Genesis Contracting Services LLC

they left a disaster for me to clean up and it will cost me around $7000.00 of my own money to do it.

Shon arrived on the first day and I made a classic mistake. He told me that he'd had trouble with clients paying before and request 1/2 of the agreed price. I myself did house painting and carpentry for 2 full years and never once had a client balk at paying me for the work I did, and frankly couldn't imagine why anyone ever would. I soon realized why. Shon arrived with a helper and spend the first day extracting the existing tile from the bathroom. In the process they generated massive clouds of dust which my tenant (rental property) was extremely displeased with. Next day they arrived to begin rebuilding the walls. They arrived with little but a circular saw and a drill. Given that I knew that more tools were going to be needed I agreed to allow them to use my miter saw, grinder, drill and many other tools just to expedite the job. Upon removal of the walls and finding out that the tub was corroded, I explained to him that I needed to replace it. I told him that I new how to plumb it if he wanted to help me to get the tub and get it into place. If not then I knew a plumber who would had put in other tubs for me for $200. Shon agreed to help and we spend about 4 hours buying the tub and installing it. It went well, and if the rest of the job had gone this well I would have been happy to have paid him the same as I would have paid the plumber to do the work. From this point forward however the job went very sour. I ended up needing to take time off from work and supervise the job because there were many corners being cut that would have affected the quality and durability of the work. Debates included but not limited to: * Whether the thinner HardiBacker board should be shimmed to the same level as the existing drywall. Having just built two bathrooms on my own, I knew that this was key to making a tile job work out neatly. He rejected it and insisted that it was a waste of time and was cutting into his profits. * How much wood was actually necessary to support Hardibacker. The manufacturer is specific that every edge should be supported and no span greater than 16" should be unsupported; Shon seemed to think this was excessive * How many screws are required to support a 3x5' sheet of Hardibacker. The manufacturer specifies every 8". I found them walking away from full sheets that were held by little more than 5 screws. * Whether it was acceptable to have a sheet fit so tightly where the shower spout exited the wall that it was putting pressure on the copper plumbing and deflecting it 10-15 degrees. Shon seemed to think I was being too picky. * Whether it was better to be patient when using MY tools and refrain from destroying them and the work by trying to force them faster than they are capable. He didn't have time as it was cutting into his profits. * Whether Hardibacker should be taped and floated at every seam using thinset mortar to make the joints waterproof (as the manufacturer explicitly specifies). Shon had never heard of such a thing and insisted that this was some kind of internet thing. During this entire process I was actually the one assisting him with this job as his assistant was more keen on standing around, or going outside and smoking cigarettes (mine). I expressed to Shon on numerous occasions that he was not a good worker, that he was slow, undirected, uninterested, careless, and sloppy. He had already managed to put one quarter sized chip in a brand new bathtub by dropping a tool into it. I had to keep reminding him to keep the work area and specifically the new bathtub clean as it was rapidly filling up with debris and dropped screws. Shon insisted that he would be great once the tile work was to begin, as that was his real forte. Finally on day 4 the tile work began. I agreed to assist his tile man by using my OWN $700 tile saw to make all of the cuts to compensate for the slightly more intricate than originally agreed on tile pattern I had chosen. We worked the entire day and I cut every single tile but still only managed to complete the back wall of the shower (tub to ceiling). It actually looked very nice, but ONLY because I kept going behind his tile man and straitening and adding spacers and tape to keep everything aligned, and cleaning up the mortar mess he was leaving behind (this was expensive latex modified thinset and very hard to clean once set). He was insistent on adding far too much water to the mortar which made it runny, and very slow setting which caused the tile to keep sagging. Despite my urging he kept doing it as such. Shon insisted that the next day he would work with him and requested that I remain away from the worksite. Foolishly I trusted him and agreed. By the end of that that Friday both of the side walls had been tiled. Every cut was crooked, every tile was out of plane. There were tile sitting directly in contact with the surface of the tub. It looked absolutely horrible. This came as no surprise to me because I could hear his tile man shoving 13" porcelain tile through my $700 wet saw in less than a second. He was treating it as if it was a lumber mill. There were now about 6 large chips and a dozen scratches in the brand new porcelain tub. Shon turned me to and said that they were all set to grout it and then would clean up and leave. I shook my head in disbelief and said that they were not under any circumstances to apply the $100 epoxy grout that I had purchased to THAT tile while it was still runny wet, and that I'd never heard of any competent tile person considering such a thing. At this point I was frantically considering what to do about the situation. I was already into this job for the $800 I gave Shon in advance plus the near $1000 that I already spent on materials cost, plus the many hours of work I'd personally invested in this job, not to mention the wear and tear on MY tools. I told them to pack up and go. I looked at the work they had done that day, and realized that it was completely un-salvageable. I spend the next three hours pulling every tile off the wall, and cleaning up as many as possible. The next day I personally redid everything that they had done the day before, except that I did it right, clean, neat, even, and professionally. The following day I grouted it. Why I didn't just do this from the beginning I honestly don't know. As it turned out I ended up having yet another bathroom fail in the very same manner just a few weeks later. The very same work order needed to be carried out, demo tile and wall, replace tub, frame it out, seal, rewall it with concrete. This same identical work order was carried by myself and ONE other professional contractor. The total time 9 hours, total cost to me for labor $300. I did the tiling myself. That is how long this job should have taken two competent people to execute. Moral: Don't EVER pay a contractor in advance. I don't care what they say. Frankly if they even ask you, this should be a red flag. The FIRST time you have a disagreement and a contractor tries to tell you that something should be done in a manner that you KNOW to be incorrect or haphazard, pay them for what they've done and send them on their way. It's YOUR house.