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I want to share my experience in the hopes of saving others, especially in Puna, from sharing our fate. We hired a person we thought was a friend, whom we thought we could trust, to build our new house. He wanted to be paid hourly. The result? He milked us for all he could. A small house which should have been built in 3 months is still not finished. 7 months later and we are scrambling to finish the work with the little money we have left. DON'T LET THIS HAPPEN TO YOU. ALWAYS GET A BID. We have hired many subs since we dumped the thief/builder/former friend we hired originally and have many references of honest tradespeople doing good work. Please feel free to contact me if I can help. Mahalo and good luck.
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any bid/contract for over a $1000 needs to be a licensed contractor
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Licensed or unlicensed all contractors must be properly vetted. Either one can screw you.
GuitarDude, I'm guessing you did this project as an owner-builder and hired your unlicensed friend hoping to save money, because licensed contractors can be quite expensive. Have you weighed out the difference of how much it would have cost to go with a licensed contractor? Surely it would have gone faster if you did the proper vetting, but would it have been cheaper?
One more question: Is this guy still around, or is there some way you can identify him so that we can know to beware?
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GuitarDude something similar happened to us, we also learned vetting doesn't always work, references can be forged, contractors do shoddy work, painful lessons!
Good luck with your house!
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There is a fine line between paying by the hour and paying by the job and getting corners cut.
Each situation is different, our last several jobs were 'by the hour' and the quality was worth it.
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Puna is full of people who claim, and might actually think they have, skills they don't really have. Mostly semi-skilled people being trained by other semi-skilled people.
Assume the best and ask questions.
Punaweb moderator
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I can't speak to how much he's charging you per hourly rate, or his speed of work, but you would have to describe the project more completely to say whether seven months is unreasonable or not. If by "small house" you mean a 1000 sq. ft two bedroom house, it's different than if you're building a 600 sp ft. mini house. What has or was not included to begin with? Concrete foundation or piers or slab?
I'm just going to go ahead and say it: a single guy can't build a house from scratch to finish (I mean finish finish, not shell finish) in three months. Can't be done. Foundation, floor, wall, roof framing, metal roof, drywall, electrical (subbed), plumbing (subbed), finish floor, bathroom fixtures, tub/shower, electrical fixtures, appliance installation, trim, painting. One guy, three months...ah, no, not gonna happen.
So, not knowing everything, I'm not going to say you had unreasonable expectations, but I'm saying you might want to consider it...
