Who's Zooming Who?

March 9, 2005 3:23 PM

Am I being ripped off? And by whom?

I just paid a contractor $4,000 to tear out and replace a 300-square foot ceiling that was damaged due to a burst pipe. It was a pretty intense job with much demolition required. My insurance company has reimbursed me $500 for the repair. I know what I paid was probably a bit high, but I can't even imagine getting a contractor to do what this guy did for $500.

posted by archimago to Home & Garden (9 answers total)

Did you get quotes from multiple contractors? Did your insurance company OK the work before you gave the contractor the go ahead?
posted by o2b at 3:28 PM on March 9, 2005

(1) Did the insurance company explain the basis for its calculation of how much it owed you? For example, do you have a deductible?

(2) Did you get multiple bids for the job? If not, what was the basis for selecting this contractor? Did your insurance company recommend a contracter, or process for getting one?

I'm asking because the answers to these questions could be very helpful in directly answering the questions you asked.

On preview - admittedly partly a duplicate; shows importance of these questions.
posted by WestCoaster at 3:29 PM on March 9, 2005

From your description it sounds in no way like a $500 job. $4,000 may be high but the insurance company is definitely lowballing.

Did you take pictures? What is your deductible? o2b has good questions too. (On preview: Ditto WestCoaster)
posted by knave at 3:30 PM on March 9, 2005

We used a public adjuster when we had plumbing damage. They got way more than we would have gotten from our homeowners insurance company without them. It more than paid for their fee. They knew the magic words to say.

I think you are right on both counts. You paid too much and they are lowballing you. It probably wasn't enough debris to fill even a small dumpster. My contractor said "demolition is for dummies" so not a lot of skill involved in removing the damaged ceiling, other than protecting adjacent surfaces. Then what, 10 sheets of drywall? Tape and mud, sand and prime? $500 deductible?
posted by fixedgear at 3:46 PM on March 9, 2005

I had to get a ceiling in some half-built rooms in my barn replaced because of a leaky roof. The contractors pulled out all the soggy old drywall and spent about a day or two putting up, taping and mudding new drywall. No finish work, but a lot of teetery ladder work with sheetrock. It must have been more like 200-250 sq feet and I spent $900 and was reimbursed by the insurance company [who had required me to get an estimate before I could get the work done] in total, though the contractors grumbled that they had underbid on the job because of the ladder work and the finish work on the mudding.
posted by jessamyn at 3:55 PM on March 9, 2005

I'd think an adjuster would inspect the damage. You have pictures? Also $500 maybe all your insurance will cover.
posted by thomcatspike at 4:22 PM on March 9, 2005

One question I have is how long did it take and how many people worked on it? Another is - did they have to move a lot of things out of the way or anything like that? Or did they just come in, rip out the ceiling and replace it?
posted by weretable and the undead chairs at 9:01 PM on March 9, 2005

We're in a similar situation . A tree fell through my roof during one of the many hurricanes here in Florida last year. Our insurance company wanted to give us a check for $14K to cover the repairs so we hired our own adjuster who came up with an estimate of $55K to do the job correctly. We're now in the process of negotiating with our insurance company to increase the $$$. If that doesn't pan out we will be filing a compliant with the insurance commissioner. Hiring our own adjuster was the best thing we did. The original adjuster from the insurance company took maybe 45 minutes to inspect the damage. Our guy spent over 6 hours and took measurements and pictures of everything. Worth the $500 we paid for the service.
posted by white_devil at 10:03 AM on March 10, 2005

Response by poster: Thanks for all the advice. We were admittedly a little foolish going into this, having never had this happen before. Basically, a pipe burst in the ceiling and it rained in our living room. A plumber friend came immediately to fix the leak and brought the contractor, so I trusted him as a friend of our plumber friend. We got no second estimate because we wanted the work done immediately. We already had to live among the ruins for 4 days waiting for the adjuster and I did tell him the day he inspected that the work was being started the next day, told him the verbal estimate from the contractor, the adjuster said "that seems a bit high" and okayed the work to be done. I'm sure we paid way more than we needed to, but $500 just seems nuts. There were actually two layers of ceiling that first had to be removed, the drywall and then the home's original plaster ceiling which was underneath that but below the pipes and therefore got soaked as well. It took the guy about 3 days to demolish and build and then another couple of days to just come over and mud the tape and then sand. The funny thing is, they gave me almost as much to paint the ceiling as they did to demolish and rebuild the new one. I have tons of pictures as well. Well, you live and you learn. I'm currently in talks with them to float me some more money because they didn't take into account that there were two layers of ceiling that had to be demolished and hauled away. It was my first major home disaster and I freaked out and wanted it fixed right away. I actually don't mind paying the 4000 because the guy did stellar work, did it very quickly and didn't trash the rest of my house while he worked.
posted by archimago at 2:53 PM on March 10, 2005