Only happened once to us so far, knock on wood. Ours was about that side, but involved two corners so it was more difficult to patch than a regular flat patch. Our guy did it for $150. No texture involved. Paint ready.

No way you wouldn't be held responsible for that. Happens to the best of us and requires making the customer as good or better than new.

a former employee dropped a drill thru the ceiling of a master bathroom. it cost me almost $500 to fix it. It was a huge hole and the whole ceiling had to be repainted.

Had an employee use the restroom in a customer’s house that wasn’t home. The toilet ran for a month before the water company shut the water off and informed the customer that he must have a “leak”. The water bill was $1200 and the customer wanted me to pay. The water company gave them a one-time adjustment and I ended up paying about $450. The most expensive “leak” ever. Pun intended.

Ironic part is that the toilet that stuck wide open, was a “low flush” model. I’m sure that little incident ate up its usefulness for a lifetime.

That sucks. I understand having to pay the bill for a mishap like falling through the ceiling or dropping the drill through the ceiling, but a running toilet? I know it would not have been running had your employee not used it, but he didn't create damage knowingly, and simply needed to go. I will have to let my guys know they an no longer use a customers bathroom, and just hold it until they get home.

Mario, how was that caused, it doesnt look like there is any room for someone to be crawling through there...?

Sounds more than reasonable to me...if its going to look like it never happened. It's not just slapping some texture and paint. It will require retexture of a larger area to blend, plus repaint the entire ceiling to look perfect. It will also require two trips plus prep time each time.


300-500 dollars depending upon quality of work, texture type and paint quality/quantity. I'm assuming you're using licensed contractor, not the guys hanging out in home depot lots.


Mistakes happen, that's a minor one. Pay out of pocket. Insurance is for when you burn a house down, ruin expensive furniture, flood the place or have large quantities of product "walk" off a job, etc; not to fix a ceiling like that.

It's a hassle but it happens to everyone. I once slipped off a joist, landed right on a new in-ceiling speaker we installed and damaged the ceiling. Had to pay for a new speaker plus ceiling repair. Oh well.

I would expect to pay between $500-1000 to get someone (unless you have a guy you work with on many projects) out to patch that hole. My thinking is that most companies wont even bother with a little patch like that unless they can make more than usual on it. There will be at least 2 trips unless they have all the info needed to be ready when they show up.

RE: What Tweeterguy said about product walking off a job. The best way to deal with this is to spec a secure area to deliver the product to (room with a door that locks or someone on site like the GC who signs for and accepts responsibility for the products). Once the product hits the job site it belongs to the home owner and their insurance is responsible for it if it walks.

In the old days i only had to watch my speaker phone and coax cable. Speakers usually went in the same day they arrived and no one knew what the hell crestron was and the lutron logo=light switches so no one ever stole it. Now these guys whip out their smart phones and start checking prices on things so they know what to steal.

The only reason it's not a easy repair is because of the texture.
It is pretty hard to make the repair match exactly.
No matter how good the repair, the homeowner knows where it is and will see it.
Especially if you don't paint the entire ceiling.

The end of a very busy day.

Did a ton of quotes and sent them out.

Got a PO for a quote I sent out yesterday (I also met the client and did the demo yesterday).

Sent one of my guys out to install 5 x W4545 on Kramer wallplates.

This was the finishing touch for this project. 7 conference rooms total. They each have flat panels ranging from 42'' to 80'' and they are controled by Sp control Pixie.

This means I was able to send out the invoice!

It's now time to enjoy the weekend...

Look at the last picture. You can see wallplate on the back wall and the ceiling height just above it. That's the actual height of the roof trusses. This area in the kitchen is dropped for aesthetics only. I slipped off of the roof truss, leg felt 2+ feet and landed thru the ceiling. If my leg was 6" back, I would have landed on 2x4 cross brace and most likely not gone thru the ceiling.

Guys, thanks for the responses on drywall repair prices. I feel better now knowing that prices given were inline (and sometimes lower) with what you're paying. 
I'm not that busy all the time, and if this happened 2-3 weeks ago I would have done the work myself. I can work full day and not make $300-500. This drywall repair seems like easy money at that price.
Thing is that I'm busy for next few weeks, so I needed someone to handle this.
Client is happy with repairs (guy showed up 7am and was done before 11am.
Waiting for invoice to see what the final bill is going to be.

ahh- i missed that

good to hear it worked out, and that you're busy

Normally not that busy with my company, but recently, between 2 jobs, school (online DeVry) and family, I have no time for anything.

Today:

Played tourist in Southport, NC with the wife. We shopped a bunch of the small artsy fartsy shops and antique shops, then went to The Yacht Basin Provision Company ([Link: provisioncompany.com]) for a late lunch.

Steamed shrimp with crab cakes and some cold Corona's while sitting on the dock looking out over the sound at all the fishing boats (there's a tournament going on).

At the last minute we added some fried onion rings, so we had to have another Corona. :-)


What a great day!