Who pays?

[Tom7227]

I have a bid for installing an engineered wood floor and leveling the concrete for $X. The floor leveler came with 10 lbs of mix. I went and bought 250 lbs more and it looks like he is going to use at least 150 of it.

Normally I wouldn't be a hard nosed about it but I have a signed bid. Plus what I see as the pretty shortsighted sending the guy out with 10 lbs. I would think anyone would have seen a need for more. Plus by my going to get the stuff the employee could remain productive rather than wasting an hour and company gas to get the stuff.

Who pays?

[LightningBG]

I'd return what didn't get used.

And when you pay the bill, just subtract what you spent, plus maybe some for your time, from the total and send it in, with a copy of the receipt, and maybe a note saying how ridiculous it is that you had to go buy it.

[PierBridge]

That's a rough start....At this point let's just hope the job turns out to your liking when it's all said and done.

What percentage of funds did you put down? I'm sure you can work something out amicable in the end...

[nofishfisherman]

Assuming the bid was to include material costs then they should be bringing all the materials they need. If they didn't and you ended up buying them then your costs should be deducted from the bid price.

Instead of returning the unused portion I'd deduct the full price you paid for the materials including the unused portion and then have them take the unused material with them. No sense costing yourself more time, make them deal with it.

I'd think a phone call or conversation with person who did the bid should take care of the issue pretty quickly. It should be an obvious mistake with an easy solution for them.

[Tom7227]

Actually it worked out great. Before the guy left today he told me to deduct what I paid for it. No big deal to take the others back, not like a guy isn't going to go to Mendard's about every other day.

Thanks for the input.

[LightningBG]

Glad it worked out.

what exactly were they thinking sending so little material?

[PurpleFloyd]

Did you go to one of the box stores to get it done? I get so many calls from people who go to a box store to save big money and then find out the service and expertise fall victim to low prices and many times they spend more time and money running back and forth to the store dealing with people who don't have the experience to give them what they want. Obviously there are also great people working in those places but it is very hit and miss.

As to who should pay, how was it determined how much would be needed? Did they come on site and verify with a laser or level how much it would take to level the floor or did you just give them your own measurements and assume they would know how far out of level the floor was?

I am not sure the exact terminology of how the bid was done but it seems to me if it took 10 pounds to fill the floor you should be billed for 10 pounds and if most floor take 10 but yours was for some reason out of the norm and it took 200 pounds then it would only be right to pay for 200 pounds because that is what it took. If they had bid 200 pounds and only used 10, took 190 back to the store and billed you for all of it would you have felt OK with that?

[Tom7227]

Floyd.

It's a done deal.

the firm that I hired was the only one to send someone out. He came promptly and gave a written quote. Frankly at that point I don't think I should care if it took 10 lbs or 10 tons. As it ends up they used 100 lbs of the material that I bought and the installer said that they will credit it against the balance.

I am happy with the result noted above and extremely happy with the result. It took a day longer than expect but what's 24 hours?

[SkunkedAgain]

It's always good to hear about potentially sticky situations getting resolved amicably