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Pillar Mess

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Homesick

Junior Member
What is the name of your state?
Montana

Hello, we hired a contractor to repair six pillars on our 1920s home. The repairs involved making new bases for all the pillars and jacking up the porches to intall them. He completed the work on our back two pillars in the Fall '05. Now the invidual wood pieces (four for each pillar) have separated from each other, and still appear to be widening. I called him about this matter and was told it was b/c we didn't paint them right away, which he did not tell us before we would need to immediately do. (We had agreed to paint them ourselves to save money.) He said he would come take a look at them, but never did. We have now gotten two second opinions - just verbal, and w/o looking at the pillars. The two new contractors are skeptical that the separation could have been caused by lack of paint.

We are wondering the best course of action. We have already paid for the front four pillars to be installed, but now don't have confidence in his work. Ideally we would like to hire a compentent contractor to fix the separated pillars and intall the front ones. Could we file a small claims suit for the money it takes to do the job correctly? The total cost for the pillars was $6200. What is the limit on small claims in Montana? I've heard that it was recently raised from the previsous $3000, but do not know if this is true.

Thanks for your advice.
 


John Se

Member
work with the guy

wood shrinks, the guy gets the chance to fix whatever you think is wrong. Also how big of gaps are we talking??
 

Happy Trails

Senior Member
Homesick said:
What is the name of your state?
Montana

Hello, we hired a contractor to repair six pillars on our 1920s home. The repairs involved making new bases for all the pillars and jacking up the porches to intall them. He completed the work on our back two pillars in the Fall '05. Now the invidual wood pieces (four for each pillar) have separated from each other, and still appear to be widening. I called him about this matter and was told it was b/c we didn't paint them right away, which he did not tell us before we would need to immediately do. (We had agreed to paint them ourselves to save money.) He said he would come take a look at them, but never did. We have now gotten two second opinions - just verbal, and w/o looking at the pillars. The two new contractors are skeptical that the separation could have been caused by lack of paint.

We are wondering the best course of action. We have already paid for the front four pillars to be installed, but now don't have confidence in his work. Ideally we would like to hire a compentent contractor to fix the separated pillars and intall the front ones. Could we file a small claims suit for the money it takes to do the job correctly? The total cost for the pillars was $6200. What is the limit on small claims in Montana? I've heard that it was recently raised from the previsous $3000, but do not know if this is true.

Thanks for your advice.
We have now gotten two second opinions - just verbal, and w/o looking at the pillars. The two new contractors are skeptical that the separation could have been caused by lack of paint.
Without the contractors looking at them, they really can't say that the separation wasn't caused from exposure to moisture etc...

You really need to have someone look at them and find out what the actual problem is.

I didn't find anything on small claims court limits being raised. Doesn't mean that it hasn't, but I'm not finding it online. You can call the court house to find that information.

If you find you do have a case, due to something the contractor did or didn't do (and I'm not saying you do), you could consider taking it to "Civil court".

Link to compare the differences between the two courts:

http://www.co.missoula.mt.us/JP2/documents/keydiff.htm
 

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