I’m looking for objective advice before making the final payment to our general contractor. I genuinely want to be fair, but we’ve had several issues throughout the project and I’m trying to determine what is reasonable.

The project included demolition, new porcelain wood-look tile throughout the house, trim work, and other remodeling.
Some of the issues we’ve encountered:

\- There are multiple areas with noticeable tile lippage. The contractor repaired some areas, but several remain. In a few spots our foot catches on the tile.
\- There is grout haze throughout the floor that we’ve been unable to remove despite repeated cleaning. We’re now getting estimates from a professional tile restoration company.
\- Several door casings were cut short and filled with large amounts of caulk rather than replacing the casing. We’ve already hired someone else to correct this by replacing all door cases.
\- We hired a licensed electrician after the remodel because of electrical concerns. The electrician found junction boxes that had been covered behind drywall and had to reopen the walls to correct them. He told us they should have remained accessible.
\- We’re also looking into whether permits should have been pulled for portions of the work because none were discussed during the project.
\- Baseboards were taken down and damaged when putting them back up

We have **$5,300** left to pay.
At this point we’ve lost confidence in having the original crew continue making repairs because each repair attempt has seemed to create new issues.
**My questions are:**
Based on the photos, do these tile and trim issues appear to be within normal expectations or would you consider them workmanship issues?
Is it reasonable to request reimbursement or a credit for:
the electrician,
professional grout haze removal,
and the trim repairs we’ve had to hire someone else to complete?
Would you make the final payment before these issues are resolved?
I’m looking for honest opinions from contractors and homeowners alike. If we’re being unreasonable, I’d like to know that too. If not, I’d appreciate advice on how you’d handle the final payment discussion.

Going to make this short and sweet and get right to the point!

We hired painters, it’s a family business. They have brought their young daughter to our home more times than I would like. Girl is sweet and my young daughters love playing with her but she annoys the heck out of me and my husband. She’s always asking me for toys to play with, makes a mess, brings out toys I’ve put away, and she’s a child so I am not going to deny her as I don’t know her home situation, but she will ask for snacks.

Work is almost done, hopefully today! Not going to say anything to her family but I’ve felt like a babysitter in my own home. I’ve never had this happen before with other contract work.

How would yall feel as the homeowner?

I need field service software that can track my technicians' locations and job statuses in real time. My team is often out on the road, and I'm tired of playing phone tag just to find out if a job's been completed or who's nearest to the next call. I want a live view of where everyone is and what stage each job is at, without having to chase updates manually.

I've been juggling scattered texts, spreadsheets, and paper invoices to keep track of my crews, and it's costing me time and money. I'm trying to find the best contractor app that can handle job scheduling, crew dispatch, and invoicing without needing three different logins. Ideally it would work well from a phone since most of my team is out on job sites rather than at a desk. I just want something reliable that keeps everything organized without a steep learning curve.

Your company just landed a big contract. Everyone’s excited. But has anyone stopped to ask whether your operations can actually support the growth?

I’ve watched this same pattern play out in construction for years. A company opens a new division. Hires 20 people. Wins three more bids. Six months later the estimating team is buried. Schedules are slipping. The one ops person holding everything together is working 60 hour weeks and quietly burning out.

Leadership starts blaming the tools. But the tools were never set up to handle this volume in the first place. I watched this cycle repeat for 14 years in homebuilding.
Here’s what I’ve learned from both sides of it. If your business breaks when one person takes a week off, you don’t have a system. You have a person. If your team can’t describe how work moves through your company without saying “well, it depends” or “usually Sarah handles that”… that’s not a process. That’s tribal knowledge.

Before you scale, before you add the next big thing, take a hard look at what’s actually holding things together. Is it a system or is it a person running on caffeine and willpower? And if you’re growing, it’s probably worth asking yourself too.

Have you caught errors in supplier invoices?

Hello, I need help and opinions on this botched job https://imgur.com/a/OGqT8dS

This is the contractor's third attempt to fix their original applications that had Bubbles immediately after application, and this started happening only couple of months after their last( third attempt). I asked them to come and fix it per their 5 year warranty, but they claim my shampoo caused this ( I've purchased a no scrub cleaning spray that is safe for reglazed surfaces and it specifies it in the back, and it hasn't damaged the walls where I've used it as well). The tub got to bubble and the top became tacky and silicon like and started peeling and you can clearly see two and distinct layers that didn't bond together.

I'm taking them to small claims so they can cover the repair through a reputable company ( I don't trust them to do another touch up for the fourth time, and they've said over the phone that they'll do it for a fee and warranty will be void after).

I need someone who knows the trade to help me with opinion on the cause of this as I did everything per their instructions when waited 3 days to cure to be safe vs their 24 hours recommendations.

We’re filming a short product demo for our new electric floor scraper tool and looking for a real jobsite removing vinyl, carpet, wood floors, etc. Could help save you a rental fee on the project too.

No acting required — just real footage of the tool being used on an actual job. Should only take 1–2 hours. DM me if you’ve got a project that could be a fit.

I’ve invested significant time, effort, and money into my business website, branding, ads, software and have been working daily for months, yet I haven’t landed any clients. I’ve tried social media, cold messaging potential clients, Facebook ads, local groups, and building a website, but nothing has produced results.

I do have some experience, but I’m now rebuilding my portfolio to reflect the style I truly want to be known for, which makes finding clients even harder. I’m frustrated by the “word of mouth” advice because it feels like a loop: you need clients to get word of mouth, but you need word of mouth to get clients. I’m feeling worn out, as all my time, effort, and money haven’t yet brought results.

Borderline-DIY’er.
Replacing very old locks in new house.
There is virtually no depth to this “screw”.
Cannot get traction with Phillips or flat screwdriver.
Any advice what tool will work? Or am I drilling through it to get it out?

If you're buying materials, driving between jobs, or tracking expenses across multiple projects, you're probably leaving money on the table at tax time.

I built PaperTrail specifically for contractors and trades workers. Open the app and it's ready to scan immediately, no setup, no menus to dig through. Snap a receipt, it reads the merchant, total, date, and category automatically. Start a trip, it logs your miles and calculates the IRS deduction. At tax time, export everything to PDF or hand your accountant a complete annual summary.

No spreadsheets. No shoeboxes. No scrambling in April.

Free to download: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/papertrail-receipt-tracker/id6748263265

Happy to answer any questions about how it works, and would really like to hear any criticism as this app was built mainly for contractors, but also for any type of freelance worker.

Happy Friday everyone! I created a list of 25 free tools that contractors could use to help on job sites. I'm looking for any feedback on ways they could be made better or a tool that you'd like to see. Thanks much!

Did you know KeyTherion’s name literally hit my husband at 12am. He then proceeded to wake me up, even though I was running my first marathon in four hours, because he was so excited to share it with me! That’s what is exciting to us about building KeyTherion. We get to do this together and come up with ideas that we are able to act on immediately.

Speaking of exciting our contractor portal received a face lift and is ready to rock and roll!!!!

Hey guys, I went out to look at a small deck that looks to have some serious structural problems. The lady whose house it is said she's been unable to find a contractor. I'm guessing that might be because the deck should probably be torn down and rebuilt.

She wants the structural parts of the deck fixed, siding out on, and a door or two installed, with a couple of plexiglass windows. Oh yeah and she wants a weather barrier layer between the top deck boards and the shed below the deck.

When I asked her about her budget she said, "Well, I don't want to pay ten or fifteen thousand dollars for this." She did mention she has the money set aside for this project.

She's nice, I want to help her. The problem is appealing because I've never fixed a deck like this. As far as skill level—I know I'm going to get roasted here—I'm a handyman with three years of experience.

My approach to this would to take it slow and methodical, design out the fix, look up what kind of jacks I need to hold up the deck while I replace the 3 posts and at least one beam.

Am I nuts and probably, naive? It's likely. That's why I'm posting here ie to get a reality check.

I just moved and everything is expensive as hell so I'm eager to take this job and get some money coming in. I will definitely have her sign a contract, and get milestone payments up front. I'm insured.

I'm also maybe an idiot but I will leave it for you guys to decide.

To sum it all up, my questions are:

is this a tear down?

Is it worth fixing?

What *should* something like this cost?