and where you live... oh well, it's done.

mine was a 5 tonne unit... for a single story here in the desert.

We want to go low maintenance on our front and back yards. Considering additional hardscaping and low water usage landscaping. We’re thinking flagstones with a few areas for plants in the back and a dry creek bed look in the front.

Has anyone ever done that type of work on their own or hired someone else? What was your experience like?

Approve and then do a double check look at the rocks and stones before they are laid.

Hard scapping is something that seems like it should be easy but it’s a lot of physical work to make sure the area under the stone is prepped correctly.

It’s usually pretty obvious when a do it yourselfer does hardscapping because it usually looks like ****, either the day they’re done or within a few years when everything settles.

That’s not to say that you can’t do it yourself, just realize what you’d be getting yourself into before taking it on.

I do a lot of work on my house myself, i hire people to do hardscapping

I think johnny's right. I've put in a couple of small areas of flagstone for walkways, and it looks pretty amateur. Good enough for the girls I go out with.

If you do that, understand there's a little maintenance involved. I put what's called 'red breeze' out here between the stones (it looks like crushed-up pieces of red flagstone).

Might depend on what you use for the between-stones filler. Maybe some set better. For me, it was shop broom to work it in the joints, then dampen a little. It kind of sets, but not like concrete.

Every few years, I have to get some more, the wind & water washes enough away that it's noticeable. Not difficult, just something to be aware of.

Good on you guys to try to use less water though!

Cool, thanks for the replies! Sounds like hiring someone (and double checking their work) is for sure the way to go.

Based on what he wants vs what he can afford presumably.

so, on a fairly big job (new siding, insulation, removal of old, deck demolition, jacking up old porch/new footers, etc), what do you tip at the end of it?

we're on our third regular crew at this job. been 2 months now and only one side of the house has new siding, and that's not even complete. largely the delays have been due to materials, which have led to subs getting fed up and taking other gigs, so it is what it is.

we're trying to be good customers, my wife throws out ice cold gatorade/water for them every day, they're welcome to use the restroom/cool down for a bit since it's so goddamn hot out, but on a multi-month job, how do you possibly calculate a tip, especially when the contractors rotate out so often?

i'm *hoping* this is the last crew, they actually constructed a lift to get **** done faster and we're finally moving along, but jesus christ this has been a frustrating project.

A tip? Never thought it was needed or expected one.
The drinks and stuff is nice, but we never expected it.

Maybe a ham at christmas?

whatever

spending what you presumably have to spend on this contract AND it's taking forever AND it's not even the same crew the whole time ... i mean i generally over tip but i'm not even thinking about tipping here.

even if the work is acceptable & on time i would not expect to tip the crew for something like this. i'll tip a handyman or a moving crew or something like that, but to me there's a big difference between tipping an independent operator or small crew vs. subsidizing your GC on a huge job by paying his subs extra.

I don't understand why you tip. You agreed to pay a price. The workers agreed to work for a price. Nobody is getting paid $3/hr.

Tipping a contractor is a thing?!?!?

It’s cool that your providing drinks, and I think it’s an excellent idea if it’s particularly hot, but even that isn’t necessary.

I've tipped a crew at the end of a job to buy a round or two of drinks (for a job well done), but nothing substantial.

yeah, no need to tip a contractor for a project of this scale. the cold drinks are a nice touch but not expected.
this is coming from someone who has worked his share of manual labor jobs and tends to over tip, especially for movers (which i did off and on for 3-4 years).

probably will go this route - thanks.

yeah, a 12 pack of beer would be welcome and more than they are expecting at the end of the job

The entry hall and kitchen tile are pretty bad and my wife saw an HGTV where someone painted the tile.

Has anyone done that and if so, how happy are you with the results?

I’m not familiar with that so I might be wrong in my assumption but it sounds like a bad idea. HGTV sometimes does things without any interest in longevity and durability. As long as it looks pretty while the cameras are there, they’ll do it. Again, I might be wrong about it in this case but it sure sounds questionable.

Seems like that would make the tiles slippery when they got wet (?)

I did a semi-substantial kitchen/bath remodel a couple years ago and tipped out this:

Guys who delivered the kitchen cabinets - 2 x $20, they were both very appreciative

Guys who delivered and installed very heavy countertops - 2 x $20 and another $20 to pass on to the fabricator at the shop who saw a problem and fixed it before it could be a problem - they were very happy

Laborers(all hard-working non-English speakers) who spent a full day or more doing shitty demo work for the GC's personal crew - probably 4 x $20 across two demos - they were very happy

Guy who installed my stack dryer that had to basically squeeze it through the top half of a doorway and avoid the sink just inside the doorway - $20
As I showed the guy the issue he was dealing with, I mentioned that I understood the concept of tipping half-jokingly. He knew exactly what I was talking about.


I know for a fact I'm in the VAST minority because they all seemed pleasantly surprised, and that makes it even better for me. I tipped out $200 on a 50k+ reno and restored a little faith in humanity to pretty much all of those guys. Feels good man.

But tipping the contractor? Nah man. He gets the final bill and a handshake.

Tipping contractors/labor that does more than a delivery is pretty rare. I've been tipped like 4 or 5 times in 13 years. (I am the owner, but I have often been a subcontractor and the HO usually would think I'm an employee (I never lie about it, but that's the way it looks and the prime contractors usually don't talk about it)).

Even drinks and a bathroom are rare and especially a bathroom is appreciated.

I'm always up front about providing "extras" like a 12 pack for the crew at the end of each full week, tips like 27 provides, etc. and every time when I bring up some small non-contracted job it miraculously gets completed or the offer to do it for cash on the weekend is made. Also almost always ask for leftover material to be left. I paid for 500' of 12/3 and they used 300', that 200' will be useful down the road.

Don't want to derail but people who don't let anyone working on your house use the bathroom are POS. If you're letting them work on your house, you should trust them enough to use the bathroom. It gives the impression that the homeowners think the people doing the work are less than them, and that's a pile of ****.

/rant

Contractors have a way of making a bathroom real dirty. My neighbors have a roll-off dumpster with a porta-potty connected to it.

In college my fraternity house had a dirt driveway that had some bad spots. There was major construction on the road in front of the house. So we gave one of the guys in a bulldozer a case of beer to push a little dirt around in the driveway. EZ game.

hired a 'hoarding' cleaning crew to remove everything out of a property a couple of months ago, everything as in if it wasn't attached to the house it was either put into heavy duty contractor bags or it was furniture that was broken down and everything was put into the back of a sidewall truck and went to the dump.

three people show up in the morning, two of them are bagging stuff and carrying a few light things to the truck, the third is the lumper who is loading the majority of items in the truck, driving to the dump to unload everything by himself while the other bag things, and driving back to do it all over again.

the two 'baggers' left after less than two hours to go to another job and left this guy to work solo. later in the afternoon, when it was looking like he wasn't going to fit everything in the last load, a couple of people towing a small trailer with a truck showed up to keep him from needing to make another trip. they didn't move anything, they were just there with the trailer.

by mid-afternoon it was apparent this guy was busting balls to get stuff done by himself and i handed him $140 in 10s and 20s and told him to divide it up amongst everyone else however he saw fit. i hope he kept it all.