Granite Contractor Mistake: Who Should Pay?
I had a very interesting conversation with a coworker friend (we’ll call him John) related to mistake a granite installer made. I thought I’d write about it here and get your take.
John is building a large bar area in the home theatre room in his basement. He contacted a local granite countertop installer to build a two-level granite countertop for the bar. This bar is large – approximately 100 square feet of countertop space to be covered. Because the bar has two levels, there are three finished edges on the countertop: the front and back of the top shelf, and the front of bottom shelf. The picture here isn’t John’s bar; it’s one I found on Flickr Creative Commons, but it has the same general layout.
John negotiated a price for the countertop as a whole with the installer, approximately $7000.00. The installer subcontracted the granite order to a local supplier to fabricate the countertop. John worked directly with the fabricator to pick out the piece of granite that was to be used for the job.
The installer then asked if John wanted to have a special Ogee edge put on the sides of the countertop. (The picture also shows this edge). If you’ve ever priced granite, you know that these special edges can cost upwards of $20.00 / linear foot. Because the bar has two levels, there’s a whole lot of edging! The price for the Ogee edging was significant (approximately $2000.00 on top of the base price). John asked to think on it a few days before deciding whether he would spring for the extra $2 large.
The next day, John heads over to the fabricator to discuss the countertop and to see if they’ve made any progress cutting it out. They had. In fact, they had cut the entire countertop and put on the special edging before John and the installer had reached a deal on the price!
Apparently, the installer had banked on John deciding to go with the Ogee edging. Of course, since the countertop was already cut, it would be virtually useless to anyone else. John decided that he would be open and honest with the guy and tell him that he already saw the cut piece. (At this point he could have just said he didn’t want it, and I would guess the installer would have offerred it for free). And, he further decided that he would offer to split the price of the edging. The contractor pushed back, saying he “couldn’t go that low on the price.” I was shocked! Shouldn’t the contractor have been gracious and accepted John’s offer right away?
After some negotiation, and likely the contractor realizing the predicament he was in, he agreed to split the price of the edging with John. I thought this was more than fair.
What do you think? Was John too nice, too mean? Have you dealt with a similar mistake? How did you handle it?
Image by Allen Chu.
April 1st, 2008 at 9:42 am
He was more than fair. John had every reason to reject any price increase, and even the granite, since they did it without direction.
And what vendor does a more expensive option without approval? That sounds like they were almost trying to bully him into paying for the ogee…
April 1st, 2008 at 10:25 am
More than fair… he could have rejected it for being NOT what he wanted, even after he saw it. It was very nice of him to offer to split!
April 1st, 2008 at 12:22 pm
Hmm, I think whether it’s ethical really depends on whether he was planning to get it anyway. If he’d already decided to get the edging, then bargaining with insider knowledge is a little shady.
But if he decided that he didn’t want it (or didn’t want it for the price) I think it’s perfectly reasonable for him to say that, and accept whatever deal the contractor offered.
But, I wouldn’t think less of him whatever he did, (and he certainly shouldn’t have paid full price for it if he wasn’t willing to originally). The onus is definetly on the contractor here.
April 1st, 2008 at 7:56 pm
I wondered if anyone would bring up the issue of whether John had already settled on the product in his mind. I think the contractor put him in a pretty difficult situation. By having the granite fabricated with the edge, it puts John in a very awkward position… He was honestly caught off guard. It’s impossible to “un-learn” information once you know it, so it would be impossible for John to take that knowledge out of the equation.
When I talked to John about it later, he said he was leaning towards getting the edge even at the full price — but he still wasn’t sure. In this case, the installer really lost out. If John would have paid in full for the edge, he would have made a good profit on it. Since John only paid part of the price, the installer probably lost all of his profit and potentially some of the cost.
April 1st, 2008 at 8:38 pm
ON PRINCIPLE, whether John was planning on getting the edge cut or not, the contractor was stupid to do something, and thus, the onus was on the contractor. John was kind enough to offer to split it, in my opinion.
If I were John, I’d go home thrilled that he got what he wanted for less a price and never deal with this contractor again. For anything.
It’s like taking your car in (my dad’s a mechanic) and telling them, “I’m going shopping, don’t do anything to the car more than $100 without calling me first,” then coming back to find new brakes, new tires and new alternator and a pine-shaped air freshener in the car. You’re stuck, so you try to strike a deal. If the guy/gal won’t do it, you pay and take your problem to someone who can do something about it (if there is someone) and your business somewhere else.
John told them to hold off. They didn’t. Therefore, it’s their loss, whether he decided he really wanted it or not.
April 2nd, 2008 at 12:16 pm
First off the Contractor is a FOOL for not getting it in writing first. We don’t DO ANYTHING without a written contract. Your friend John was more than nice, in fact, if it was me I could have fought tooth and nail against paying it at all. More than likely the contractor thought he was going to pressure him into the edge. The story offers a good reminder to EVERYONE about making sure that communications are very clear when working on home improvements.