Thursday, November 13, 2008

Pole Barn Saga

Well, the pole barn started out well. On Tuesday, they got the outside structuring done. Leo took pictures since he was off from work. Yesterday, was when everything went downhill. I knew we were in trouble when only the younger guys showed up for work. The older forman gentleman was not with them. They got here and I heard yelling and looked out to see two of them wrestling over a tool belt in the front yard. They spent most of the morning screwing around to the point that I wasn't sure the barn was going to get done for the cement to be put in today. Now, there were two hard working guys in the group and they were doing their best to get things done. One of them eventually called to the powers that be to see what he could do to get the project done. As they started to put up the siding, it didn't look anywhere near the color we picked out. We will get to that a little later. So the oldest kid comes to get me to say they are almost done and to show me everything. It looked pretty good except for the color. Well, they left without saying anything when they were done. Leo gets home and what they did was left trash all over the place. Most of which was either inside the garage or blocking bays. Now this poses a problem because we have the cement guys coming today. Now, we had said that they could leave the excess materials here and the trash. After all, we can burn it and the excess we could always use on other projects. What we didn't expect was for them to leave everything where it was. You would think that it would have been organized. Plus, they cut everything in the driveway and left nails there. Leo spent a good portion of his night cleaning this up, so nothing was blocked for the cement crew. They got here this morning and actually got on their hands and knees looking for nails, so they didn't run over any. They found a few that were still left and got rid of them. They go inside and the kids from yesterday hadn't smoothed the floor, so these guys had to do it before they start. While we were out there, we checked on the color. The cement guys also agreed it was the wrong color. Later on, we realized that it is the right color but lighting reflection is extreme and changes the color drastically. The one guy from today said that it has to do with the steel siding. It would have been nice for the salesman to tell us that would happen. We would have picked a darker color due to the fact that the sun will be shining on the building and makes it look yellow instead of dark beige. At least the cement guys are good. Then, I had an electrician here to give an estimate to put electric in the garage. There are many names to describe this man. None of which are nice, so I will not use them. He was nasty in his tone. I had to call Leo because he wanted spot for spot on what we wanted out there. Now, Leo didn't tell him anything really different than I did. I did hear him say to his assistant that he hates dealing with women. Needless to say, we will not be using him. The garage doors will be installed on Monday. Sometime next week, Dave, the excavator, will be back to put the stone outside the garage and to regrade the driveway so we can pull into the garage easier. It is nice dealing with the subcontractors. The problem has been in dealing with the main group who you would think would be nicer since they are the ones that get the money. Oh, just to point out, the pole barn was not built by the Amish. I think part of the problem arose when they found out we were a non-inspected job. Since the barn is under 1000 square feet, it isn't required to be inspected by our townships laws. I believe the pole barn company took the chance to send a second rate team to build it instead of their top of line group. It will be nice once things are done.

1 comment:

christine M said...

Sounds like a nightmare. I'm thinking maybe it's too bad it didn't have to get inspected - are you sure they did sound work?

Well - at least it's just about done.