After glancing at the installation videos, that sounds excessive.

Need more info before I could say that he should have done it faster...

How far was his ride to the job site?

Had you had any meetings with them beforehand discussing what he was to be doing that maybe he didn't bill you for and included in this bill?

Did he need to leave the project to go to the supply house...missing parts maybe?

Does he have a minimum charge that he uses on a time and material charge?

ajc71 - they are doing the whole remodel of the kitchen, so:

* How far was his ride to the job site?
He was already here doing other things as part of our remodel.

* Had you had any meetings with them beforehand discussing what he was to be doing that maybe he didn't bill you for and included in this bill?
He has sent out a bill for things that were beyond our original scope of work...unexpected stuff that we ran into, some things that he overlooked quoting when we got his original bid, a few things that we didn't realize needed to be detailed, etc. These are detailed line items and most of the things are reasonable, but a few of them aren't...the Tapmaster install being one of them.

* Did he need to leave the project to go to the supply house...missing parts maybe?
They were making regular runs to Home Depot, so if they did need to make it a trip, it should have been while they were picking up other supplies.

* Does he have a minimum charge that he uses on a time and material charge?
Again, he's here doing a whole project (with the exception of making the cabinets, installing the granite, and doing our floors), these are detailed items that were beyond the scope of our original proposal and the work was being done in conjunction with other work that they are doing.

Based on your response, yes I would think he padded the bill by a few hours....

Bring it up on payday, tell him that he is out of line and let him adjust his bill...don't be shy to let him know that 2 hours is the most you would be willing to pay for this install, and you can outline your thoughts just like you did above

"Bring it up on payday, tell him that he is out of line and let him adjust his bill...don't be shy to let him know that 2 hours is the most you would be willing to pay for this install, and you can outline your thoughts just like you did above."

This depends on how the contract reads for change orders. If andreak100 has agreed to time and material, a deal is a deal, she doesn't get to arbitrarily change because she's posted and gotten some feedback on the Interwebby.

If she feels cheated, she can bring it up and change the way billing is handled the next time, but this horse has left the barn.

So he's allowed to change the bill to cover his own oversights, but the customer cannot without being charged extra/penalized with change order fees.

"So he's allowed to change the bill to cover his own oversights, but the customer cannot without being charged extra/penalized with change order fees."

snookums2:

I have reread this thread an nowhere can I find myself having said that.

"This depends on how the contract reads for change orders. If andreak100 has agreed to time and material, a deal is a deal, she doesn't get to arbitrarily change because she's posted and gotten some feedback on the Interwebby.

If she feels cheated, she can bring it up and change the way billing is handled the next time, but this horse has
left the barn"

Horse has not left the barn until the check is written and given to them, you have every right to voice a concern over change orders that you feel are excessive....what if OP was charged 26 hours on this change order, she should just fall in line and pay it per her contract?

As far as it not going both ways, I would be willing to bet that most contractors do many things on projects that would qualify for a change order that the home owner never hears about....unless of course you pick the lowest price quote, as always you get what you pay for

The real issue is that our GC underbid - he said as much and has had less than pleasant conversations with both my husband and me about the fact that he's "losing money on this project". This is someone that we've used before for smaller projects and it's the reason that we went with him this time. He was neither the highest nor the lowest bid - we felt that he has provided us good service in the past on projects (albeit much smaller scale) and felt that we could entrust him for a larger project.

Originally, his original bid was SEVERELY under and we asked him to please better detail out things that we knew he neglected to put in. He came back with a revised bid, which was over double what his original was (and was more in line with what we expected), but of course we didn't detail out some unexpected things...for example, we had a water pipe issue that we didn't know about until they got in to work with the plumbing (in that case, before proceeding, he estimated a 1/2 day and it turns out that we got billed for 7 hours - we would have still had that work done...but this is another case of him underestimating what it will take to complete the job and while 4 hours as opposed to 7 hours doesn't seem like much, when you look at it in proportion to the estimated time, it's 3/4 again as long and according to his recount back when this was happening, he said that it "went smoothly and as planned")

I'm not sure that the horse really has left the barn at this point - going over some of the things he has detailed as additional billable items, some were actually in the original bid. We're not trying to nickel and dime him, but we also don't want him padding the bill in other areas for his mistake in underbidding...and this particular thing that I'm asking about with the Tapmaster install for sure seems like padding to us.

I'm asking for opinions from others who have had it done in order to talk it over reasonably with our GC, citing examples if possible, not just from the manufacturer, but also from others who have had first hand experience.

Trebruchet:

A: "He has sent out a bill for things that were beyond our original scope of work...unexpected stuff that we ran into, some things that he overlooked quoting when we got his original bid, a few things that we didn't realize needed to be detailed, etc. "

T: "This depends on how the contract reads for change orders. If andreak100 has agreed to time and material, a deal is a deal, she doesn't get to arbitrarily change because she's posted and gotten some feedback on the Interwebby." "...that horse has gone out of the barn."

She stated he changed the amount of his bid because he overlooked some things. You mention change order handling as a possible reason for the padding, ie, charging her a fee if she is the one who overlooked or needs to change something.

Me: "So he's allowed to change the bill to cover his own oversights, but the customer cannot without being charged extra/penalized with change order fees."

I would expect to pay for any additional work but not on top of that because I changed something. There have been some pretty steep fees quoted on this site for such a thing, along with some jokes about what a gold mine and vacation fund it is. I am not aware of ever being charged a fee for making a change, nor would I ever sign on that dotted line.

I would just ask GC about the 6 hr install charge. Here's my take on things. First off, I always try for a win-win. Sometimes contractors, not intentionally, underbid a job. I think more than anything, the gc optimistically calculated number of hours to do a job. Prolly knows how to run a job but things like bidding jobs, etc, contractor may not be as experienced. Or job could have turned out to be more complex than originally thought (similar situation here but think it was complexity). It reads like the OP and contractor agree, to some extent, the job was underbid. So as others have said, it could be he's trying to make up on things that were way underbid. I find if they have guys working for them, underbidding becomes more of an issue. Everyone has to eat. I may be off base here, but I would look at my overall budget/finances for project and if it wouldn't kill me, I would just pay it after asking 'what's up with the tapmaster fee, seems pretty excessive'. If response was something along the lines of other parts of job were really cheap, I'd let it go since I got my confirmation on what's really going on. Contingency money fund. You could decide you don't want to pay. My experience has taught me that over time, it does come across to contractor as 'nickel and diming' to them and often can be reflected in 'quality' of work as project progresses. They don't care anymore. And in the long run it may cost you more if quality of work is very impt to you (it means the world to me). If all this is way off base, I'm claiming I'm only on my first cup of Java and ooops

Oh, I've heard of what snookums mentioned regarding a fee for a change order, and he doesn't have a charge for change orders beyond what the time it takes to do the actual work - that is to say, if we add something, we are to pay for the time it takes them to do it, nothing additional.

Guess I may have been off base to OP questions. I am in process of having the tapmaster 1775 (I think it is) installed. Can't speak on total # of hours since my cab ppl did all the cab holes/install part and my contractors will do the plumbing connection side at appropriate time.

My plumber is $200/hr. So are we talking about being charged $1200 for a $200-$400 job? I would hardly call that nickeling and diming. He needs to be honest and forthright about his charges, not padding/hiding them. No one should have to be walking on eggshells with their contractor so much that they can't even know for what or how much they are paying for things. If you don't discuss it and just let these things slide, he will continue this method because it works. Honestly, it's kind of like embezzling, if this is what he's doing.

A contractor losing money on a job is a recipe for disaster, not a windfall for a homeowner.

"My plumber is $200/hr."

Holy cannoli Batman, I knew I should have been a plumbing contractor! At $200 per hour you would be billing out at $416K a year, with 5 guys $2,080,000.....without question I am in the wrong business!

ajc71:

Not so fast. Unlike a lawyer who only has to touch his phone or computer to start billing, the plumber has to drive to his job before he can turn the meter on. Take the drive time out of your calculations and get back to us.

I am based out of Boston, we work on extremely high end projects....my plumber charges $95 for a foreman and $85 for a journeyman plumber

8 hour day we would be billed $760 for the foreman, at $200 you would be paying $1600....for the additional $840 per day any plumber in Boston would walk 10 miles uphill both ways carrying every plumbing tool known to man

Just wanted to circle around to this post again to give an update. We were able to talk with our GC and worked things out amicably. His "additional" bill came out to about +90 hours more than our original bid - some valid, some less so. As we talked over things, there were areas that he agreed may have been a bit high and things that he put in our "over" bill that was detailed out in the original bid as being included. We also discovered that we were billed for about $100 in supplies that were not used in our house, which we (obviously) were not going to pay for.

And for those wondering about the ultimate outcome on the number of hours, we agreed to 2 hours, down from the original 6. The GC said that the 6 hours was because the "instructions weren't clear and we had to keep trying different things". I asked why they didn't call Tapmaster. They said that they did and didn't get an answer...which I have a hard time believing since I called once and got an answer and my husband did as well at another time when he called. Rather than debate that (and by extension, say that they weren't telling the truth), I asked why they didn't leave a voicemail or if they couldn't do that, contact my husband or me to let us know that they were having difficulties and move onto a different aspect of the project while we waited to hear back. Their response was more or less that they "didn't think of that."

The long and short of this is - look at what you are being billed for. If you aren't sure about something, ask for clarification. If it seems out of line with expectations, talk with the GC and tell them what your expectations were and ask where the difference comes in. And if you are paying for supplies that are picked up separately, look through the receipts to make sure that they are items that belong to your job.

andreak100:

Excellent advice in that last paragraph. Thanks.

$200 seems to be the going rate around here. He lives close by.

Highest paid trade I was told by a GC. Hey , a handyman gets $75, same as my doctor at an ivy league hospital.

I was looking thru Bureau of Labor statistics and plumbers were listed at something like $53,000. Would love to know how it all pans out.

A handyman gets $75 per hour? Where? I thought I was paying our handyman, who is fabulous, $30 an hour, turns out he charges $50, but it's still totally worth it. He is very reliable, thorough, creative and efficient. If handymen other places are getting $75 an hour, I won't feel so bad!

This is an expensive area, but not NY or SF. I seem to remember you in SF. No?

The rates do get to the doctors around here. Makes no sense to me. Then there are the HVAC guys, more like $600-$800/hr.

Yes I'm in SF. That's why I'm so surprised. I thought we'd be one of the more expensive "per hour" places in the US.

That's amazing.