Home-owner Supplied Trades and Material

Let’s face it, you know what you like and you know what you want. It is common for the home-owner to ask if contractors are willing to work with trades that they would specifically like to use and hire themselves. As well, the homeowners often ask that the contractor work with material, such as flooring, that a homeowner has supplied. This is acceptable in a lot of cases but you should be aware of a few conditions that the contractor may have in order to do so.

Home-owner Supplied Trades and Material:

• Scheduling Client Supplied Trades: The contractor will likely not be responsible for any project delay due to a trade supplied by a homeowner. If a trade supplied by a homeowner cannot meet the outlined schedule, or single-handedly holds up production, a fine may be issued to cover lost wages of trades that are required to be rescheduled.
• Quality control: The contractor will likely not be responsible for overseeing the quality of work of a trade that is hired outside of the initial construction contract. It is really tough to tell someone that their work isn’t up to standard and enforce any further action if someone is not on their payroll or they did not hire them.
• Client Supplied Material: The contractor, in most cases, may be not responsible to cover any warranty issues or costs due to faulty products that may be supplied by others.For example: If a homeowner supplies flooring but the contractor provides the install and there is a discrepancy in the flooring, further action may not be taken to make repairs if it is not determined whether or not it is a product or an installation issue.Additional costs may be incurred if repairs are required to be made to faulty products or if there are issues with products supplied by others.

  For example: If a shower kit is purchased by the homeowner but it is faulty and leaks and another unit is required to be purchased, additional costs may be incurred due to the plumber having to install the shower kit twice.

Our next post explains how the project management meetings typically happen and what you can do if you’d like to meet after hours or have an unresponsive contractor.