PAT THOMAS DRYWALL

We recently remodeled a section of our house built in 1925, and we needed a significant amount of drywall, both on old and new walls. I couldn’t reach the drywaller we’d used in the past, so we agreed to let our general contractor use his guy, Pat Thomas, including paying the GC’s markup. Contractors like to say drywallers are magicians that fix all the imperfections left by the carpenters. This is an old house, so there were a lot of imperfections to start with. But there was no magic here, just fast and shoddy work. The finished walls looked flat and smooth—as they do when they’re white and freshly sanded—but as soon as I started installing the baseboard, trim and crown, I discovered that the walls were anything but flat, including many that were brand new. There were huge humps and valleys everywhere, which became painfully obvious as soon as you put a straight piece of trim against them. Apparently, the drywallers couldn’t be bothered leveling out the sheetrock with those cardboard shims they’re supposed to use, nor did they use plaster to flatten things out afterwards. They couldn’t be bothered building up the plaster to meet the edge of the windows—there was anything from 0 – 1/4” difference between the two, but it was never consistent. Good luck hiding a undulating gap like that with window trim. Even along existing trim, like the stair stringers, which should have provided a good guide, the plaster wove and ducked atrociously, which you could easily see without a straight edge. Since these guys left, I’ve spent weeks (and probably 20 gallons of plaster) flattening out walls, sanding out humps, and trying to straighten things out myself—doing what these guys should have done to begin with. Other annoyances: I had to ask for moisture-resistant “green board” drywall around the shower and in our bathroom. Apparently, they were just going to use standard drywall. Cutting corners to save a few pennies? Perhaps most frustrating of all: in the middle of the drywalling job, we had a plumbing accident that flooded part of our house. As a result, we had to rip out approximately 4-5 sheets of drywall that had just been put in and let the walls dry out. Luckily, that was the only real damage, and it happened before they’d even started taping & plastering. The plumber took responsibility and agreed to pay for the repairs. But when our GC gave us the bill, Pat had tacked on about $1100 for this, which was totally outrageous. Pat’s response? “What do you care? The plumber’s paying for it, right?” It took some heated arguments with both our GC and Pat to find out that this charge wasn’t just for the flood damage, but a bunch of other extras that weren’t in the original estimate. I guess they found it convenient to stick it to the plumber rather than talk to me about revising the estimate.