Hi everyone,
It's Thursday as I write this, and I just remembered that I told claude I'd have something up if he needed it for Sat AM. I don't have any pretty pictures for you today. Part of that is intentional. Let me tell you about it. It'll be relatively brief.
(claude pokes his head up Thursday evening)
Before you jump to CJB's tale, I want to thank her for taking over this Saturday morning, the first edition of the 6th year of SMHRB at Daily Kos. I suspect this story will generate some discussion. As always, feel free to jump right in with whatever you are working on or being distressed by of the "home repair/improvement" category. You'll be talking with construction professionals and gifted amateur DIY wizards.
Thanks for dropping in.
Back to CJB...
A few of you might remember me crowing a few months ago about how we had been chosen for an energy retro-fit of our old house. Here is the initial "Yippee!" I was going to document the whole thing with the camera. I envisioned pictures of smiling workers weilding insulation hoses. MrCJB and I giving double thumbs up by our new water heater. One of us happily shaking hands with the furnace instalation guy. MrCJB listening intently as the Radon specialist explained the importance of the closed-house test results.
You can see it, can't you? A frenzy of hard work with beautiful results and giddy homeowners, arm in arm waving goodbye to the tired crew as they drive away.
This is not how it went down. At all. Once they finally got here, I don't think I even picked up the camera once.
We spent months hammering out the details of the scope. At last we finalized it. Then we got shoved into a time much earlier than we had wanted. "The subsidies might end! We need to move on this as soon as possible!" they advised dourly. Fine. Have at it.
Let me shorten the whole sordid thing a bit. The four day job ended up taking a month. During which time I had house guests from out of the country for 3 of the weeks. There were days when no one showed up to work. There were days when the electricity went out. They effed up the plaster work. They broke my dryer and blamed it on MrCJB. From the project manager to the site boss to the contractor to the G-man there was ZERO accurate communication the entire time.
When the project manager came to have me sign off on the thing, I took him around and showed him the gory details. Ceilings still full of staples and blue tape. Plaster work that was nowhere near "paint-ready." Blobs of plaster on my floor. Unfinished areas. The incredibly shitty job the site boss did in repairing the hole they drilled through the kitchen ceiling and into my window frame, etc. The perfect interruption to this sad tour was a call from the window guy. He was coming to install the right window because the one they put in had the wrong tint. "Oh really?" sez I. "Yes, ma'am." sez he. "Here, talk to the project manager. He just happens to be standing right next to me." I ended up telling them both that I'd keep the window. Then I told the project manager that under no circumstance did I want anyone from any crew to return to do anything. I said, "This is one of those unfortunate times when you have a home owner that could have easily done a better job than your crew did. You need to remember that this may be the case in other homes as well." He nodded. I also reminded him that when his crew left our home, for them, we were history. They got to forget the CJBs. "But," I added, "every month for twenty years I will write a check to the gas company that will include the payment for all of this. Every month for 20 years, I'm going to remember this month. Please remind your crew of that." I was nice about it. Didn't yell.
But there are still a bunch of staples in my kitchen ceiling. I'll be thinking about that fine work crew as I haul the ladder out from behind the garage this weekend.
Hope all of your projects are going well out there, wherever you are.