Oh Insanely High Subcontractor Bids, How I Love Thee!

Things are rolling along at the Creek House, and we’re done with all the foundation leveling and major demo work, and started in on the framing and exterior painting yesterday.

No real major surprises so far, and I’m hoping we’ll be done with framing and the rough electrical by Friday, so that we can get that inspection done and out of the way.

While the electrician is rocking and rolling, we still haven’t signed off on the plumbing or HVAC bids yet. The total cost for the electrical was a shade under $6,000, which is a little more than I was shooting for (hoping to get it done for $5,000-$5,500) but reasonable enough, given that we’re ripping out all the existing electrical and completely re-wiring everything, and he’s got to wrestle with some old-school framing (wooden slat walls with lots of horizontal fire-blocking throughout) issues. That bid includes installation of all the outlets, ceiling fans, etc., as well as all the equipment/breakers to upgrade it to 200 amp service.

The plumber who worked on the Wee House have us a bid of $2850 (labor only), which was pretty disappointing, as this really isn’t that big of a job, since the existing plumbing was professionally upgraded and re-done just a few years ago. The new bathroom and laundry room are adjacent to the existing lines, so it’s really just a matter of tapping into it and running the new lines about ten feet, adding vents, etc. He also included $300 for the plumbing permit, which, again, is just sort of abrasively stupid, as that’s the first thing my contractor noticed, and he should definitely know better, as both of us aren’t idiots and know that the plumbing permit for a job this size doesn’t cost anywhere near that. I was hoping to get the labor on the plumbing done for about $1,500, with us tackling a lot of the easy stuff like setting toilers, installing valves and faucets, etc.

Pretty much the same story with the HVAC bid we got, from an installer that’s the son of our electrician. He’d done work for our realtor who was happy enough with him, so I was hoping we’d quickly get that sorted and crossed off the list, using him for the HVAC. Until he came back with a bid of $8,000, that is. We were planning on putting in a decent enough unit (5 ton 14 SEER Goodman heat pump), and the air handler does have to go in the attic and duct work does need to be run, but I as expecting something in the range of $5,500-$6,000. I priced the same exact equipment online from various wholesalers and even with shipping I can pick up all of the equipment new for about $3,000, so he’s basically charging $5,000 for labor (even more if he can get the equipment cheaper, which is possible), which seems pretty damn high for what’s not the biggest house in the world at 1566 sq. ft.

So we’re trying to wrangle more plumbers and HVAC installers over for more bids, and I guess we’ll see if I’m being unrealistic or not.

We’ve also had someone try to break into the house the last few nights, attempting to pry up some windows by the kitchen, and messing around with one of the garage windows. Which is kind of ironic, as I expected trouble of that nature working on the Wee House, in a much crappier, less visible neighborhood, but we didn’t have any problems over there.