Wally?....... or Folly?......
You decide the judgment.
Wow what a nice project
in the middle of summer when construction projects have slowed down in the
Northeast. 600 sqft of segmented retaining wall, 1500 sqft of thin veneer, 1800
sqft of pavers 2500 sqft of SOD, 10K in lighting, complete irrigation system
and the weekly residential maintenance contract. Sound good? Well who wouldn’t be
hemorrhaging at the possibility? This is a scenario that played out involving a
solid contractor and a contractor who appeared to have X-Ray vision. The focus
is methodically and numerically placed on the wall portion of the project. The
request with no design or finished height was discussed prior to construction.
The objective is to gain more level ground off the back of the house that would
create a need for a wall for grading and redirection of water. Further
discussion places a small wall with some planting on the outer parameter of the
property to block the undesired neighbor’s undesired fence. Off the house would
be pavers leading to a small walkway leading to stairs in the primary wall that
would lead up to a 2nd level of newly graded yard area. Again no
physical plan or drawing for the 2nd shift bridge construction
supervisor and owner of the property. Construction and over excavating began to
create the actual erection point of the primary wall.
Before going further I will explain the rationality
behind the over excavating, the customer was difficult in the sense of
constantly changing his mind on product, location, and finished height and
grade. Also the terraced wall would require an access road to the side
perpendicular with the primary wall for ease of construction of the small
garden wall on the outer parameter.
The product chosen for
the wall ultimately would be an aggressively chiseled faced segmented wall
system. When viewing this type of wall system built near vertical the finished
side profile gives an illusion of almost leaning forward. The contractor
knowing of this factor and the conflicting indecisive customer had elected to create
a false batter by constructing his base slightly off level from front to back.
Construction is underway and well-orchestrated. The primary wall is almost at
90% completion the only step left is the small tapered section of wall near the
temporary access road, roughly 16 sqft as well as a handful of cap.
The attention shifted
to the back straight run wall approximately 100’x2’. This is where it all
turns. The 2nd shift high strung homeowner who arrives at home
everyday at 6am had taken it upon himself to give the contractor a contractor jump start on
the day. The homeowner got into the contractors excavator and started to dig in
to the access road for the small tapered extension of the wall. The homeowner
managed to take down approximately 100 sqft of wall!!!! Wow is this a dream? (I’m
certain this would be a nightmare). The contractor arrives to the job to find
his excavator at almost a 45 degree angle, the wall down, and the homeowner
pacing like an over caffeinated lost teenager. The got the hung up
excavator off the wall, and let the dust settle. He felt bad for the extremely distraught
and apologetic homeowner so he agreed to repair the downed wall at no
additional cost. Within 3 days the repair, back wall, and patio are complete
and attention has now shifted to the front of the home. The over anxious
homeowner decides the project is not moving along fast enough ( I can assure it
was efficient) and elected to go behind the contractors back who is under a
written agreement to do the scope of work I presented in the opening of this
article. An irrigation company was hired to come into the un sodded back yard
to install the irrigation. The humble contractor who has done all the work up
to this point handled it as professionally as one could have by politely
offering to remove the irrigation from his agreement. The contractor also advised
the homeowner to be certain that the irrigation company is aware to keep away
from the wall if they should opt to utilize a Ditch Witch® (to small of a
project, not a necessary piece of equipment). You guessed it!!!! The Ditch
Witch® operator got up on the SAME section of wall and knocked down roughly the
same sqft. Time to play the lottery! At
this point the contractor is getting a little hot under the collar. The owner
of the irrigation company accepted 100% fault and agreed to pay the negotiated
charge to reconstruct the wall. The entire project wrapped up a week later and
the contractor was paid in full. That following spring the contractor gets a
call from the now unemployed homeowner whom I’m told was shrewd and implying
the entire wall is built incorrectly, it’s moving, and he wants him to fix it.
The contractor arranges to meet right away to rectify any potential concern. The
contractor met the homeowner and asked what was the problem (remember this is
an aggressively chiseled segmented wall system) the homeowner asked if he was
blind that the wall moved. The contractor asked what he was looking at and how
he was so sure. The homeowner pulled out a TORPEDO level and placed it on the
front of the wall and said “Here look the wall has moved 3/16th and
you better fix it”. The contractor not wanting to argue the homeowners’ methods
and the near vertical style of the wall politely said this style wall will give
the appearance of leaning forward, the wall is within tolerance and we will
monitor it for anymore movement. The contractor stated if the wall moves
anymore then a plan of action would be discussed. The two parted their ways and as it turns out
the homeowner was not satisfied with the decision and requested another
contractor come out to look at his so called failing wall. The 2nd
contractor met with the homeowner who I should stress knows nothing of the wall
being compromised twice, or the erratic split personality of the homeowner. Again
the homeowner chooses a TORPEDO level and places it on the front of the wall
and says “Look my wall has moved” Now this contractor has 25 years of service
with the company his farther started 45
years ago. This contractor has his NCMA Wall Cert. and ICPI level 1 &2. He
is the ”Contractor who was X-Ray Vision” he says “Well unfortunately you’ve
been taking because clearly you the person who built this wall didn’t use any Geo-Grid
to hold he wall in place the whole thing needs to be taken down and rebuilt
right, for $135,000 I can fix this for you”.
The homeowner called
the original contractor and implied that he screwed him over and he wants money
back because he failed to install a product called Geo-Grid to help hold the
wall up. The homeowner requested to meet and the contractor bring money. The
contractor agreed to meet again this time with the Mrs. as well. During the
meeting the unemployed homeowner leaned into the contractor and whispered “Do
you know how to make me go away? Give me 30K cash”. The contractors reply was
“Take me to court.. I am not giving you $30K cash.
This went to the
lawyers and a law suit was filed. Most of the writing here is verbatim, there
is many things wrong with what was said, what was done, and why it was said. Does
anyone want to guess at the outcome? Or
take a shot at sorting this out? What is your perspective?
