub contractor, in my mind, you accept the same responsibility. It’s not on the GC to eat your mistakes either.
I never responded to the guy as 10 pm texts/calls generally don’t end well when it comes to work. Also didn’t want anything he’d use if he decided he was taking this to claims court. I’ll respond by the end of the day to try and salvage a relationship, though. Concrete guys are hard to find that don’t charge you an arm and a leg for their work so it’s important to us (no matter how little we actually need concrete work done) to maintain those connections.
So, what would you do?
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