Competency

So this weekend we decided to tear a hole in our deck.


It's a little more complicated than that.

A few years ago, we noticed that a spot in the siding had started to rot out where the decking met it, and we hired a contractor to come make a repair. He came, did the estimate, described the work, and we agreed on it. When the guy eventually came to do the work, he dropped two of his workmen here and went off to do something else. The two guys he left fiddled around at the task for about two hours before the guy showed back up, and clearly he was not completely happy with the way the work had been going. He said some things, got some things from his truck, and the three of them fiddled around with it for the better part of another hour. When eventually they finished, it didn't look quite like I had expected, but it did look like it would keep the water out, and what was done was done, so I paid the guy and he took his guys and they split. I knew we would eventually have to re-visit the thing.

That moment came a couple of weeks ago. Rachelle happened to notice that the flashing job the guy had done-- and that's all it really was, a glorified flashing job-- had started coming loose. It turns out that the guy had fastened the bottom piece of flashing to the remains of one of the pieces of siding, replacing no wood, and the siding had simply continued to rot. So, we gathered tools and materials and set out to try repairing the repair ourselves. We got so far as demoing the end of the deck to the point where we could determine the extent of the repair before concluding that we were in over our heads.

So we hired a contractor. Rachelle called and set up an appointment, and this morning the guy came and assessed the job. It's going to cost us $4600, but the job will be done right this time. Oh, and the carpenter who will be doing the repair will be out to visit the site before the repair gets underway, both the verify the amount of work and assess the necessary materials. They will be replacing some of the wood in the substructure of the house. Which is why we came down to contracting the work out. In the words of our one time neighbor in texas, Floyd, the reason you hire the contractor is so if the repair fails you have someone to sue.