I'm seriously trying to understand how a five star rating was achieved after my zero star experience. Definitely look through the photos I've included. I let this guy go after the second day. Paid him generously although I should not have but I just wanted him gone.
Here is a list of highlights of his hideous work:
- He got angry when I caught him not including an industry standard 1/2" gap between the floor and the first sheet. I had to put my foot down to get him to do what I justifiably wanted. He still ignored me on several of the subsequence sheets. I now have to go around much of the perimeter and shave off a 1/2" of drywall.
- The number of places where he 'force' fit sheets is incredible. When you force drywall one or both sheets will breakout at the point of greatest tension. I've got dozens of places I have had to cut out and will have to be prepped with sealer and filled with quick set or quickset. Not just on the bottom but mid and high up on walls and several of the butt joints in the ceiling.
- Notice the photos with the holes in them. That's how he preps a sheet for water line stub outs. He uses a hammer on the front of the sheet which makes an ugly hole but look at what happens to the back of the sheet; it bursts the drywall out for up to 6" around the hole. That's a saw job not a hammer job. I had to cut out around every single stub out hole on the job for repair and quick set fill.
- There isn't a single electrical switch or outlet box that won't have to be repaired with quick set. He missed and over cut every single one of them, including the light openings in the ceiling.
- I'd advise being a little sneaky because he likes to trash talk about the customer with his help when he doesn't think you're are around.
- If a sheet needed just a few inches cut off on one side he would just start grabbing the edge of the sheet and tear it off basically ruining the board. That didn't stop him from installing it though. Look at the long slanted wall/ceiling strips to see what I'm talking about.
- At least 20% of the screws had to be reset with a drill because his screw gun wasn't set to provide the correct depth.
- It took me two days to go around and cut out for repair and quick set tears, break outs, improper butt joints, etc.
- On one of the ceiling butt joints one of the sheets took up around 90% of the ceiling joist surface and instead of him trimming it back some he butt the next sheet up to it and used the lip of the screws to hold up the sheet. There's a photo.
- There is a photo of a small scab piece he installed. Notice it only has one screw in it and that's right in the center.
- I'm not sure who was doing auto mechanics before work but some of the sheets appear to have grease stains. Going to be hard for mud or paint to stick to that.
- He doesn't have a sheet by sheet install method. He hops all around the job hanging partial sheets here and there. I caught him cutting up twelve footers for patching when eights were available and the patching shouldn't have been needed to start with.
- I had to make him take one of the bathroom walls down. He knew those walls were to be insulated for sound but instead of telling me it was time to install the insulation he just went ahead and enclosed the wall on both sides.
- There is photo of a seam to the left of a switch box and two water stub outs where the sheet with the cutouts in it had no stud face to screw to. Instead of telling me of the problem and letting me resolve it by installing additional wood backing he squirted construction adhesive into the joint and installed lots of screws into the seam. Just the lips of the screws were holding that unbacked sheet in place. The back side was open so I installed some wood backing and will have to repair that seam with quick set.
- I bought 20 12' and 15 8' which was certainly enough for this job. I had to purchase an additional 15 8' sheets to finish the job. The reason for the shortfall was the enormous amount of waste that is now on a trailer waiting to be hauled to the landfill.
Buyer Beware baby, Buyer Beware! read more