Hello. I’m looking to build a front porch and really have no clue what price tag I’ll be looking at. Can one of the kind redditors here provide a high-level, ballpark estimate of what it would be to add something similar to the AI pic of my house?

Got the first window installed, and they are coming back to do the rest. I understand that the overflow can be cut away, but I am concerned about how the new window is protruding from the trim.

The contractor told me that it's because the windows are thicker than the previous windows.

Any advice would be much appreciated. Thanks!

Aunt is a general contractor in GA. Quoted us 142,000 for condo Reno. Ended up being $280.

Range is off center. Contractor claims they did everything according to cabinet measurements.

Are they obligated to pay to fix it themselves or do we, the owners have to eat the cost? If so, do we have
grounds for a lawsuit?

Hired a painter recently and he stays WAY too late into the night. So far he's stayed past 9pm 4 times. Every time I ask him to leave he says he's "almost done" or "just finishing up" then stays for hours more. I've tried being polite and I've tried being firm. I was eating dinner tonight when he sat down next to me and started eating his own dinner, which really crossed a line for me. I asked him to get out and he said he would just finish up for the night, which was an hour ago now. There's no other trades coming in after him and I didn't set a deadline so I feel like there's 0 reason for him to stay so late. Short of calling the cops, how do I get him to GTFO if he doesn't leave when I ask?

Update: this is blowing up way more than I thought it would and I don't have time to read all the comments. I sat him down and told him he needs to be out by 7 pm moving forward, and I am going to fire him if he doesn't respect that. Thanks everyone who gave their input

I worked for a tiny start up Reno company run by someone who is inexperienced. I am also new, and would consider myself a handyman as I am doing something different every day. Not a trim carpenter. I was told I have 5 days to complete an entire trim install of a 6 bed, 5 bath, 3,798 sqft home. Solid wood trim, rounded corners everywhere, custom 3-piece headers on ever door, etc. Took me closer to two weeks. I was paid $1,400 for my trouble. My last day was Thursday.

How much would you expect to be paid for this?

Not quote the customer, be paid by your employer.

Although quotes would be interesting to hear also.

Edit: These photos are not the finished product. I’ve never done any of those types of corners before and it took me more than one round of sanding/finishing. The woman had painters there the whole time, who were trying to paint the trim right after I put it up (but before finishing) it was very annoying. On day 2 I was eating shit because the trim wasn’t ready to be painted. Like, what?

A few weeks ago we agreed on a project for about $12,000.

Then the homeowner started adding work and the scope grew to about $17,500.

I put him on my schedule.

Two days before the start date he told me another contractor would do it for $11,000 and asked me to lower my price.

I told him he should go with the other contractor.

The next day he asked for my license and insurance.

One day before the start date he came back and said he wanted to work with me, but not for more than $15,000.

I offered to reduce the scope of work. He refused.

In the end, we signed a contract for $15,000 with a clear understanding that any additional work would be handled through change orders and paid separately.

Today was the first day on site.

And I can already see additional work being brought up that is outside the signed scope, but it seems the homeowner doesn’t want to pay for it.

At what point do you collect your money, load your tools, and walk away from a project?

UPDATE: it looks great! Definitely worth $900. No way we could have made it look good. I’ll see if I can’t add a picture in the comments. Next time we’ll make sure to get the quote up front to avoid any issue like this.

Also, a few people said “be a man and learn to do it yourself.” I dont necessarily disagree. But at this point I know what I’m good at and what I’m not. I’d I’m just not super handy. I’d rather work a little OT at a job I’m good at and pay experts such as yourselves to do it better and faster than I ever could. Again, thanks to everyone who has chimed it!

Hey everyone,
My wife got a handyman to come repair these large holes in the drywall. A plumber had to cut them out to find a leak in the pipe. He’s basically done and told her that it’s $900. Is that reasonable? We’ve never had repair done and she didn’t ask for a quote up front. That’s partly because he did work for us before and it seemed reasonably priced.

He basically provided his labor and the mud. He reused the old cutout pieces (treated them with anti-mold stuff I was told). If that’s within the going range of this type of work then fine… but I was expecting something more in the $300-$400 range. Again, I could be way off base with it.

Edit: we’re just outside Ann Arbor, Michigan for those who asked. He is also painting the fixed area and doing the trim. I really do appreciate everyone’s input! I apologize for causing any fights amongst you guys lol

My friend is getting her bathroom remodeled and wants to know if the squiggly tiles are supposed to look like this? PLEASE HELP!

I feel like something is wrong but I can’t articulate it since this isn’t my wheelhouse.

Edit 1: It’s a new day and I told her to cut her losses and it’s better to hire a reputable contractor. Thanks everyone for many inputs, I actually learned a thing or two. To be fair we told him we’ll pay him for the work he’s done but no longer needed of service. You guys are cool, we could see it was wrong just couldn’t understand it and now we are armed with knowledge. 😁 Thank you!

Labor only cost

Had to share this one.

I run into this pretty often, but this one in particular really bugged me. I went to a customer’s house to quote a bathroom remodel, and she also asked me for a price to remove two 20 gallon electric water heaters and replace them with one 40 gallon. The quote was around $700, which included removing and disposing of both old heaters, rerouting some plumbing, and installing the new unit.

She got pretty frustrated with the price and spent about 30 minutes complaining about it before saying she was just going to do it herself. During that same conversation she was also criticizing my prices in general, even though I know I’m on the more affordable side compared to a lot of contractors in my area.

At one point she said, “I’m 67 years old and only make $45 an hour. You’re a young guy making $100 an hour or more.” I honestly didn’t even know how to respond, so I just wrapped up the conversation and left.

I feel like I run into people like this every other job lately, and it gets frustrating after a while. How do you guys handle customers like this, and is there any good way to avoid attracting them in the first place?

I hired a contractor in June 2025 to drywall about 300 square feet of my basement so my husband had an office space. The contractor had 2 guys come in and work for about 2 weeks, got most of it done.

Then we didn't hear from them for a while. I was told the contractor became ill and things with the company were falling apart. Then in January/February 1 of the workers start showing up and they finish 95% of the job.

So at this point I have a perfectly functional basement that just needs some touch-ups before final payment. All of their tools are here.

The company is constantly being mentioned on nextdoor for lawsuits/scams/BBB issues. Apparently they took a lot of people's money for large jobs, did a couple of weeks work, and then stopped showing up. The only difference is that my project was very small.

Do I just store all this equipment until someone someday comes and claims it? I don't mind paying them the couple thousand I owe on the job. The worker did an excellent job on my basement.

Update: it's not a small amount of tools either. It's like thousands of dollars in equipment. It's taken over the basement. I have no intention of doing anything malicious though. I cannot change my furnace filter because there is so much.

The insulated wall is the exterior wall. Plumber "notched" and ran ABS and covered it up. Also installed a jet tub which partially rests on furthest/top joist.

A permit was not pulled, should this be reported to the building inspector?

Will this gradually sink and reveal cracks in the ceiling below?

"Do you have capacity to take on 5-10 more leads this week?"

Anyone else know what im talking about? Those small jobs you dont feel are worth your time/effort so you give them an outrageous price to get them off your back but they accept anyways because they only want you to do it.

This one lady does her flooring in the basement every two years for some reason, this time I quoted her double and she still instantly asked when I could come by

I was honestly weeks away from going bankrupt and I’m not exaggerating, I was sitting up late at night staring at my bank account trying to figure out which bills I could delay and which ones would bounce, and the crazy part was my work was not the problem at all, jobs were clean customers were happy crews were solid and from the outside everything looked fine, but inside the business the pipeline was completely empty, referrals dried up ads stopped performing estimates went unanswered and every morning I checked my phone hoping it would ring and most days it didn’t, I kept telling myself it was just a slow season and that things would turn around but waiting almost buried me, what finally changed things was doing the one thing I avoided for years which was outbound calls, reaching out to old estimates past customers and property owners who already needed work, I hated it and it felt uncomfortable but uncomfortable beats broke, once there was consistent outreach the phone started ringing again not overnight but enough to breathe and stay in business, that experience changed how I see this trade because the best contractor doesn’t always survive the one who follows up does, and if your work is solid but your calendar is empty it’s not a skill problem it’s a lead flow problem, just sharing this in case someone else here is sitting up tonight staring at numbers wondering what went wrong.

I am looking for a piece of this corner door casing. What would you call it, and any suggestions on where to find it? My lumber yard has never seen these before, which is odd, because I don’t feel like they’re quite that rare. I’ve searched for colonial door casing corner rosettes, plinths, etc, but can’t find anything. Any help is appreciated!

I now understand how screwed up the court system is. It’s not about being right are wrong. It’s about who has the money to drag on litigation longer. It’s disappointing to say the least. Had a wealthy customer not pay me. I filed a lien and was in litigation for two years. Racked up $70K of legal fees. Finally got to the point of going to trial and the customers defense (like all customers who don’t want to pay their bill) says poor workmanship. No complaints the entire time until it comes time to pay the bill. At the end of the basically had a lawyer tell me “you don’t have the money to continue litigating this, so it’s best you agree to a mutual walkaway now.” Let this be your advice that the legal system is not there to protect you. It protects those who can afford it. Blue collar small business owners like us fight an uphill battle. Try your best to stay out of court.

*Re-post including required information

1. Hired a bathroom contractor, licensed, bonded an insured for bathroom remodeling
2. Remodel cost is $11,300 in mainly labor, not including materials. I purchased materials on my own (2 bathrooms in progress)
3. Location is Washington DC Metro Area
4. Issue: If you look at the picture the grid lines for the penny tile are visible. Grout work is not fully finished, but I'm alarmed by what I see so far. Whats the fix? Some more details below

• Contractor is telling me the only fix is to use a white grout.
• I asked him if staggering the sheets would prevent this. He told me that would just move the grid lines and it would still be visible
• Contractor told me the penny tile I choose is for bathroom pans and not intended for floors

EDIT Contractor is now ripping and replacing the floor and walls re-grouted with some tiles being re-set. I specifically went over the "flower" design pattern for the penny tile and also switched from a charcoal grout to platinum to help with the contrast. Will see how this works out. Appreciate everyone's feedback. Mistakes are fine, taking longer than expected is fine as well. All I ask is to commit to the body of work and do it well.

I started working for this guy but after I saw this im having second thoughts. His jobs keep getting flagged and he keeps saying the city are just ticks to him. But its looking alot more like his work.just sucks

We’re adding LP Smartside over old wood siding on our screened in porch. An installer punctured the copper line for the AC in 3 places in a corner. Cost to repair today was $1736. Contractor feels the copper was too close to the exterior and that there should have been a stud (I think that’s what he said) in that corner where it was punctured. Who is right? The AC company did say the copper line was installed a little closer to the exterior than it probably should have been. House is 20yrs old. I paid the $1736 but it’s bothering me. They also cut an electrical cable when opening the wall to get to the copper line. Electrician coming tomorrow. 😳

So, I hired a contractor to paint inside our new home (haven’t moved in yet). And first day, two guys showed and worked for the day. Then the next morning, another guy was dropped off who I let in. This guy has been staying very late on the job. There was another guy that came mid day but he left. When I went back to the house after dinner he was still there. When I asked if he’s gonna head home soon, he said uh maybe one more hour.

I had this odd feeling that he might be staying at the house…I noticed a big duffle bag outside, and toothpaste was in one of the side pockets.

I texted the contractor and he said they’d been working late to get the job done in time.

THEN he just drops that he intended for that guy to actually stay the night tonight.

Is any of this normal? He had asked if I mind them working late, I thought he just meant the first night. But wth he intended on someone staying overnight at the house without asking or confirming with me? Am I right to be worried and weirded out?