How to handle a Pool Demolition that Refuses to pay in Eagan MN

Today is a great example of how money makes people funny. I'm going to take you with me on a pool demolition project we do in Egan, Minnesota. The project turns out gorgeous. But during the process, the customer comes to us and asks us to do some extra work that's outside of the contract. In this case, what they ask us to do is hand disassemble a portion of a fence, stockpile it, and save it instead of doing our standard demolition. So, we have to very carefully pull everything apart. and we quote them a time and material basis. We get a verbal confirmation from them and that's our mistake. We trusted that from that point forward everything would be fine. But at the end of the job I get the phone call you they didn't I didn't get it in writing from them. They don't feel like they should have to pay it. They have no arguments or qualms with the project. You'll see that it turned out great. It's just the fact that I didn't take time. And I've said it to you before. I've said it to you time and time again. Ink is cheap. These fence posts get popped out, set to the side. We're saving these for the customer. Get it in writing. Now, in this case, it was just a $200 change order. It's no big deal. But I didn't get paid for it. I want you guys to understand that if this had been a$1,000 or $2,000 or $5,000 change order, which a lot of times happens a lot of times on projects, if you don't get it in writing, don't expect that you're going to have to get paid on it. That signature locks your customers in place. That signature keeps them to their word. It clarifies the understanding that you're going to charge this amount, whether it's a time of material or a lump sum, and that they agree to pay it. They then are locked into place. It protects you and it keeps everything above board. Let's go through this project. Let's show you what happened. To me, it was a $200 lesson, but more important, it gives me something to share with you. So, hopefully it doesn't happen to you guys and gals out there. It actually will. Trust me, this will happen. But that signature, ink, like I said, ink is cheap. That signature will save you a lot of hassle. So, check this out. So, what's happening with this liner? It's been just neglected for so long. It's just so old that it's very brittle and it's falling apart. It's what we call going fishing. What Johnny's doing is he's pulling the liner out as big a chunks as possible. The liner itself is ripping, tearing, and shredding. So, instead of coming out in one piece, looks like this one's coming out in about 17 pieces. Drew's grabbing the foam that goes around and separates the liner from the backing material and smacking me in my leg with it. Watch out. I'm going to have a nice aroma the rest of the day. Oh, it smells like like like uh frog farts. Smells like frog farts. Yes, it does. Along with a couple other worse things. So, the liners out. Now, next is getting this backing material. The blue material you see behind me, this stuff, that's PVC. That's plastic. We can't recycle that either. So, we take this out. It's going to shatter. We're going to try to pull it out in panels as big as possible. But, you're inevitably going to get pieces that instead of being a big panel, it's going to rip. It's going to tear and the pieces are going to fall. It's going to It's a hard plastic. And then you have to go pick those up. You have to find them. Make sure you're getting those out of there because the last thing you want to do is bury that in the bottom of your swimming pool now. We can't get a freaking break, man. We can't get a break. I'll come in and try to put a few hours in. It'll just hatch. Probably won't even hit it. Yeah. And then the next thing you know, it's downpouring. Downpouring. I got half my pile washing down the road. Golly. Oh, well, you got her off the street. We got her inside. So, this site is graded and done. The black dirt, pulverized stream black dirt's been brought in. Then it's been laid out and then it's been hand raaked so we don't compact it. You see some concrete behind me. This is part of the pool that remains in place because this portion of concrete is angled properly to let the water flow away from the structure. It gives this homeowner a hard surface, a built-in patio that they can now come into their backyard, set up their tables, have a spot that they're out of the grass. This concrete that was all through here has been removed because this was angled this way, which would have shot the water towards the structure. We've eliminated that concrete. We've graded this. So, all the water now flow flows right down behind me toward the backyard. This is now set and ready for the customer to either sold it or seed it on their own. And if these customers want us to seed or sold it, I will have a crew come in and wrap it up for them. But I give them options on ways that they can do it themselves or we can have someone come in and do it for them or we can do it as well for them. So, three options I like to leave. But this site is a wrap. It's done. Graded out. It looks gorgeous.