Collapse and Chaos - Part 3

 From April until September 2021, the orange fence greeted me each time I looked out the window or went to the back yard.

During the same time frame, I was busy calling contractor after contractor after contractor.

Because of the huge drop off at the back of my garage and the type of repairs I needed done, I found few who wanted to do it.  Winter was fast approaching and I was getting stressed out over whether it would be fixed in time.

My insurance wouldn't cover the cost of re-bricking my garage and because of the type of damage, the brick could not be repaired.  So, I had to find a contractor who knew how to remove brick, fix the back wall, remove 4 windows, put in one new window, and one new door.  Plus square up the walls as best as could be.  

In meeting with several contractors, I insisted they have workman's comp insurance in case someone fell off the roof to the concrete below.  I also told them upfront, I wanted lien waivers before they were final paid.  One contractor was offended that I asked for insurance.  He claimed all his employees were independent contractors.  Ha!  I have a background in payroll and construction.  Plus, he started to get verbally abusive in his text messages.  Pass on that dude.

I finally "settled" on a contractor because I was running out of time.  By this point, the garage was scheduled for repair in October 2021.  We had some adverse weather so it ended up being November before work was started.  Yikes... I was worried.

I decided on a vinyl siding color.

Materials were delivered.

 

Demolition Commenced.  It was quite the mess for a while.

New siding, door, and window.  I had them close off 4 windows that faced the neighbor's garage and the back of the garage.  I didn't really need those views or expense.

Every time I have to deal with contractors, I'm always dismayed at the fact that as a homeowner I have to ensure the workmanship is up to par.  Otherwise, they'd just do a half-@ssed job and think it's okay.

One day, I came home to find they had installed the gutters and downspouts.  The one at the back of the garage was 32" above the ground!

This meant during severe rain storms, the water run off would come shooting out at a 90-degree angle and then hit the ground.  In lesser storms, it would drop to the ground right below and cause a washout hole.  I can't believe they thought this would be okay!  I had them come back and originally wanted to replace the aluminum gutters with a flexible plastic that ran the length of the garage wall in back.  Nope!  I had them fix it right.

Additionally, they were to repair the corner of the concrete. 

 

Originally, they built a concrete form that looked like this:

Obviously, they didn't know what they were doing because when the form was taken off....

That's wood from the plywood they used to create a form, and they didn't even smooth out the edges of the concrete.  As you can see, it looked like crap!

Since it was now December, they had to wait until Spring 2022 to come back and fix it.  They had to hire a retired concrete guy.  This is how it should've been done to begin with.

 

Finally, the outside of the garage was done.

Until Next Time,