PSA: My lesson from a job at the old Denver community center

I was hanging 5/8 fire rated on a vaulted ceiling at the Denver rec center. The ceiling grid was off by 2 inches on one end, and I had to cut every board at a weird angle. The job took me twice as long as normal. So what do you do when the framers mess up the layout - do you force them to fix it or just work around it?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_drew1mo agoMost Upvoted

Yeah I've been down that road before. Forcing framers to fix it usually means a week of excuses and finger pointing. My rule is if the gap is under 3 inches I just cut around it and bill for the extra time. But I always snap photos of the layout screwup first thing. That way when the boss questions why the job took longer I have proof it wasn't me being slow. Get it in writing before you cut the first board though, or you'll eat that labor cost.

diana_kim661mo ago

... and I've been in that exact spot before with a rec center job actually. I ended up just working around it because fighting the framers would've taken more time than the extra cuts, but I made sure to take photos and send a note up the chain so I could bill for the extra labor. Next time I'd probably ask for a change order before touching the board though, just to cover my butt.

caseythompson1mo ago

Huh, is it really that big of a deal? Seems like a lot of stress over some extra cuts.