Things I've learned, mostly the hard way, that need to be on my contracts.
- Who is responsible for time spent shimming up or trimming post bottoms an out of level/plumb frame because the foundation is not level
- Not everyone thinks protruding pegs are attractive. Proud or flush? Need to know ahead of time. Don't think for a minute that the closing in guy can run a hand saw
- Raising wounds, beautiful to me, are what the customer, usually the wife, zeros in on. Usually a chipped edge up on the ridge. Talk about what people expect ahead of time
-Insist that the foundation is backfilled before your crew gets there. Falling off a floor deck can end the day for everybody. I once had a M.O.L.(ministry of labour) inspector show up the day before a raising at a non backfilled site. He put a stop work order on the whole thing and issued an order to comply to the homeowner and me to build a suitable barricade AND cover the open basement stairwell. We (I) were lucky we weren't fined. Now I put it in the contract.
-If you finish cutting a frame in the agreed time period but the client drags their ass and isn't ready for weeks, months, A YEAR! (yep it happened) there needs to be a storage fee charged for that frame in the yard you keep on re-tarping. Also, they need to know that the water stained, grayed timber is NOT the way it looked when you put it there.
-On the same vein, some wood, like Doug Fir does not age well. A frame of Doug Fir is a bitch to put together after sitting for months. The extra costs for these potential issues needs to be up front.
-Is there room at the site to put the bents together? Or is there only enough room for 2 cars on the entire property. Will the crane need to sit on the septic tank? A really challenging site can run up costs really fast. A pre-job visit is absolutely essential. Don't go by the pictures
-Avoid letting the client look after things like the crane rental cause he "knows a guy who owes me a favour". This has failure written all over it. You can bet the "crane" will be somebody's tow truck or something like that. Say no thanks, I'll look after it.
-Does the client want to help? Will he be insured if he gets hurt? I let them fetch braces and slings and stuff like that. Absolutely no work aloft.
That's all I've got.