Warning: That perfect week on the Wilson job site almost bankrupt me

Last September I had a week where everything went right on a 45k buildout at a dental office in Akron. Concrete poured flat on Monday, ductwork fit first try on Tuesday, and the drywall crew showed up early on Wednesday. I was walking around thinking I finally had a crew that could handle anything. Then Thursday morning the building inspector shows up and flags our fire sprinkler rough in because the city changed the code two days before. Turns out the GC never told us about the update because he was on vacation. We had to rip out 120 feet of pipe and redo it with bigger spacing. Cost me 3 days and about $4,200 in materials and labor. The owner was cool about it but my profit margin for that whole job went from 12% to maybe 2%. Has anyone else had a run of good luck turn into a nightmare because somebody dropped the ball on updates?

2 comments

2 Comments

ryanburns19d ago

Heard a GC once say a smooth week means you missed something somewhere.

the_ray19d ago

Man, that line hits way too close to home. Had a stretch last month where everything was clicking, no fires, no frantic calls, felt like I was finally ahead of the curve. Turned out I'd completely missed a compliance deadline that slipped through the cracks because I got too comfortable. Your mileage may vary, but in my experience, that kind of quiet usually means something is brewing under the surface.