And this is why you always verify your contractor’s work before paying them.

Nah, build your own. Then you’ll appreciate the hard work and sacrifices that go into it, and the mistakes are yours. By the end you’ll feel better ignoring or decorating an anomaly than bitching about it. Expecting perfection will always leave you empty, but expecting problems will leave you full when you realize there aren’t any.

What? It’s a simple tweet about the necessity of checking subcontractors’ work before you pay them.

I think you’ve missed my point. You avoid all that you mentioned by doing it yourself.

Gotcha, missed that. I’m not a contractor nor want to be. Not something that gives me fulfillment. Totally respect the people that do find fulfillment doing the work themselves though.

Someone didn’t do a drywall markup before lettering electricians plate it.

Would’ve been more drywall work and expense to get all those imperfections fixed. Easier to just buy large cover plates.

@wademattingly This sums up the flipper mentality. Do what’s easier, not what’s right m.

@wademattingly Homeowners do the exact same thing. Small percentage care enough to fix something that’s not even seen.

@wademattingly I can respect you admit that’s the mentality at least

@wademattingly If it’s not a safety issue currently or something that could become a safety issue later down the road by not fixing, any investor would be dumb to spend money to fix it if it’s going to get covered up anyways.

@WifeFinance @wademattingly You should have told the electrician before he started that your drywall crew was a bunch a cheap labor so he needs to change order the faceplate. NOT HIS FAULT, YOURS!

@WifeFinance @wademattingly Can tell you’re not an investor. No intelligent investor would ever spend the money at this price point to fix all the drywall around the receptacles that could easily just be covered by a larger wall plate. It’s the simplest, cheapest fix and the end buyer couldn’t care less.

What was done to the stone fireplace surround is by far the most egregious

You don’t paint stone fireplaces on these cheap houses? I hate the look of the old stone fireplaces in these 70s and 80s builds.

If natural stone, hell no. If it’s just concrete cast to look like stone, I don’t really care.

Here’s a before shot. Painting that every time. Majority of homebuyers in this price point want it painted. Gotta cater to the consumer. Also, personally I think these cheap stone fireplaces look bad. Only stone fireplaces I like are the ones I see in $1M+ houses.

I will concede that's not a great example of it. No color variation, everything brown. But here's my house--obviously I'm partial to natural materials.

This is more my personal taste for a stone fireplace. Totally different price point of course than the low-end flips I do.

That’s wild lol

“All done boss. Job looks great.” *send my handyman to find this* 😂

Bar is really low lol

Funny how much these posts I do from time to time stir up the contractor Twitter world.

"I want this done as fast and cheap as possible" Complains when it isn't perfect

Not complaining. Just sharing an example of why you should always verify work before paying.

So GC's or painters fault? or both? Electrician just doing his installs

Electrician should’ve gotten large coverplates. Simple solution.

Some of those those look like the oversized plates

Some are midsized. Need to get the jumbo ones.

Damn. That’s real bad. 😬

Simple fix thankfully, but yes crazy how someone would install one of those and think to themselves that it looks good and continue installing the rest.

Someone takes pride in their work!

Not a common occurrence unfortunately when you’re getting inexpensive labor.

That is why you get building permits and inspections. Never pay until all inspections pass. And NEVER let them charge extra because "an inspector demands a correction." They quote a job based on passed inspections and code-compliant work.

If I did big additions/new construction, I would do exactly that. Doesn’t make sense on these smaller jobs though.

I buy the jumbo plates so my guys can move faster.

That’s what electrician should’ve done when he made his supply run. He’s coming back to replace.

Most electricians as we know aren’t concerned with aesthetics as we know.

That’s a fact. And as we know, some subs require more babysitting than others. Sure next time this electrician will consider the size of the wall plates before doing my next trim out.

Just buy jumbo plate covers

Yep told electrician to come back and do that

@MykalMango Do it yourself, bub. He has better contractors than you to take care of.

@MykalMango Part of trim out is getting the right cover plates. This is in his scope. He’s coming back to do it right.

This is very normal in the flipper industry because they get the most cheap contractors. If you want the more expensive then this wouldn’t have happened I could be wrong though

If you’re any type of investor (flipper, builder, landlord, etc), you should always be looking for ways to save money. Some subs require more babysitting than others. This electrician of mine is one of those. All good though. He’s coming back to do it right.

@dig_deeper1 You’re paying him to return , right? For the time and materials

Materials are put on my HD account. I’m eating the cost of wasted materials even though it was 100% his fault for buying the incorrect ones (my agreement with my subs is they buy the materials needed for the job and I pay for them via phone sales). And I’m definitely not paying him extra to come back to correct a sloppy job on his part. He knows he needs to come back to fix the things he did incorrectly—not just this.

So you’ve explicitly detailed to them that are to buy more expensive materials on your HD account to mask workmanship issues from the other trades? Making the drywall blemish the electricians responsibility ? And you’re paying them sufficiently to execute this level of job site decisions? Is your EC also your GC?

It’s common sense (or should be) to buy larger cover plates when you have this amount of drywall imperfections around receptacles. If he didn’t realize it til after installing one or two, stop and send me a pic saying it looks bad and ask what we should do. If someone chooses to continue doing something that is dumb, they have to come back and fix the mistake. All the subs I work with understand and accept this. If they don’t like it, they can work for someone else. Pretty reasonable expectation.

This would all be detailed in contract if you had one? I’m Guessing more of a “cash” relationship? Either way , If you didn’t answer the pertinent questions here, I would expect the same with your subs(generous calling them that). If you publicly blast your subs here, I would expect the same level of disrespect there as well, in your relationship with them generally. The good news is since your airing this all out publicly tradesman can review and choose if they are self hating enough(or desperate) to engage you

@dig_deeper1 I do not do contracts. No one I know that flips single family homes uses contracts with their subs. Also, no names were dropped, so can’t call that publicly blasting. It was a simple tweet about verifying work before paying. Not sure how it got your panties all in a wad.

Looks like every house in mexico

Haha probably could get away with it since it’s a cheaper price point here in Atlanta, but it looks like crap, so going to fix it.

You need some jumbo covers

Yep simple fix

You have more problems than just smaller cover plates

What other problems are you seeing?

Blame the dryer crew not the electrical finish.

Not part of my drywall guy’s scope. Not cost-effective to correct all these imperfections when it’s as easy as buying jumbo cover plates.

Perfect example.

They shouldn't even sell those shitty plastic covers

Thankfully they do or we’d have to charge even higher prices for our homes

Every so often I get a cheap GC that asks me to use those plates. Just not worth it

Or . . . do it yourself.

Who cut them out? The electrician or the drywallers?

This was a renovation. Holes were already there.

Gotcha, didn’t know if it was taken to the studs or not. So basically your sparky wasn’t reponsible for the holes but I agree he should have used larger plates.

So sloppy. And let me guess, they complained when you sent them this video and told them to come back to fix it?

pay bananas, ya get monkeys

Sometimes just have to babysit the monkey to get the finished product you want. As an investor, goal is to find the balance between inexpensive ubs and ones who do quality work with a reasonable amount of babysitting.

Wouldn't work with that dude.

Sometimes when price is cheap enough, makes sense to have to babysit more.

Do they work though ?

All the outlets and switches work. There are other issues too though—here’s another example. Just sloppy work that needs to be fixed.

This is not a new build. This is clearly where they removed the old plates, painted, then put on new plates without sanding/spackling the old paint lines from previous slop jobs. They even sell "oversized" plates so lazy fuckers can cover this without fixing.

Didn't you buy your own cover plates? I did when I had work done

No, electrician was responsible for buying these materials on my HD account via phone sale.

Holy crap

That guy is so cheap. They make oversized plates which would have hidden those defects