Complaint Review: darwood homes and renos - janetville, ON. Ontario

We hired a contractor to build an 1100 sq ft. addition plus a 3 car garage on the side of our house, because of our budget restraints we thought it might be to our advantage to hire our own sub trades to complete the inside of the addition.

 The contractor was to complete the addition and  make the addition weather tight, including pouring the concrete floors in the basement and garage, the job started the first week of June 2015 and it is now November 7th 2015 and the job is still not complete. ( the contract stipulated the job would take 8 to 9 weeks depending on weather & sub trades )

The contractor came to me around the first or second week of September to inform me he was leaving the job and could not pour the floors or install the soffits, facia and evestrough until i had the rough in plumbing in the basement and i needed the electrician to install wiring in the soffits as well.

At that time i mentioned i was not happy with the low height of our new basement, ( it just squeeks under the build. code?) when  i mentioned this the contractor he became a bit upset saying the height was not his issue, he then told me he had a list of extra's that i need to pay him for, but he did not elaborate and said he would send me the new invoice. ( i never received the invoice ) I might add that we originally were having a walk out basement, but after the work started we were informed that because of water issues it was not practical, so the contractor said he would refund me $3700.00 for the cost of the walk out.

Before my contractor left he was asking me for more money by this time i had paid my contractor all but $7,000. of the total amount of the project less the $3700.00 for the walk out when i mentioned this to the contractor hebecame upset again and thought i should throw that money in to cover the so called extras he did for me. although i did make a few minor changes to the project at no time did the contractor say he would have to charge me extra for those changes, in fact he told me that some contractors would want to charge me for the extras but he didn't feel it was nessary.

later that week i was looking over the  blue prints and the basement again and i noticed that my blue prints called for 12 courses of cinder block but there was  only 11 courses installed, i did not inform my contractor about this as yet because i am afraid he may walk off the job and i didn't want to delay the work that needs to be done.

I need to add that we are unable to install our garage doors because we need the new floor poured first,  and of course the soffits, facia and evestrough allow cold air in as well,  so as a result the cold wind blows thru the new addition and keeps our existing living area very cold and damp, also because we don't have evestroughs everytime it rains our basement, new and existing get a little bit wet.

I called the contractor on October 6th to let him know we were ready for him to pour the floors and install the soffits, facia and eves. he informed me he would be here the following week, but each week for the next 5 weeks he would call with yet another excuse why he couldn't come that week.

I called him on November 2nd and explained to him that i would not tolerate any more of his excuses and that if these excusses were to continue i would have to call a lawyer for legal advise.

the contractor responded, saying i should be careful throwing the lawyer thing around because I'm in breach of our contract since i made changes to that contract and this aparantly puts him in a pretty secure spot.?

Then he tells me he is sending me a list of changes / scope of work with costs and a revised payment schedule before he gets any deeper with me?

This week i had another contractor that i found thru Trusted Pro's come by the house, he informed me that the framing around all the windows & doors were not built properly, some of the joist hangers were missing nails, the new roof did not have a drip edge installed and the 2 new steel beams installed in the basement had a bend in them and were buckling, he suggested i stop all work and get an engineer here right away to check out the steel beams before i let the contractor finish his work.

I have not said anything to my contractor again because I'm afraid he will walk away and i don't have any extra money to call in someone else to finish the work while i persue my contractor. 

I wonder if my contractor ran out of my money and this is why he is delaying the job and threatening me with extra costs. ( I'm just saying? )