Issues with the Yurt Designer and Formal Design

[amaralice]

I have been working with Chris the designer at

Smiling Woods Yurts

for my

yurt plans

. He basically went MIA 2 weeks before Christmas after he had said I would get my designs around then (to be fair he had been good to work with for many months before this). I emailed and called several times - nada. Finally I reached out to my main contact at SWY - Jesse and asked him was Chris ill (we are in a pandemic you never know). That is what finally prompted Chris to email me back. Essentially he apologized for leaving me hanging and attributed it to framing issues he had with my plan and having to re-work it and offered me an undetermined discount for my trouble (this is affecting my in progress construction loan as he was aware - and, dude, it's the end of the year now bank officers take holidays too!).

I finally got my final plans today and the invoice with a 10% discount. Is that enough? I was expecting more like 15%.

What do others think?

[Jafo]

I think 10% is pretty reasonable IMO..

[amaralice]

Originally Posted by Jafo

I think 10% is pretty reasonable IMO..

Thanks Jafo for weighing!

[Ivan]

He had framing issues with your plan, not sure you are due any discount?

[HawaiiYurts]

I don't understand the mindset that this seems to be reflecting, but maybe (hopefully) there's more to the story. You are paying for a custom job. There is a lot of knowledge, know how, and active thinking needing to go on for the planning and you are paying a professional for all of that intensive work. Someone went MIA during the holidays for 2 weeks? During a pandemic? At the end of the worst year the world has had in a long time? Maybe be thankful there was a good reason, that he's still there doing the work, that your project isn't derailed, that the professional's delay was pretty minor, and that they're offering a discount. Sounds pretty fair dealing to me and plenty of good to be found.

[TSRalex]

Originally Posted by HawaiiYurts

I don't understand the mindset that this seems to be reflecting,
......
Sounds pretty fair dealing to me and plenty of good to be found.

I´m agreeing fully with that. I never would expect any discount in such a situation, if it´s not contracted for cases of delay.....

[FrankieM02]

With the cost of lumber, it's a miracle anything's getting done. Special design? Sounds like a price increase for cause.

[Jafo]

Lumber is absolutely insane right now, especially anything pressure treated. This summer, my contractor put some stairs up for me around my deck. He is a good friend of mine and always does stuff like this at cost. It was a large wrap around staircase and he charged my $1,100 for it. When he got the bill for the lumber? It was $1,000!! He couldn't believe it. He wasn't going to charge me more but I insisted.

To boil it all down: These are not normal times.

[Bob Rowlands]

That's a good friend right there, plus you did good as well. That's the way to handle it dude.

Yup, lumber is up here, and likely everywhere else. Example 2x4 studs used to be ~$4.00 now they are ~$6.50. I used my 2020 stimulus check to build myself a very high grade 10x12 barn shed on my old

yurt platform

last summer. I spent $2900 on it. I juuuust beat the massive price increase or it probably would have been $4500.

[James]

its a yurt not the white house he is building , what framing problem could you have, everything is easy to build or replace in a yurt, that the beauty of them when it comes to maintenance hell push come to shove process your own wood, these are yurt people let your imagine fly, figure thinks out build them yourself, this is not rocket science