[jwholden]

We are almost done the pink walk I have been working on between showers the last week. I put the last pieces of flagging in today. It looks awesome.

I will be going back next week and cleaning the stone dust from the joints with a water jet and replacing it with some polymeric sand. I don't like the dark joints against the rose stone and every time one pebble of stonedust gets on the stone it becomes the focal point of the walk.

Now the bad news

We used the spigot on the front of the house to wash the walk off. My guys like to leave spigots turned on because it takes too long to walk over and turn them off. I'm the owner and accept responsibility for this. Apparently this faucet had a pretty huge leak in it and we didn't realize it until we spotted the stream running FROM THE GARAGE.

After a trip back to the shop for a vacuum, fan, and some sponges we cleaned up the mess in the basement and hung the carpets over the deck. I called the homeowner at work and he seemed OK about the incident, but I'd like him to get home and check out the basement first.

The moral of the story:

TURN THE HOSE OFF IMMEDIATELY WHEN YOU ARE DONE USING IT.

Trust me, we'll be doing that from now on!

[scott C]

Nice looking walkway. Is that stone more or less expensive than bluestone. I hope the basement turns out okay Did the water run down the outside of the foundation and into the house? It sounds like you took the right approach in cleaning it up

[jwholden]

The stone is around $10 a square foot.

The leak is on the inside of the house, it has to be the valve stem, because it only leaks when the faucet is on. I wish the faucet had been repaired!

[Stonehenge]

Hmmm... I'm not so sure the water thing is 100% your problem. I'm sure they knew there was a leak, unless they just moved into the house. I would think that if it were my spigot and was that leaky, I probably would have talked to you about it before the work began.

Hope that turns out for you. I know how frustrating it is to do a nice job and potentially have the relationship wrecked by some other little dumb thing.

[Nebraska]

I forsee an additional line to contracts.....start something like this: Client agrees to give contractor access to sources of water. Client also agrees to hold contractor harmless from any claims arising from defaults and defects in clients plumbing / foundation / structure that may result from such use of water sources....

You should see our "Residential Snow Plowing Terms and Conditions"!

[Stonehenge]

Yeah, I hear you on that Nebraska. I've seen my competitors contracts, and they contain about a third of the terms and conditions mine does. I have to use an 8 point font in order to fit all the terms on the back of 8.5" x 14" paper. And I'm always looking to add more....

[Dale Wiley]

Dont forget to add in there" client agrees to provide water and electrial service at NO CHARGE to the contractor for any work required under the contract and for any remidal or corrective actions by the contractor." I do this for filling clients ponds after installation. If I think a potential client is going to be that anal, I don't want to work for him and will price it right out of the sky..

I am just now redesigning our pond installation contract to cover a s--- load of conditions that can arise. There was an 18 month old baby wander away and fall into a 18 inch deep pond, and drown in a neighbors pond about 20 miles from us. We installed about 7 ponds this year, and that story scares the hell out of me.

This one will be sent to my lawyer for review.

I have about one page of GC's... I am willing to trade GC's on here with any one..we can help each other out maybe..

[PSUscaper]

Hello,

I truly can't see how you could be held responsible for a leaky faucet. The client never stated the faucet had a problem, so how would you have known.

As for adding this sort of thing to your contract...........Mixed feelings. The problem is, where do you stop. If you really want to get technical and start adding thing like this into your contract, when will it stop?

You would have a book of fine print attached to every contract if you were to try and cover every single unexplainable occurance that may happen while you are there.

This is just a horrible situation, that I hope the client understands and and takes it as his responsibility.

Then again..........its getting harder and harder to find anyone who is responsible for their own actions.

steve