whats a man to do.

[weisyboy]

so a bloke (father of good mate of mine) rings me up Monday. he has just built a new house and the inspector wont pass it until the power is underground so can i put a retaining wall up before Friday.

so i say i can squeeze it in (witch i really couldn't) i do a quote for him it cam to $1500 for a wall 15m long and 900mm high thats 4 1/2 sleepers high a real bugger. and its hard up against his house so digging for posts is by hand and in cut so its hard ground.needless to say i thought the price was pretty good for an urgent job. After trying to beat me down he agreed to go ahead at the quoted price.

so i got up at 6am this morning to a message that my offsider is sick so cant help me, never the less work must go on so go round there dig the holes and concreat the posts get that done by 9am.

drive across town to get new slasher blades get home at 11 am.

change utes, drive down the road and pickup 1.5 ton of sleepers for his wall. get to his place at 12pm after a very slow drive. put the wall up making sure that ti is counter leverd properly so it wont fall into his house. level the whole thing to the bottom of his house it is now 2pm.

i drive home take the gear off the ute and drive down the back to the mill and cut some timber that i had to cut before the mold got in. back at the house by 4pm.

load up the mower and go and do the 2 mowing jobs i was supposed to do today get home at 6pm unload everything go down the back and treat and stack the hoop pine i cut earlier.

so i finally walk in the door at 7pm.

the phone rings its the bloke with the wall and what a surprise hes not happy apparently the wall is all wonky witch it wasn't when i put it up cos i measured off the house and used a string line and its not level when i leveled each end off the house. and this is the best one. there are gaps between the tops of each sleeper in the top row.

this is because the ends of the sleepers are not cut square when you get them and when they but up there is sometimes a gap at the top or bottom the only way to fix this is to re cut the end of each sleeper. but he dosent car i have to go back and fix it. so now i have to waste half a day tomorrow taking the wall apart and re cutting the ends of all the sleepers. to get them square im gunna have to unbolt my miter saw and get it into the back of the ute and take it with me and manhandle the heavy sleeper into it to cut the ends square.

sometimes i think it might be easier to just tell him to stick his wall but then i am out of pocket for the materials.

if i had to quote to do this on every job i would not get any work as id be dearer that the other blokes as no one squares the ends of the sleepers and normally its not an issue

sometimes i wonder if its worth going on.

sorry about this but i had to vent.

[SPIRIT]

the joy of working for yourself

[Calm]

Carl you know this bloke so there is the saying "mates rates"

It is calculated at normal PLUS 10% to cover this sort of crap that you have to put up with

Do it and remember next time someone you know wants work done - dont think it is a favour, do it after the mowing etc. and treat them like a normal client not a mate. cos they forget about the mate bit.

Cheers and you will do the right thing in the end.

[mic-d]

Give him a bag of strawberry plants and tell him that's what the gaps are for.
I'm impressed that you put in 15m in 2 hrs!
Instead of lugging the mitre saw, just use a circ and a square like a quick square or make one on your table saw out of ply. A right-angled triangular piece with cleats screwed on both sides and square to the edge to act a fence on the sleeper. Works a treat.

Cheers
Michael

[Burnsy]

Go around there tomorrow check that it is level and straight, if it is, show him, maybe he is one of those guys who can't tell a banana from a straight edge. Tell him also that you completed the job based on the standard practice of laying the sleepers as they come (are they treated, because if they are they should not be cut without retreating).

If he still does not want to pay take out the shovel and start digging out all the posts, when he asks what you are doing tell him "I did the job based on the price quoted, you don't want to pay that so I am taking all the material and you can get someone else to do it, enjoy your Christmas in the dark"

People who don't want to pay are not worth arguing with, best to cut your losses, take your materials and go home, at the end of the day you lose time but not sanity.

Edit: use it as a lesson, start including the obvious in your quotes and make them more descriptive to cater for the idiots (magistrate told me this when I went to tribunal to get payment from a similar idiot).

[mic-d]

Go around there tomorrow check that it is level and straight, if it is, show him, maybe he is one of those guys who can't tell a bannana from a straight edge. Tell him also that you completed the job based on the standard practice of laying the sleepers as they come (are they treated, because if they are they should not be cut without retreating).

If he still does not want to pay take out the shovel and start digging out all the posts, when he asks what you are doing tell him "I did the job based on the price quoted, you don't want to pay that so I am taking all the material and you can get someone else to do it, enjoy your Christmas in the dark"

People who don't want to pay are not worth arguing with, best to cut your losses, take your materials and go home, at the end of the day you lose time but not sanity.

Yep, agreed

[weisyboy]

what i think i will do is go round in the morning and see that its still straight and some silly bugger hasn't backed into it. if its crooked it wont take long to pull it back right. ill see how big these cracks are they cant be to bad as i would have noticed them.

i was going to ring him and tell him id make it $1200 if he got me cash but he got in complaining first didn't even ask how we went. the contractor was there this morning putting his stairs in he broke into the down pipes under the ground 3 times and just filled them with concreat cos they were in the way i was going to let him know but he can find out the hard way when his tank runs dry.

These people don't realise that they are cutting there own throat when they complain instead of asking.

so now tomorrow i gotta go fix this wall then load the mill up drive 30 mins to the job do a days milling in half a day and pay wages for a man that is standing around for half the time.

[tea lady]

G&%#^ I need a little lie down just reading all that you got through today. Hope you work it out OK.

[ian]

Carl

a more likely explanation for the wonky wall is that the posts have settled and leant because the concrete hadn't set before the wall was built.


I don't want to ruin your night, but if the wall was to bury the power ...


ian

[weisyboy]

posts are 600mm down and i used rapid set cement left for 3 hours

[Burnsy]

posts are 600mm down and i used rapid set cement left for 3 hours

This could be the problem if you have backfilled it already Carl, so make sure you have a look before you talk to him. I don't trust rapid set to hold up it's own bag and I am pretty sure it does not meet any specs for engineered walls and such should not be used to hold up retaining wall posts.

Also, 600mm is not deep enough for a post that is supporting 900mm of backfill. Should be around 1200mm from memory but there is likely to be someone here who is an engineer or got an installation guide for twinside or simlar handy.

This site says 1400mm in ground for a 1000mm wall. Concrete/timber does not matter, same principal.

[weisyboy]

the wall meats all regulations it has one row of sleepers under ground level then been canter levered back 600mm and fixed to the ground.

refer to table 1. here

holes for a 900mm wall are to be 750mm deep this includes a 100mm gravel bed in the bottom for drainage. i got down to 650mm and could not dig and further threw the blue metal rock with the jack hammer so that was as much as i could get. because i could not get deep enough i canter levered it back like i did to add extra strength.

[Burnsy]

the wall meats all regulations it has one row of sleepers under ground level then been canter levered back 600mm and fixed to the ground.

refer to table 1. here

holes for a 900mm wall are to be 750mm deep this includes a 100mm gravel bed in the bottom for drainage. i got down to 650mm and could not dig and further threw the blue metal rock with the jack hammer so that was as much as i could get. because i could not get deep enough i canter levered it back like i did to add extra strength.

Still worried about the rapid set though. The stuff we get over here is not suitable for engineered uses.

[Pheonix]

Rapid set definetely not recommended for anything that has stress on it

[Rossluck]

posts are 600mm down and i used rapid set cement left for 3 hours

I'm hearing you Weisyboy. There are some absolute mongrels out there that fit the profile you're describing. I was talking with a few rock retaining wall contractors the other day and they were going through a similar hell. The bottom line is that this pig is trying to get out of paying you (either all together or some of what he owes you).

Use your experience, be strong. Tell him the wall is fine and if he doesn't pay you will return and remove your materials from his property. If all contractors did this, pigs like him would disappear. By the way, tell him about the stormwater pipes. That's a lower act than his. Integrity is the name of the game, on both sides. Good luck with it mate.