Wrong construction company - only stress during house building

Hello,

unfortunately, I have chosen the wrong construction company. There is nothing but stress and I received a call from the company asking me to come for a personal meeting again. Officially, it is about the further procedure - which is not true. They are trying to use the meeting to evade responsibility.

We have at least 2 defects in the area of the windows where even my construction supervisor says it will not be easy to demand this from the construction company. The defect notification has been submitted and I have withheld payment. I have not yet received a response, although the last deadline has not yet expired.

Does such a meeting still make sense if the contact with the construction company is no longer good anyway and the defect rectification has not been clarified? (I have not received any answer/feedback regarding the defect so far.) I feel bad every time I talk to the company because I am just so angry about how things are going. I could bring my construction supervisor with me, but I fear they still want to evade responsibility and in the end, nothing will come of it. Besides, it also costs me money, since the supervisor also wants to be paid.

Of course, communication is important, but the general contractor has tried one too many times to evade responsibility. The general contractor has not commented on the defects so far, even though there has been 2 weeks time.

I would be interested in your opinion.

Many thanks in advance.

Where from your thread history should we extract what it is about in detail? A little more understanding from the questioner that we do not have X-ray vision into their head would be desirable.

How far along is the construction progress, both in terms of the building and the payment. Construction companies are experienced in putting single small builders under pressure.

Does such a conversation still make sense if the contact with the construction company is no longer good anyway and the defect rectification is not resolved?

Yes. But only if you prepare accordingly. Don’t get involved in discussions about the defects. Make it clear that you continue to insist on the correction of the reported defects and will not pay before that. Then end the topic of defects and move on to the construction progress.

the general contractor tried one time too many to avoid responsibility.

yeah, of course it’s annoying when there’s no trust.
But it doesn’t help if you already know in advance how and what will happen.
None of us can look into a crystal ball.
And believe us: even with good construction companies you have endless stress.

The general contractor has not commented on the defects so far, although there were 2 weeks.

Maybe now? Prepare yourself, bring someone along... be curious. You could go through the topics beforehand. He probably wants a settlement, at least the money from you.

You started out with distrust in the thickness of the insulation between the basement walls and the soil...

During the construction phase, we noticed that the insulation of the basement is a bit too weak. Planned were 6cm perimeter insulation on the outside and now we want to use 8cm insulation with a better WLG. The general contractor wants to shift the 36.5cm Poroton bricks by 2cm outward for this.

... then you apparently constantly had upgrade requests for various implementations...

I regularly receive a PDF with the increments that I have confirmed by email. This is called an update of the construction contract. So far, I actually found that quite serious.

The path of building with a general contractor without tendering and with an inclusive planner, who shifts into third gear and more or less reduces performance phase 5 to formwork plans, inevitably leads to "learning by doing" with an almost eternally trickling stream of change orders, which quite certainly drag more money out of your pocket than building with full detailed planning would have cost. The clients who do not want to believe this beforehand never die out, but they lose more nerves and not less money when building their house.

... and you also distrusted the insulation under the exterior window sill...

The insulation under the exterior window sill with natural stone is only 1cm in our case. The exterior window sill itself is 3cm.
What do you think about that? Is that within the scope of DIN 4108-2?

... you expected the condensate from the roof insulation to be a roaring torrent...

We have a flat 23 degree gable roof with drainage over a drip edge. That means the underlay drains over a drip edge and everything goes over the roof tiles into the gutter. It is a cold roof.

... and now you are talking about defects "in the area of the windows"...

We have at least 2 defects in the area of the windows where even my site manager says it will not be easy to demand those from the construction company. The notice of defects has been filed and I have withheld money. I have not received a response to this yet, although the last deadline has not yet expired.

.
Are you absolutely sure that the problem lies on the contractor’s side, and that your "site manager" is not driving you with his textbook fears into the delusion that you chose the wrong construction company?
Is it not possibly the other way around, that the construction company was chosen by the wrong client, and they are trying to seek a peaceful solution before a hyper-nervous client with millimeter mania annoys them endlessly?