Sparky

I have a need for some legal advice. A customer of ours needed his wooden roof, brick walkway, cement stairs, 2nd story deck and a large patio underneath pressure cleaned. The roof was going to be sealed after it was done. We communicated over email, agreed on a price and our employee started the job. The total asking price was around $4,000. 1. Cleaned the brick walkway. Sealed it. The next step was to re-sand it. 2. Cleaned the deck (top and underneath) put brightener, but the top did not come out right. basically, no matter how strong the solution was, it did not strip it. The bottom came out fine because it was bare wood. 3. pressure cleaned the patio. Sealed it. After we were done sealing, a weird streak appeared out of nowhere from the surface cleaner's path. 4. The roof was difficult to clean and it took 7 times longer than expected. The difference was night and day on the areas cleaned. We purchased harness and slipped many times because the algae made the wooden roof like ice. Cleaned the roof of algae about 80% of 1 side only. Because our guys had the harnesses on, their collar bones were hurting. We wanted him to give us a day break and assured him that we would meet the deadline. Because of the streak (which i offered to redo) and the roof, he fired us. Mainly because he needed to find a company that could finish the job on time. We estimated that he owes us about $1650 (he paid $200 allready). he said he will detemine how much to pay us once he finds a company that will complete the "mess" we started. He came back and offered us $500 or so. So, here is the question. 1. We are trying to recoup only what we completed - 80% of 1 side of roof - sidewalk - cleaning and sealing - big patio (because i offered him to re-do it) - did some landscape edging for him 2. Should we take him to court? (have pictures of before and after and emails) 3. Should we deal with a collection agency. What are our chances? please let me know what you think. I have labor costs and my employees will not be happy if they do not get paid. Sorry for the long post.

this happened a few months ago and he still has not paid. he said "this is what i owe you" and just pulled numbers out of the air to come up around $450. He took a long time to find a company that could do the job. Apparently he did (although way, way after the deadline that he had set). I have no idea how it looks now. or how well it was done by the other company. All i know i offered to fix it and meet his deadline and he said "It's up to me to decide if i will allow you on my property. You are fired. Get out or I will call the police". once side of the roof was 80% completed. Because he could not find anyone, it must have not looked good for his deadline. About 4 weeks after he fired us he wrote us, "I suggest you come to complete the job since i can not find anyone who can do it". we said "No, until we get paid". We never heard back.

ken, I do have the emails where we outlined the different ares of the job. for example, I have Roof cleaning, sealing, chimneys, rust around the chimney for $X. then i have, brick sidewalk,re-sanding, sealing, cleaning the stairs - $X. Third, 2nd story deck, underside of deck, painting the underside (not completed). So, because we had worked with him on other prejects over the last 4 years, we completed the agreement over the phone and emails. In addition, we spend over 2-3 hrs with him over the phone at night talking to him about the process. I do not have individual pricing per se, but I have them grouped. Do you think that that is fair?

james, thanks for replying. a few notes. I am not charging him for the stripped deck since i could not get it done. here is the house and you can see that the roof was complete where we could get to. we could get to the last 2 sections, but wanted a day extension and he fired us. I am not charging him for things we did not do. i'd never do that. I am just charging him for what we did, the portions of the roof that we stripped of the algae.

i have used ready seal sealer and sprayed it with a regular garden sprayer. but honestly, if time permits i like to seal with a brush and roller because i can "feel" how much it gets absorbed. with a spray, i always feel that i missed some spots. By the way, how did you like bulgaria?

their (nikro) intake is only 2" and it would clog up.