How bad did I get ripped off by my handyman?

Thats pretty sweet. I cant remember having those, but I did work in lumber/building a loooong time ago. Might need to cruise by and brush up on my terminology.

 

I wish ! Haha.
When it comes to my home if I don't know I will certainly learn. Outside contractors suck! I am competent enough to learn.

 

You don't pay by the job?

 

Broad brush , and I get to fix lots of " competent " homeowner's work

 

Lots of employees get paid hourly , not really a new concept

 

FTFY and no shit.

 

Yes I know that but in the residential trades I haven't seen someone get paid by the hour i

 

Everybody here gets paid by the hour , certainly employees

Some jobs are contract , some are time and materials but my employees always get paid by the hour

 

Quoted for truth and hilarity!

I'm pretty sure he means from the perspective of the homeowner paying a contractor. No way I'd just agree to pay a contractor by the hour without have at least an estimate or a 'not to exceed' type of contract in place before hand. Otherwise, it's just an open check book and not much incentive for the contractor to finish up and get on down the road (understanding there are some great contractors out there who would charge what's right and rely on word of mouth to spread their business but there are also far too many shady contractors out there willing to use a homeowner's inexperience to take advantage).

 

Almost all my jobs are done with a scope of work estimate and then are billed as time + materials

 

I would say that's fairly common, and one of the things that can really help your business is your ability to stay within the estimate. Blown budgets can kill word of mouth business.

 

True , but my jobs never stay to the original estimate cause the owners always add a bunch of stuff and extra work , lol , sometimes they won't let me leave

 

That can be a good problem to have, but difficult to schedule the next job! I work for a large commercial contractor and one of our biggest challenges is turning the building over, closing out and getting out (while still keeping the client happy, of course).

 

Yep , the never reducing punch list , scratch one item off the list , add two new additions , repeat

Haha

 

Don't the "white hats" get bonuses for getting jobs done on time or before?

 

Residential work can be a real pain. I'm pretty sure I've spent 8 years unfucking poorly done flips and home owner repairs. When the housing market was huge every person with a little money was buying and finding the cheapest way to flip a house. A lot of bad work was done in that time. Than when the housing market dropped all the hacks went to commercial work and underbid the hell out of jobs and really hurt that industry as well. A lot of the hacks bad business has caught up to them hopefully as an industry we can repair that reputation. But as a contractor I can tell you more stories of nightmare clients who's understanding of work done and unreal expectations have caused them to blame everyone they have ever hired for the outcome of their projects. Recently felt with one who after going through all the paper work they asked for flipped out because they failed to add correctly and thought they were being overcharged.

 

I blame too much HGTV

 

Depends. Bonuses can be based on a whole list or criteria. You can lose money on a job in a lot more ways than just missing your deadline.

Sounds about right!