Advice sought regarding a work situation

[muzikill]

He supplied the shed all you did was build it. The issue is with himself for not doing his homework on the quality of it and the shed supplier. You did the base for it and if thats perfect then get the money for that. If he wants the shed returned as faulty id charge him to dismantle it. Dont let him push you into a corner and get the base for free.

[rowdy]

Thanks for replies folks.
I am only about £100 down on materials, and only charged him £150 for labour so don't stand to lose much.

As a few of you have said, I should have told him it wasn't going to be a good shed when I was putting it together but one mans gold is another mans sh*t so I thought I would carry on and see what I ended up with.
This is also his argument, that I should have said half way through that it was crap. He claims now that I have put it together that he wouldn't be able to send it back because the supplier will say that I have damaged it, and that it is now a used item because it has been put up.

He already had the shed, and also said that he had had it for a little while. The thing that concerns me is if I try and make it fit by making a new roof panel (he suggested he could get a jig saw and cut bits off the existing roof panel, although it actually needs to be made slightly longer and out of square lol) and then the wind blows it over in a couple of months that I will be held accountable for that as well. Amongst the reviews I have read, the shed has fallen down, the roof has blown off.

He says it is not about the money, but is then constantly mentioning that it was £500 (for just the shed) so expects it to be perfect (although some reviews for same make of shed say they paid £230 for a 6 x 8 version of the shed).
He did ask what I would do if I was in his situation and I did say that I would have done my homework and checked out reviews of the shed in the first place.

[rowdy]

Also, when he asked me for the quote, he asked for the materials, the base be laid, and the shed put up.
Upon going through the panels on the day of erecting the shed I came across some packs of internal shelving, that I had not quoted for. By the time of completing the shed I had already run over the time I had charged him for labour for a good few hours, I didn't put the shelving up. To be fair I should have mentioned this, and would have if he was in but he had gone to work.

This was brought up by him and when I told him he asked me to put the shed up only and not fit it out inside, that if I knew there were extra shelving it the quote would have been more, he said it was all part of the shed package.
Having been on their website, it is not part of the shed package, they are extra items that you have to add to the shed package, so am I right in refusing to put theses up? After all, he could probably do a better job than me lol.

Sounds to me weither you built it or not he'd struggle to return it simply due to the time elaspsed since purchase.
Name and shame the shed company please because I'm looking into one and wouldnt mind avoiding this firm.
Did he buy from them direct or from a re-seller?

RE the shelves:
hmmm its tricky, if I were putting a shed up for a mate and found shelves I'd assume they wanted the shelves fitting too so would have just done it. But for a paying customer who's bought something against my better judgement which turned out to be a nightmare of a job to construct and then had additional items in the packaging I'd be inclined to think he's pulling a fast one and tell them it'll be extra for the extras, especially as at this stage it looks unlikely you'll be getting any return business from them.

The guy sounds like a jobsworth, we all know someone like this and they're often a solitary person too stuck in their own ways to take advice which contradicts their own thoughts.
Did you get the fee for the labour, has he actually paid you any of the £250?

If you can see any reason in the bloke, anything which indicates he might be fair enough to reach an amicable resolve. Then I'd suggest you both square up whats owed right now, then take "putting it right" from there on out. I'd insist you cant be accountable for the shed after its built as its not a product you're personally familiar with.
No more than if he took his own brake pads to a garage and asked them to fit them, it simply doesn't work that way. If he cannot appreciate that then I wouldn't touch it, at least as it is now its un-fettled which means nothing you could have done could be accountable for any failure to its structure.

oh and +1 on the getting onto the shed company, get them informed of all this loss of earning potential damage to your reputation etc.

[yorkie_chris]

Originally Posted by Owenski

oh and +1 on the getting onto the shed company, get them informed of all this loss of earning potential damage to your reputation etc.

They don't give a fook about their own reputation why would they care about someone else? Probably another bunch of fly by nights with a container full of crap from china.

[rowdy]

I am in the middle of a text conversation with customer as I type this, he is difficult to get hold of on the phone, only have his mobile, hasn't given me home number!

Homebase used to sell them but stopped, presumably because of the bad reviews they were getting.

I have told the customer (that hasn't paid anything yet) that I am prepared to make a new roof panel in situ so it fits the shed as he would like (the problem is the rear panel is half inch wider than front so roof splays out and doesn't meet at the top) but the colour match will probably not be exact as I don't know what wood preservative GBD use.

His reply "if you want to make it yourself feel free . . . as said before the frame will need to be changed as well as essentially this is the problem. When say same material also meant same colour! otherwise ull need to use original material"

To which I have replied "Ok it would be impossible to get exact colour match. I am not going to waste any more of my time and money correcting a manufacturing c0ck up and a very poor quality shed. I have been through a lot of the reviews on the site that you showed me and most of the good reviews are for a different product, the bad reviews are for the billyoh shed. I am prepared to walk away from this job without payment, not even the money I have spent on materials because, as I have said, if I had read the reviews I would not have taken it on."

Which is probably exactly what he wants, free base built and shed constructed which he can bodge to make do for little cost. He's probably the type to have done this before to other tradesmen aswell. It's a difficult situation though, as the right thing to do for your reputation would be to try and sort a compromise but I doubt you'd get any thanks or indeed money out of him anyway so I'd like to think my reputation could stand me being a bit naughty by getting back to the shed and dropping it. It would make me feel just a little bit better about being shafted out of money and time, as lets face it, not only have you lost money doing the job for him, it's time wasted that you could have been on another job.

[rowdy]

He has got back to me saying his issue is I didn't prepare it properly by laying all the panels out and measuring every single one of them to check they were correct to the exact millimetre, so that he could have ordered more wood or cut the wood himself to fit!!
He then says there is nothing wrong with the quality its and mentioned how much it cost him again.
Says he doesn't want random wood that doesn't match (even though most have to add wood to strengthen the shed and I was going to use same size and type of wood anyway), and that he will have to pay someone else to rectify my work.

I've told him he can pay the supplier to erect the shed, but they are embaraced to put the sheds up because of the quality.

He replied by saying the shed is just wood!! how can it be bad quality?? (lol, gives you some idea of what I'm dealing with here) followed immediately with sometimes you have to make slight adjustments to these flatpacks . . . u shouldn't have to but it does happen!! (which is a slight contradiction to the previous sentence).

I then told him I could rectify the roof but I don't think he is going to be happy with whatever I do.
I then asked if he could honestly tell me that he was happy his shed was worth £500, and that there is a massive variation in quality of wood.

He then replies saying that the quality of wood is very good, and that he is very happy with the quality of the shed, just not the way it was put together. He says he has been extremely reasonable so far and I am making him feel like I am being unreasonable asking for an expensive shed to be finished correctly!
Either finish it using the materials provided or he will find someone who can.

[yorkie_chris]

The way that's going I'd tell him I was sorting it (bullsh*t through my teeth) go and strip the lot down, and remove the base.
General principle.

Me and my mate once towed someone's car back to their house when they wouldn't pay their bill at his garage with the engine in the boot.

Can't let people get away with taking the p*ss and beating them to death is illegal.

Materials remain the property of yours until they are paid for in full.

Your choices... walk away, anyone with any sense who may hear a bad review from this man should be able to make up their own mind.

Take down the shed, remove your materials and write to him explaining why.

secret third option - fire bomb the shed

fourth option - write to him from a different return address as a solicitors letter explaining that if they dont pay they will be seen in small claims court - you wont take it that far but sometimes an official looking letter makes ppl realise they need to stop being ****s and just pay up for the work done.

good luck