Don't take it for granted that the builder knows what he is doing.
In my experience, it often took a building inspector to point out all the errors that were being made.
He showed me the ways that my builders were cutting corners with inferior materials and time-saving methods.
They were slapping things together so that everything looked great on the surface, yet it was crumbling below the surface, and as soon as they were paid, they rushed off to their next job.
Now when I have more than a simple cosmetic job to be done I have a building inspector check the materials and workmanship every step of the way.
One of the costliest learning experiences I had concerned a set of house keys.
I gave my builder the keys to several of my properties and unbeknownst to me, he gave them to one of his subcontractors.
I probably would never have known about it had it not been for a rash of telephone calls from my tenants informing me that they had been robbed with no forcible entry into their homes.
Since the only person who had keys to these houses was my builder, I told him what had happened and asked him if he gave the keys to anyone else.
He told me that he gave them to the subcontractor whom he had hired to do part of the work.
The upshot was that this subcontractor made copies of the keys and waited several months after the job was done before letting himself into all my investment properties to rob my tenants.
The concept of waiting several months before robbing these homes to circumvent any hint of suspicion would have been cleverly executed, had it not been for the fact that his boss was the only one who had been given the keys and he was the only one his boss had entrusted with the keys.
I later found out that this subcontractor had a criminal record which makes me question my builder's judgment when he turned my keys over to him.
My builder expressed regret for what had happened on his watch and said that he fired the subcontractor and would never use him again.
I'll never know if he really fired him or if he said that just to placate me.
Not surprisingly, my builder took no responsibility for making restitution to my tenants.
After due consideration, I realised that if I had met the workmen at the house and opened the door for them, the subcontractor would not have gained entry to these houses.
Therefore, I took full accountability for the robberies and reimbursed my tenants for their property losses.
Lesson learned...
the hard way, but learned: when the work is completed, change the locks immediately, and if an alarm system is in place, change the access code as soon as the last worker leaves.
Plastering is an area that deserves a mention.
To be a good plasterer, you must be more of an artist than a skilled worker because it requires more than competence to do a beautiful job.
One of my first investment properties looked nice, but when something accidentally hit up sharply against the wall, a few small pieces of the wall dropped off and you could hear the sound of loose cement inside the wall.
I didn't know that the builder I hired had never done replastering, nor did I know what to look for at the time.
Instead of stripping the old plaster down to the brickwork, he just skimmed over the old plaster.
When I told him that it looked too bumpy, he just painted over it to make it look attractive.
A few months later, the walls started to crumble and I had to hire a real plasterer.
A rather nice property came on the market and it didn't need a lot of work to get it ready to let, but one of the things it did need, was a new kitchen.
The builder measured everything, bought the materials, and when he was finished I told him that the empty space under the counter where the washing machine was supposed to fit between the two kitchen cabinets, looked a little small to accommodate a washing machine.
He swore that he had measured it accurately and told me that I was worrying for nothing.
On the strength of that, I ordered the washing machine.
The day before the tenants moved in, the washing machine was delivered and the delivery man couldn't get it to fit into the space.
It was one centimeter too small.
So, there the washing machine stood where the delivery man had left it, in the middle of the kitchen, while I argued with the builder by phone about his incorrect measurements.
He kept insisting that his measurements were correct so I made him drive all the way back to the house to get him to remedy the problem.
When the builder got there, he tried to fit the washing machine between these two cabinets and he was getting more frustrated by the minute.
He tried to tell me that he would have to take out one of the cabinets and make it narrower but I wouldn't let him do that because it wouldn't have left much storage space below the counter.
With each passing minute he was getting more and more enraged with the situation.
Finally, in a fit of pique, he gave the washing machine one mighty shove and forced it into the space.
I'm just hoping the washing machine never has to be repaired because short of cutting into the cabinets, drilling into them, or bashing them, I don't know how a repairman could pull the machine out to repair it.
To summarise: -if you are having a big job done, have a building inspector check the work every step of the way -when work is completed, change the locks and if an alarm system is there, change the codes -if you regularly do renovations and upgrades, consider taking a course and learning more about the building trade yourself