I hired someone to do some demolition of my house, tear down wood paneling, remove existing doors, wall paper, old linoleum floor, carpets etc... and part of it included ripping down all tiled and mirror walls in four bathrooms.
He gave me an estimate and we signed a contract.
Now he is in the middle of demo of the bathrooms, and bear in mind the house is over 30 years old, all the bathrooms are tiled from floor to ceiling, every inch of it. I believe he assumed these to be drywall or cement board with tiles over it, just rip them out. Now we found out these are very thick thinset or stucco (almost three inches thick) with wire mesh in them. Obviously this makes it harder to remove than just sheet rock or cement boards, it also add quite a bit of debris to be processed and disposed of.
He asked me about adjusting the contract price to account for this.
I thought this is fair because it is added work, but a part of me thought he should have investigated more before he provided an estimate to me, since I was going to gut the place, I gave him plans, dimensions, I invited him to punch holes in ceilings and walls anywhere he wants, I told him he can rip up carpets to see if something else is underneath, anything he needs to know ahead of time he is free to probe, so he should take part of the responsibility.
Now the question is, how do you come up with a fair adjustment? How much added work is involved in demolition of four bathrooms - thick thick thinset stucco wire mesh versus sheet rock?
Thanks,
MC