Remodeling nightmares: Hiring a bad contractor can be costly and painful

Problem: clunky stone work

Problem: wrong brick pattern

Problem: incomplete mortar work

Problem: clunky stone work

Problem: uneven mortar work

Problem: brick work doesn't look right

Problem: some stones are falling out

Few things can turn a homeowner's emotions inside out more quickly than a major home improvement project gone awry.

Excitement soars with the early steps in the process: deciding on the project you'll pursue, drawing up initial plans, hiring someone to do the work.

Then you get to the steps you can't control - the cost estimate, your worker doesn't show up - and your good mood can plummet.

Shelby Parker has been stuck on the home repair roller coaster for more than a year, and talking about her experience still makes her cry - deep-down-in-her-soul sobs and tears.

"As a single mother, learning to mow the grass or having to call the neighbor to help me find a plumber was hard," says Parker, who was single with a 9-year-old son when her saga began. "Sometimes I wished I could rent a husband for five minutes."

None of that was as difficult as knowing she had been let down by people she trusted when she paid to replace the vinyl siding on the front of her Ringgold, Ga., home with stacked stone. It was her first foray into a serious remodel project and likely her last. At least for awhile.

"The helpless feeling and the finger-pointing and the transfer of blame. I've cried that somebody came and did this to my home. I just feel like I failed myself for not doing the detective work."

That detective work involves getting multiple references and estimates and making sure the person doing the work is licensed with the county or the state, depending on the extent of the work, according to Teresa Groves, executive director of the Homebuilders Association of Greater Chattanooga.

"If the work is over $25,000, the person has to have a contractor's license with the state," she says. "If it is between $3,000 and $25,000, they have to have a home improvement license."

These licenses indicate the person has passed a test, and therefore should be knowledgeable about the work as well as local building codes. Not pulling permits or following codes or using a properly licensed worker can lead to problems with the city, county and state, as well as with your insurance company, Groves says.

She also recommends having a written contract, signed by both the homeowner and the person doing to the work, detailing everything from the work that will be done to the materials that will be used and who will buy them.

There are, of course, good, unlicensed handymen who do quality work with countless numbers of happy customers. One of the best ways to find them is by asking for and actually checking references, talking to neighbors who have work done and not jumping at the first offer, especially if it sounds too good to be true.

Even when you do your due diligence, things can go wrong. Christian and Lilian Bruce have hired out large and small projects in homes in St. Elmo, North Chattanooga and currently on Signal Mountain. He has a laundry list of travails along the way, from promises unkept to stolen equipment, leaky roofs, insulation put in upside down, doors that don't close, workers digging a makeshift latrine behind his house because they were too cheap to rent a portable one, drywall guys who charged $60 worth of porn to his cable bill, a cement patio that "turned into a pothole," a deck that had to be rebuilt ... twice.

"The contractor who did finish the deck job brought us a gift out of the blue, however. He brought us a picnic table made from the scrap wood of the first deck," Bruce says.

It was made of garapa, a beautiful exotic wood, so he appreciated the gesture.

Like Parker, he says not going the extra mile and checking that his hired man was indeed licensed to do the work has cost him. For their latest project, a courtyard porch addition, the Bruces were impressed with a contractor's high-tech display booth at a local home show and assumed he was properly licensed. He was not. What was supposed to be a three-month project is going on three years.

The Bruces have since found a contractor they like who is trying to fix what he can on this and other shortchanged work. Some things they are leaving as is because of the expense to fix them. Their European cabinets are smaller than traditional ones and the doors scrape the ceiling in some places, but "they look cool, and we get a lot of comments on them," Christian Bruce says.

For her stone work, Parker hired the man the stone supplier suggested and had a good feeling about the decision. Based on her trust in the supplier and the company's reputation, she didn't feel a need to check the worker out further.

Homeowner Shelby Parker says her entryway finally looks beautiful, but she can't truly enjoy it because of the experience she had to get it finished. The whole process has taken a year.

"I was thrilled and excited," she says. "Choosing is the toughest battle, and I felt safe under the [supplier's] umbrella. I wanted the best. I wanted an artisan, but I've been told there are not any of those left."

She did get a quote, which she thought was reasonable, from the recommended mason and made a verbal commitment to have the work done. He said it would take about a week. Her first red flag came on day one when the guy's truck broke down and he failed to show up. It went downhill from there.

"It just never looked right from the start," Parker says. "Someone told me later he was a brickmason, and not a very good one, and had not worked with stone.

"He showed up one day to fix the siding and took it off and just left it exposed for a week. The work looked like crap, and people came out of the woodwork in mid-job to tell me. He kept hounding me for money.

"I kept thinking it would get better, but the whole time I had an aching in my stomach."

What was predicted to take a week took two months and then another 10 months to get done correctly.

"I had six contractors come and look at it, and all of them said, 'It doesn't look bad from the street.' My heart would sink."

She finally found a contractor who told her, "It doesn't look bad from the street, but ...." He said he and his crew would make it right. He also happened to have done the work at Big River Grille at Hamilton Place, which she liked. Her fiance tore off the old work, saving her some money, and the wall was completed in about a week. Total time on the project has been almost a year and it cost her around $8,800, about $4,000 over the original budget.

She just put a coat of paint on the porch and finally got the doorbell put back into place last week. She thought she was ready to move on, but broke down in tears - again - retelling the story.

"I like to say I am getting over it, but here I am crying today. It's just a deep hurt. It's like watching a movie where the good guys are being chased and they run into a sheriff's office only to find out he's in with the bad guys.

"This single mom does not deal well with being helpless, and it scared me. Why didn't I just take that money and put it into a college fund for my son."

As for her new front wall on the house?

"It looks beautiful, but I don't enjoy it," she says. "Maybe I will eventually."

Contact Barry Courter at bcourter@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6354.