# Completion Dates



## Spectatorz (Jun 11, 2004)

INMHO:

Planning a Completion Date is Not the Issue as much as the Consequences the Homeowner wants to stipulate for "Failure" to meet the "Projected" time of "Completion" 

I agree that a customer should be wary of a project with no projected completion time as well.
arty:


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## Gordo (Feb 21, 2006)

Spectatorz said:


> INMHO:
> 
> Planning a Completion Date is Not the Issue as much as the Consequences the Homeowner wants to stipulate for "Failure" to meet the "Projected" time of "Completion"
> 
> ...


Agreed.arty:


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## Shellbuilder (May 14, 2006)

The number one problem I see with remodelers is dragging the jobs out way too long and a lot of owners hear and see this everywhere. If a job will take you 4 weeks then give it 6 weeks by contract. If the customer wants a change then add the days with the change. I don't see the problem. I have a large job going on now with a contractor remodeling a bath 2 doors down. He has someone working on this job maybe 1 day a week, pathetic. The owners are past full service customers of mine and feel trapped with this idiot because they are behind on money. In 28 years I have needed to negotiate a penalty clause once and didn't get the job anyway.


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## dayexco (Mar 4, 2006)

i have no problems with jobs with completion dates or liquidated damages. if i don't have the ability to complete it on time, i just don't bid it. i've seen commercial projects where the owner has arranged financial packages with loaning institutions, banking on being up and running by a certain date to start generating some revenue, and have one or more contractors in the chain stall the project and raise cane with their anticipated time frame of being open for business. i've seen homeowners that are told they'll be in their new home by a certain date. they sell their home, rent another for a fixed period of time, have the builder take 2-3 months longer than anticipated and the homeowner ends up paying to move several times. easy, quick cure....if the anticipated completion date is unrealistic or doesn't work for you, walk away from it. let somebody else deal with it.


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## Sonny Lykos (Mar 11, 2006)

I’ve always felt this way: Regardless if we’re doing a repair job, a remodel, or building a house or set of offices, every single job is s prototype - something that has never been done before, in the exact manner, with the exact same people, in the exact same frame of mind, with the exact same enthusiasm and energy, under the exact same weather conditions, with the exact same materials, etc., etc., etc.

For the above reasons, unless the guaranteed completion date is double what is anticipated, one is just setting themselves up for a fall.

It’s bad enough to depend only upon yourself, but most projects force you to depend upon a number f subcontractors, and their respective varied employees with the problems of the subcontractor and those of his/her respective employees. Now ditto the above sentence for the dealerships, distributors and manufactures, to whom you are also dependent upon.

I simply say to customers that the reality is that we do not “punch out” 16 refrigerators per hour in a factory, or “manufacture” 300 widgets per day. If they want that type of schedule guarantee, then they should buy widgets instead of having a remodeling project under taken. So I can give them a reasonable idea of when it might be done, but to guarantee a date would make me insane, and another reason why they should really seek an insane remodeler to give them want they want. Then I ask them: “Now, to whom should I speak to guarantee me that I will live to see 80?”

I am both a realist, and an idealist, but when it comes to business, I stick with realism, which is based upon past experiences and my 35 years of knowledge in our industry.

When my son died with 13 projects in various stages, one customer sued his estate and corporation for compensation because his corporation was unable to meet his guaranteed completion date. Yes! People do get unbelievably vicious when they smell money.


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## jensenconstruction (Mar 30, 2006)

In California we are required to have start and compleation dates in our contracts for all residential projects. Failure to provide dates can result in fines or suspension of contractors license. 

We provide dates as required however do not have any penalities or liquated damages.


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## dayexco (Mar 4, 2006)

sonny lykos, i'm truly sorry to hear about the death of your son. but maybe the company that sued the estate sustained a financial loss because of the inability to have that facility generating it revenue. that's just one of those "things" about being in business.


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## Gordo (Feb 21, 2006)

Shellbuilder said:


> The number one problem I see with remodelers is dragging the jobs out way too long and a lot of owners hear and see this everywhere. If a job will take you 4 weeks then give it 6 weeks by contract. If the customer wants a change then add the days with the change. I don't see the problem. I have a large job going on now with a contractor remodeling a bath 2 doors down. He has someone working on this job maybe 1 day a week, pathetic. The owners are past full service customers of mine and feel trapped with this idiot because they are behind on money. In 28 years I have needed to negotiate a penalty clause once and didn't get the job anyway.


 Hey Shell,
I hear you on the dragging out part being a problem, especially around here. Sorry to hear about your clients being dragged out.Could the problem with your past customers contractor be that he is subbing everything out? Like one crew for demo, one for framing tub walls, one for durock, one for tile? I have seen this take a 2 week bathroom into a month and a half:no: When we do a job, I tell the customer that they will see me and my right hand man 95% of the time(M-F; 8am- 6pm). The plumber and electrician the other 5%. The clients job is our main focus until completion (usually 2 weeks for bathrooms). A linear job philosophy.
Seems like this month I have gotten quite a few calls from people where the contractor has bailed on them. I find out the lowball price quoted and tell them the reason work stoppped is because the contractor underbid and lost his pants (this is wrong).I can assume that with the slowing of new homes all the new construction guys are coming in and do not have a clue about the remodeling process. Has anybody noticed this?
Shell, I still would like to touch base with you soon (should be easier now with the kids out of school and finished with exams). Everybody have good week. Taking the family to Cape Hatteras for the week. My buddy down there says the Spanish Mackerel are biting. There is a little ground swell brewing also :clap: .


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## theworx (Dec 20, 2005)

Commercially I have encountered this a few times in the last couple of years. All were for retail store owners building a new store (and had to move from their existing location by a set date).. All of them wanted a clause in the contract stating we would be charged x amount per day for being over the completion date. We told them we wanted the same amount per day for finishing early (it was a substantial amount like $3000.00 a day, I guess based on their lost income if we were late). None of them went for it and we still finished their jobs before the deadline.

The last one was the funniest (to us and not the store owner). We finished his store one week early and he had hired a company from Calgary to manufacture his custom store fixtures. They were 3 weeks late delivering the fixtures. The owner had to rent semi trailers to store his merchandise from his old store until the new fixtures arrived. He should have put that clause in the contract for his fixtures.


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## Sonny Lykos (Mar 11, 2006)

dayexco said:


> sonny lykos, i'm truly sorry to hear about the death of your son. but maybe the company that sued the estate sustained a financial loss because of the inability to have that facility generating it revenue. that's just one of those "things" about being in business.


Thanks. It was just a moron (and vicious) private customer who, according to our attorney, thouht she could make some extra money. She lives up north and was mad that she would now have to hire someone else to finish it even though she would not be here. Granted, inconvenient for her, but the fact that death was also inconvenient for my son was, as she said: "Our problem; not her's."


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## Shellbuilder (May 14, 2006)

Gordo said:


> Hey Shell,
> I hear you on the dragging out part being a problem, especially around here. Sorry to hear about your clients being dragged out.Could the problem with your past customers contractor be that he is subbing everything out? Like one crew for demo, one for framing tub walls, one for durock, one for tile? I have seen this take a 2 week bathroom into a month and a half:no: When we do a job, I tell the customer that they will see me and my right hand man 95% of the time(M-F; 8am- 6pm). The plumber and electrician the other 5%. The clients job is our main focus until completion (usually 2 weeks for bathrooms). A linear job philosophy.
> Seems like this month I have gotten quite a few calls from people where the contractor has bailed on them. I find out the lowball price quoted and tell them the reason work stoppped is because the contractor underbid and lost his pants (this is wrong).I can assume that with the slowing of new homes all the new construction guys are coming in and do not have a clue about the remodeling process. Has anybody noticed this?
> Shell, I still would like to touch base with you soon (should be easier now with the kids out of school and finished with exams). Everybody have good week. Taking the family to Cape Hatteras for the week. My buddy down there says the Spanish Mackerel are biting. There is a little ground swell brewing also :clap: .


Yeah man, it is widespread bull crap here sometimes. The neighbor has their house upside down with this guy and is even more mad that I put 3 shell addition complete on her neighbors house in the last 5 weeks, A 20 x40 pool and a 30,000.00 fence also went in on my job by others in this time period, so her cul de sac is hopping with equipment and deliveries. The sad part about this city and it's lack of respect for the licensed and legal guys shines here....a dumpster, a sign in the yard, occasional trade trucks there and the freakin building inspectors parks in front of that house to inspect mine and ignore the lack of permit even though a cornerpost with plaster is sticking out of the dumpster 3 feet in the air. Really, somedays I wonder why I even bother to be licensed here. Have fun in Hatteras


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## Joasis (Mar 28, 2006)

I have read this one with interest and I bet how I do it would make some of you gasp. In Oklahoma, we have no rules about contracts and contractors, other then standard consumer contracts. I use a proposal form unless I need to spell out details for a PITA. I give customers an *approximate date to start*, and an *estimated* time, all things going well, to complete. If they really want firm dates, I tell them I can't do it, because I can't see in the future...nothing like dates and phases of completion to add to the grey hair. Added note, we usually finish before the estimated time, since I alwasy allow extra days.


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## Tscarborough (Feb 25, 2006)

An honest question here gentlemen, one dear to my heart. It seems to be the consensus that guarantying a completion date is a silly thing to do, for various reasons. Given that, why would you demand that a supplier be able to do the same for a delivery? They face the same issues and complexities as a contractor, don't they?

Since I am only a small contractor, I would not even consider going to a job site until the material was already delivered or I was bringing it with me, much less pay someone to be there on the assumption that the material "should" be there.

As a supplier, I make sure that homeowners understand that there are a lot of variables involved, and that a delivery date is not a guarantee that the material will arrive on that date; it is an estimate of when it will be delivered that is generated 4-6 days in advance.

For contractors, I assume they understand the issue, and keep them updated as to the status of their scheduled deliveries. For 95% of my commercial contractors and 80% of my smaller "regulars" this is not an issue, but for he small guys and (sorry to say) remodelers, it causes problems. We work very hard to provide excellent service, but the problems generally boil down to rushed/late ordering and failure to appreciate lead times.

I have been assessed back charges for everything from lost wages to crane charges, but have never paid one, nor will I ever. If it is critical to your work, make sure that you schedule your material before you need it, not when you need it.

As Mr. Lykos said, we ain't making widgets in a factory, and Just-In-Time scheduling does not work for our industry.

Sorry for the rant, but I am one of those people that like to make people happy, not mad, but I will only assume a certain amount of the blame for things outside of my control, but well within anothers.


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## Sonny Lykos (Mar 11, 2006)

Tscarborough said:


> Given that, why would you demand that a supplier be able to do the same for a delivery? They face the same issues and complexities as a contractor, don't they?


First of all, I think all of us here, and most good contractors have at the to of their list is pleasing their customers. But just as we do with our own children, when the one who turns 18 and asks for a Mustang convertible, we must temper our "desires" an "capabilities" with reality.

To answer your first question, which also answers your second is this: 

Our suppliers are either ordering or delivering a "good" as economics calls them; something that has already been manufactured. We, on the other hand, provide "services" while WE do the "manufacturing."

And might I add, that we do not enjoy the luxury of a real "factory" and it's mass production advantages. "Delivering" products is not te same as "making" them. And remember, each of our subcontractors is "exactly" the same as our businesses. Add about 3-5 subs and watch the "desired" schedule fall apart.

As they say about war: Usually, everything changes after the first day.

We do not sell already made "goods", or "products." Nor are we a retail store with a back room inventoried with all of the particular desires of our customers. Finally, I'll be damned if I can find my crystal ball. I lost it about 35 years ago when I first started my business. Therefore, I am no longer able to "accurately" predict the future - about anything, much less remodeling completions. Heck, it's hard enough to accurately predict their start date.

As many of you know, I specialize in small jobs, from about a service call to a couple of grand. Well, I just got talked into doing about a $70K remodel, but I digress. Anyway, on Sat or Sun I make up a schedule for the upcoming week and tentatively pencil in the next 2 weeks. Quite often, by the end of the Day Monday, I must change the schedule for the rest of the week and the next three.

I forgt to mention: You also said: "Just-In-Time scheduling does not work for our industry."

Ain't that the truth? On the site, "and" inspected - out of their boxes.


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## Tscarborough (Feb 25, 2006)

I disagree, as it is irrelvant as to whether or not the product is pre-made or special order. If you know that you will need an item, you know it well in advance of when you need it, and I would say that the primary variable is when it is ordered, not when it is delivered.


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## Tscarborough (Feb 25, 2006)

At any rate, I don't want to derail the topic, I just see the two issues as the same.


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## Sonny Lykos (Mar 11, 2006)

I can live with yoiur disagreement, but please remember, when a product is made, it's made in one factory. Our "product" is made by many factories who have to bring their manpower, materials and equipment to the site.

Let's say that we are "serviced" when we go out to eat in a manner in which we operate. Picture going to a restaurant for dinner, and once you ordered what you wanted, they had to call:

1. The meat supplier to bring over his meat and prepare it for you.
2. The potato supplier to bring over his potates and prepare thm for you.
3. The veggie supplier to bring ver his veggies and prepare them for you.
4. The pastry supplier to bring over your dessert and prepare it for you.
5 And before that, the table setting supplier to bring over the silverware and napkin to lay them out for you.
6. The winery to bring over his wine and pour it in the glasses for you.

Granted, you can order your dinner in advance, giving the restaurant owner advance notice of what you want. But then what happens when you and your wife decide to make a "Change Order" or two or three or eight while at that restaurant? Envision that scenario. But as I said, I can handle you disagreeing with my contention.


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## Shellbuilder (May 14, 2006)

If I had the choice I would not have completion dates either, unfortunately I am required to. Since I am required I therefore have all types of disclaimers i.e. product deliveriy delays, workman delays, weather etc. Depending on the customer, I may write a change order for a completion date because of the weather or a delivery problem. The contractors who are screwing customers around are not the Sonnys or the Gordos, they are the under capitalized morons who take draws to pay off other jobs and lie to their customer. I see this behavior too often. The regulations that the state has stipulated for me are fine, I just need to overwrite them with disclaimers,,,another page to the contract. In a way Va. has thought this out fairly well, completion dates on contracts and delay dates on change orders produces a look back at the contract when needed.


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## maj (Mar 13, 2006)

Alot of the differences here are the size & scope of work being compared. I've noticed the ones against start & completion dates are small project contractors (1 day - 2 weeks). I will definitely agree with everyone on their stand against dates, as it would be impossible to keep a schedule with so many jobs overlapping. 

I started using start & completion dates ONLY for complete homebuilding contracts. I do everything from the foundation up except drywall. Frame, shingle, side,hang rock, cabinets & millwork. For these projects it is much easier to keep a schedule because the time frame is stretched out over several months.

I think alot of us on here tend to get stuck in our own world & our own business, without "looking outside the box". I am guilty of that. Maybe we need to keep in mind the many different types of contractors on this board before discounting other peoples way of doing business.


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## TigerFan (Apr 11, 2006)

Sonny Lykos said:


> Let's say that we are "serviced" when we go out to eat in a manner in which we operate. Picture going to a restaurant for dinner, and once you ordered what you wanted, they had to call:
> 
> 1. The meat supplier to bring over his meat and prepare it for you.
> 2. The potato supplier to bring over his potates and prepare thm for you.
> ...


Sonny,

I gotta get you to New Orleans here - for some Sal and Sam's Steak Diane!!! Spinach salad and Banana's Foster - all brought to the table and prepared for you!!

Heh - I agree totally with what you're saying and if I could refrain from poking holes in the analogy I would. 

tf

although I do admit that this is about a 2 hour dinner and quite expensive. So maybe the analogy holds and the jokes on me


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