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How early or late in the building cycle do you order lighting and plumbing fixtures?
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Here's why I ask...
AAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!
Sorry about that--I needed to scream. We're trying to move into our place, and have been ordering lots of fixtures and stuff. Didn't want to order tooooooo early and have stuff sitting around waiting to be stolen or damaged. Figured two months was enough lead time.
Well, here's a partial list of what's happened in the last week:
* Appliances get delivered. Delivery guy says, "Did anyone tell you your oven hasn't even been manufactured yet?" Ordered and paid for 4/00.
* Ceiling fans arrive, but the 10' downrods are 6 weeks backordered. What the heck good does that do me???
* Pedestals for sinks arrive, but sinks are backordered. Duh!
* Four times--four times!!!!--have picked lights for garage from the catalog given to me by the supplier only to find out they are discontinued.
* Select matching ceiling fan and sconce. Found out yesterday they discontinued the sconce. Wife spends evening selecting another matched set. Found out today they discontinued the fan.
* Selected 14 sconces months ago. Delivery promised Monday. Not delivered Monday be/c "The girl is on vacation." Promised delivery today. Not delivered today. Turns out the lights don't exist.
* Order shower unit and door in June. Delivered today. Shower base box says "white" but base inside is tan. Gotta send back and reorder.
This covers different manufacturers and different suppliers, so no one entity/person to blame.
To top it off, a sentimental item--gift from wife--discovered missing and likely stolen from house be/t Mon and Tue noon. Gotta be one of the workers, but can't accuse the innocent. So damn frustrating, I had to share. Aaaaarrrgggghhhh. No, I don't feel better yet, dammit.
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Ah, another soul who has at last discovered the joy of contracting...
*Only had one such frustration on our house: The shipper apparently read the label on the "Drop-in range" as his instructions and dropped it so hard, it was 31" wide instead of the 30" I'd spaced the cabinets. It was about the last thing I unpacked to install so we spent the first 6 weeks in our new house cooking over a Coleman stove.But then I bought all the lighting fixtures from Home Depot from stock. Sure saved on the special order problems. I would have gone that route for everything except my wife had particular ideas about the appliances and plumbing fixtures. To answer your question, we ordered things 4-6 months ahead and had a storage locker 1/2 mile from our building site. When things arrived I just piled them in the locker in the reverse order they'd be removed. A bunch of plumbing fixtures arrived later than promised, but only a few things were later than needed because of the extra lead time. Spent $75 a month for 5 months but it sounds like you've had much more than $375 worth of headaches. -David
*If you do this again, find suppliers that aren't doing this for a hobby. And don't just order and leave it at that. Follow up constantly keeping a log of promises and dates to check back. This is your responsibility if you do the fixture order. Most legit. and conscientious builders do not just trust blindly the assumption that it's been ordered. Those guys fall in another category. Sure, there are those bad things that happen, just not of the magnitude or tonnage you describe. I feel genuinely sorry the stress and crap that this has dropped on you. Hope the living in the new place soon takes you on an upswing. And find the smuck that took your gift and bust him in the ass.Best of luck.
*Next house you build will be easier. Rich.
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Today it's more funny than anything. Even as I wrote it, part of me was laughing at the silliness of it all. Some easy solutions. Putting keyless fixtures in instead of the missing/discontinued models--no big deal in this case--I can easily change them out later.
Other things just get a shake of the head. I mean, how do you prepare for a shower base of the wrong color in the right-labeled box? Order way early and your money is not working for all that extra time. In this case, we lost no time, except for the phone call to the supplier and bitching to you guys. The big loser was the manufacturer who had to express ship a replacement at their cost. Me? I got a good story out of it and a healthy dose of pity from my wife. :)
It's fun to build stuff, it's fun to build stuff, it's fun to...
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Another thing that you need to do is ask every supplier how many orders must be placed before they send out a truck for pick-up. Amazing how many companies WON'T order a shipment until they have XX numbers of orders to sned out. (Ya listening, KOHLER?)
*Isn't it funny how all those homeowners to be think that we builders are charging too much (but a buddy of mine knows of a builder that siad he could build it for $xx.xx of dollars than you.... It seems that they don't realize that this is just one of the headaches we deal with as a builder just so that they don't have to.Vince
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How early or late in the building cycle do you order lighting and plumbing fixtures?