Jonathan Campbell
HealthyHomes™ Quality and Mold Remediation Consulting
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A Contractor Horror Story

Contractor: Bauman Remodeling of Dedham, MA

A cautionary tale: even if you're a professional, you can get burned by a contractor if you're not watching them and you don't do proper reference checks.

According to Mr. Bauman’s business card, he is a recipient of the Angie’s List Super Service Award, and because of this and his ‘A’ ratings on Angie’s list, I trusted him more than I should have to perform acceptable work.

Mr. Bauman presented himself as a general contractor capable of completing an extensive renovation, converting the basement of my home into living space, including framing interior walls, a simple kitchen counter area, new complete bathroom, enlarging two windows in the foundation walls, and installing new windows, flooring, insulation, wallboard, ceiling, all electricals and plumbing, and painting.

Although I have posted comments on the Angie's List website along with an 'F' rating, the complaints are so serious and so extensive that the normal feedback mechanism for giving the contractor a negative rating is not sufficient. They range from poor workmanship in basic building practices, to lack of coordination and supervision of subcontractors, to lack of knowledge of building codes or common practices in basement renovations to prevent mold.

You would expect that any home contractor would be able to line up vertical 2x4 studs on 16" center most of the time, or that when framing new windows would double-stud the frames, or that he would know the building code for running dryer vent pipe. Not Mr. Bauman, at least not on my project.

Mr. Bauman’s response to these many complaints will likely be that we (the homeowners) requested many changes to the original plan, that we are “nit-pickers,” that I held up the project with my insistence on mold-proof insulation and mold-proof wallboard that his subcontractors did not have the expertise to install, and that I “modified” some of his framing work (see details below).

The kinds of changes that I requested (the shape of a closet, an extra door, deciding that I wanted to use styrofoam insulation rather than paper-backed fiberglass, etc.) are quite normal, and Mr. Bauman’s request to charge us extra for these changes were always accepted. Furthermore, the complaints that I have cited below are most certainly not “nits.” They are serious oversights and evidence of poor workmanship. Finally, Bauman’s insulation and wallboard subcontractors apparently have a very narrow band of expertise: paper-backed fiberglass insulation, paper-backed gypsum wallboard and veneer plaster. That is apparently all they do. My research into basement remodeling and mold prevention revealed that paper-backed insulation and wallboard are the primary sources of the mold that has wrecked many finished basements and bathrooms.

After I found things incorrectly done and requested corrections in email and phone correspondence several times, Mr. Bauman visited my wife and me at our home one evening and stated that he was concerned whether his corrections were adequate for us, because, he said, “If you don’t give me an ‘A’ rating on Angie’s List my kids will go hungry.” He said this quite sincerely and not in humor, and then hugged us apparently to show his gratitude for our understanding of this matter. We felt uncomfortable and used.

Mr. Bauman eventually requested that his contract with me be terminated, allegedly on the basis that I had modified framing that I had found to be defective but that he had refused to fix (see item 8 below). He stipulated that no monies paid to him so far would be returned, that we would pay his insulation subcontractor $900, and that the electrical and plumbing work would be completed by his subcontractors. He specified the amounts that would be owed to them by us upon completion. We accepted these terms because by this time we wanted to have nothing more to do with him as a general contractor or carpenter and we wanted to avoid any legal entanglements that would prevent the project from proceeding.

It wasn't until we looked more carefully at the work that he had done (much of it substandard - see notes below) and what we had paid him already for the project - $28,000 - that we realized how much we had been short-changed.

It is our opinion that Mr. Bauman’s Angie’s List ‘A’ rating and Super Service Award are inappropriate. Because some of the errors we found have more to do with basic building practices and lack of subcontractor supervision as a general contractor than those specific to basements, it is our opinion that Mr. Bauman does not have sufficient expertise and experience as a general contractor or even as a carpenter to do complex or extensive renovations or additions.

Furthermore, in our opinion, Mr. Bauman knows very little about basement renovations, and had no business bidding on our project. What is profoundly sad about this situation is that Mr. Bauman, unlike many contractors with poor Angie’s List ratings, is that he seems sincere in his desire to do good work and was constantly surprised when I found serious defects.

We also wonder if Mr. Bauman’s line regarding his children going hungry if we gave him less than an ‘A’ rating has been used on other customers to shame them into giving him good ratings despite inadequate work. We are genuinely concerned that what we believe are inappropriate ratings on Angie’s List will lead other homeowners to make the same mistake that we did. We did not question whether he had adequate expertise for the project when we began to see problems in his work and the work of his subcontractors, specifically because he had such high Angie’s List ratings.

List of defective work

1. Bauman and his cousin Chris Jones did not know or find out about City of Boston standard protocol for obtaining a construction permit; they waited until the last minute for Jones to file the permit application and plans when they were ready to start the project, and Inspectional Services informed them that there was a standard 3-4 week wait for approval. They had already lined up another large job to start by the time the approval process was complete, so they were unable to spend more than a day or two per week working on our project. Thus a 3-4 week project took 3-4 months just for rough framing, electrical, and plumbing work. "Me and Chris will be over Saturday," was Mr. Bauman's way of saying that he couldn't work on my project except in off hours.
2. Bauman recommended and made the initial call to negotiate a price for a concrete cutting company, to enlarge two of our basement windows. He did no reference check, and he did not discuss their operating procedures. This company severely over-cut the windows, damaging the foundation, in one case structurally, sliced the house sill, damaged our new patio by dropping the cut-out concrete onto it without appropriate padding, and did not remove the approximately 1000 lbs of concrete rubble. It required $600 of special remediation work by experts in concrete repair to correct this damage, and $300 to haul away the waste concrete. Corrected by separate contractors and paid for by me.
3. Bauman “forgot” to provide temporary support of the ceiling joists above the old window (on a load-bearing wall) before the cement cutting company arrived. The sill had been severely weakened by the previous owner of the house (and part of the basement renovation was for Bauman to add a new sill beam), so that window and frame were providing most of the support for this section of the sill. I hurriedly installed two heavy-duty jack posts myself, which I had purchased for a different project, to support the ceiling joists. Had I not been there to do this, the part of the exterior wall of the house over the window would have collapsed when the cement cutting company cut out the old window and frame.
4. When Bauman was drawing the lines for the front wall of the renovation, which was supposed to be close to and parallel to the foundation wall, it veered out to more than a foot away from it. His justification was that he was aligning it to the back wall of the house. He did not understand the concept of following the contours of the basement walls (which in New England homes are rarely straight rectangles), especially since the front area in question is for the utility and laundry area, where non-rectangular walls would not pose any other challenge, visually or architecturally. Fortunately this was corrected before he installed the bottom plates for framing. Corrected by Bauman upon my insistence after he was shown the problem.
5. It is basic, standard construction practice to place vertical stud framing a standard horizontal distance from one another – 16” on center – so that wallboard and pre-cut insulation panels fit and to simplify fastening and hanging of shelving on the finished walls. On most of the wall area Bauman installed these vertical studs not 16” on center from each other, for no particular reason. They vary randomly from 13” to 17”, making cutting of insulation panels, installation of wallboard, and hanging of shelves difficult. Not correctable.
6. It is basic construction practice to frame windows in a double layer of framing studs for stability and strength. Bauman framed the new windows in a single layer. Not correctable.
7. Bauman did not know the building code regarding dryer vent hose and would have grossly violated it had I not intervened. His design would have used flexible pipe and would have been 45 ft long and taken 3 turns. The building code, which I had to look up myself and provide to him, does not allow for flexible pipe at all, and allows a maximum of 25 ft of solid sheet metal pipe, with a reduction of 5 ft for every turn. I had to redesign the route of the heater vent pipe for him. Corrected by Bauman according to my specifications.
8. The new stairway wall was framed by Bauman so that it was grossly out of alignment with the stairway and basement wall. He had aligned it with the rest of the renovation rather than following the basement wall contour, even though this particular wall was visually and physically isolated from the rest of the renovation. Unfortunately I did not notice this defect until the installation of wallboard was imminent. Left as he had framed it, it would have looked horrible – when finished it would have been 3/4” from the stairs at the top step to the wallboard literally overhanging the bottom step, a total variance of 1¼” overall from top to bottom. Despite numerous requests by me for Bauman to simply reframe this wall so that it was parallel to the stairs he refused to do so. Bauman claimed in an email he sent to me that contouring the wall to be parallel to the stairway would not be good construction practice and all it needed was some “shims” to fix it. He just did not understand that his framing would have made insertion of stairway molding impossible, and would have left a huge gap at the top of the stairs. The visual effect would have been that the stairwell was narrowing as you descend. It would have been impossible to cover over this kind of discrepancy with “shims.” This, and item 3 above, revealed a profound misunderstanding on Bauman’s part of interior building architecture and design, to follow the contours of the surrounding structure. Corrected by me, and used by Bauman as the excuse to terminate the contract. (Bauman alleged that my modifying his work jeopardized his cousin's contracting license. This is legally nonsense. All that it does is invalidate any warranty for that work, and there was no warranty offered in the first place.
9. Bauman did not supervise, plan, or coordinate the work of his plumber with the framing construction. Typically the plumber worked alone with no supervision. As a result, he often placed pipes so that as to make hiding them in soffits difficult, which made the soffits themselves larger than they needed to be if the plumbing had been properly planned, as well as intrusive into the living space. In one case, I had to ask the plumber to modify work that he had already done, at extra cost to me, to move pipes that he had recently installed. In another case, the vent pipes for the kitchen wall veered off and protruded outside the wall more than an inch. Corrected by plumber after Bauman was shown the problem.
10. Bauman did not coordinate the work of his electrician and plumber regarding bathroom venting and plumbing. He “forgot” about the building code requirement for bathroom venting for bathrooms without windows, and by the time the electrician reminded him of it, the plumber had occupied the only available ceiling bay with plumbing pipes. As a result, he had to build a lowered ceiling to house the bathroom vent, and then proceeded to charge me for the extra work and materials ($625). When I complained about this, Bauman at first didn’t even understand that he was charging us extra for work that was a direct result of his mistake - in not coordinating the work of his subcontractors. As acknowledgement of the mistake, he offered to pay for the material cost of the ceiling insulation (2 packages of insulation costing $25 each).
11. Bauman requested that I order delivery of DriCore subfloor panels and then proceeded to install them both prematurely and incorrectly. He neglected to obtain the DriCore installation manual, available by free download on the Internet, so he could not and did not follow the implicit and explicit directions in the manual. He installed them with no ¼” boundary gap for venting of water vapor, left a coating of sawdust under many panels (which is specifically mentioned as unacceptable in the manual because the sawdust grows mold), did not stagger the panels (necessary for stability), and installed them before wallboard was completed. I insisted that they be taken up. Corrected by Bauman only at my insistence.
12. Bauman installed solid framing studs between the basement concrete floor and ceiling joists, with no accommodation for framing expansion or concrete floor movement, instead of using the rod-and-tube expansion fasteners usually used in basement renovation framing to prevent damage to the walls or floor above in the event of basement floor rise or stud expansion. Not correctable.
13. On three quarters of the exterior wall and the entire inside of the bathroom Bauman had no accessible framing for fastening the wallboard panels at the top of the wall. Corrected by me.
14. The soffits that Bauman designed and built around the ceiling plumbing pipes were bulky, huge affairs built with 2x4 framing members. These were supposed to be designed to be elegant coverings for the pipes to allow easy plumbing access to them, while being just strong enough to hold a lightweight vinyl plastic ceiling grid and lightweight vinyl ceiling tiles. The soffits he built were so bulky and huge that they actually interfered with access to the plumbing pipes behind them, which was supposed to have been the primary prerequisite in their design. I have had to remove most of them, to be replaced with simple, removable pine boards. Corrected by me.
15. When we first met with Bauman, we asked as a prerequisite that he remove and replace old framing studs supporting the stairwell that were installed through the floor and to fill the remaining holes with concrete, because the home inspector had cited this as a source of termites and wood rot. Bauman promised to do so, but it took numerous requests to finally convince him to come over and do this. Chris Jones, Bauman’s framing carpenter, even questioned why it should be done at all to one of the studs and I had to insist. The very rotten piece of wood they extracted was enough evidence to confirm the reason for my insistence. That rotten 2x4 would have been enclosed by the wallboard. Corrected by Bauman only as a result of my insistence.
16. Bauman installed several non-pressure treated framing wood studs directly against the basement floor, which is counter to standard construction practice because it leads to wood rot where the wood is in contact with the concrete. It took numerous requests to convince him to cut out the bottom edges of this non-pressure-treated framing and replace it with pressure-treated wood. Corrected by Bauman only as a result of my insistence.
17. When we thought that the drywall was going to be installed imminently, I requested numerous times that Bauman install electrical cable and plumbing pipe protectors to prevent drywall screws or nails from doing damage, but he never did. This was a minor matter that would have taken just an hour or two of his time. In one phone call, he even intimated that the wallboard contractor really didn’t need them – that he’d mark the wallboard to prevent making an error. It was particularly galling that he reminded me to do this once he had terminated the contract. Corrected by me.
18. Bauman convinced me that floor drains were unnecessary. What I realized afterwards is that even for a minor bathroom or kitchen overflow or leak or boiler regulator valve failure there will be nowhere for the water to go. The flooring and subfloor would need to be ripped up. Not corrected, and not correctable.
19. Bauman embedded the top 4" of the PVC drain pipes directly in concrete with no expansion air space or sand or soft insulation tubing around it. I have since learned that sand or a rubber ring is supposed to be packed around PVC pipes in concrete, because concrete floors have a tendency to move and flex and that PVC expands with warm water, and encased in concrete it has nowhere to expand, so this system is likely to develop leaks. If this happens, I will need to re-open the floor with a jackhammer and completely replace this plumbing. Not corrected, and not correctable.
20. Bauman left an old piece of cement drywall, with musty, rotting paper, on the existing bathroom wall under the stairwell, and worked around it, embedding it into the new work. Corrected by me.
21. Upon inspecting the kitchen walls when drywall installation was imminent, I discovered that the drain pipes at the floor of the kitchen area are not aligned inside the kitchen wall; they protrude more than ½ inch. Bauman claimed plastering would “hide” this defect. Not corrected, and not correctable.
22. Bauman’s insulation/wallboard subcontractor installed fiberglass insulation with paper backed vapor barrier, in violation of the architectural plan, which specified no vapor barrier at all. We discovered that this paper backing is a notorious source of mold growth in basements, and that this information is common knowledge among reputable basement contractors. We also discovered that fiberglass insulation was a bad idea for basement renovations in general, with or without paper backing. We requested that they install extruded polystyrene (“EPS” or “Styrofoam”) instead, which I purchased. Even though the original installation had been incorrect according to the architectural specifications and standard basement renovation practices, we ultimately agreed to pay them $900 for the labor of installation and removal of the fiberglass insulation, in order to avoid litigation and the possibility of a subcontractor lien.
23. The installation of the EPS (“Styrofoam”) was unsatisfactory. Bauman’s insulation/wallboard subcontractor apparently had little or no experience installing EPS. What I found after the installation was that many of the bays were full of sawdust and dirt, even though I had specifically asked them to carefully vacuum the bottom of each bay (and provided my shop-vac) before placing the insulation, because such dirt promotes mold growth in very little time. There was an astonishing amount of waste material (about 8 full-size lawn and leaf bags), with many broken large pieces. The panels of EPS that were actually used were cut unevenly, and some did not really fit. They were either too big or too small (or both), and there was no evidence of any cutting guidance markings; they were apparently cut freehand. I had to remove all of the EPS panels to vacuum the bays, and I had to re-cut several of them to put them back because they were oversize and had been wedged in with enormous force. I also found one of their cutting “tools”. They were crude knives made from long razor blades with duct tape around one end of the blades, so the resulting uneven cutting and inordinate waste was not a surprise – there was little or no control of the knife blade. Inexpensive precision cutting knives made for this purpose, or a simple rotary saw with plywood blade, or a Milwaukee mini-sawzall would have created precision-cut blocks that would have been easy to remove and replace. Corrected by me.
24. Bauman was not aware that basement insulation includes the significant work of cleaning and insulating the ends of the ceiling joist bays above the basement walls, so this was not included in the insulation work done by his insulation and wallboard subcontractor. Corrected by me.
25. When the framing was supposedly “ready” for wallboard/plaster, one vertical stud with blocking for a baseboard radiator was not connected at all to the bottom plate; it was hanging loose. This was found and corrected by me after Bauman had terminated the contract.

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