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Do you tip general contractors?

Zeze

Zeze

Lifer
Through a neighbor I found a nice general contractor guy. He's works for himself and is doing minor bathroom work for us for $500. All cash.

Do I tip him? If so how much? 20% of $500 is steep for me.... I wonder giving him extra $50 would offend him than not tipping him at all.
 
Zeze said:
Through a neighbor I found a nice general contractor guy. He's works for himself and is doing minor bathroom work for us for $500. All cash.

Do I tip him? If so how much? 20% of $500 is steep for me.... I wonder giving him extra $50 would offend him than not tipping him at all.
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I am in the remodeling business, a few times a year I will get a tip.

It's not mandatory at all but we greatly appreciate it. $10-$20 is acceptable.
 
No. Why would you tip someone for doing their job...at a price they negotiated?

IMO, it's one thing to tip wait staff and pizza delivery drivers...it's stupid to tip "working" people.

They already make decent money.
 
Typically from what I heard, you don't tip the business owner which he is here. You usually tip the workers whether it is a mom and pop type business or large business. Here in this case, the guy works for himself so he gets to keep all the "profit" or the labor. I used to have a chain type cleaning service who will send maids and I used to tip them. Then I changed to a business of two moms who clean and own the business themselves. So I don't tip them. This is my understanding and am assuming that is what others do as well.
 
Depends on what work is being done, the overall cost, and the quality of work. If someone does a great job in a timely manner, I'll tip them. Usually like a $20 so they can grab some food on the way out or whatever. I always provide cold drinks (water & soda) & if they're there for awhile, I'll order some pizza for the guys. Or give them a gift card to 5 Guys or something (I keep a few in a bucket in the kitchen). I used to do home contract work in college and stuff like that was ALWAYS appreciated when I was at someone's house all day. But it's like being a waiter at a restaurant...if you're late, if you do sloppy work, if your attitude is crap, then don't expect anything from me because you didn't do anything to engender goodwill. That's rarely the case though, as people like referrals & repeat business.

I had a moving crew come help me move recently during a hot, humid rainstorm. They slaved for like 16 hours straight, didn't break anything, and protected all of my stuff from the rain. That deserved a tip for sure.
 
no, but I will gladly tip sub-contractors. They're the ones actually doing the work

This is obviously for a large project like major home renovation where the GC is hiting subs to do the job

<--- doing a major home renovation right now
 
No, they are not earning minimum wage and are working for a job they bid on. Actually they are quite well paid.

That being said, I make sure all my guys have plenty of water and for difficult jobs, I supply pizza, soda etc... and sometimes I even jump in myself to assist where I can. A few weeks ago, I made a huge batch of pulled pork, had 4 shoulders in the smoker going at once. Each contractor got a 1 pound vacuum sealed bag of pulled pork.
 
They already profited off the extra materials they'll be returning to Home Depot or using it elsewhere. One of the basic tricks up their sleeve.
 
Torn Mind said:
They already profited off the extra materials they'll be returning to Home Depot or using it elsewhere. One of the basic tricks up their sleeve.
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Huh? The homeowners keeps all extra materials. He already paid for them. When I replumbed my house, we had an extra 10 footer of unused PVC that could have been returned. I "sold" it back to my plumber who credited my final bill.
 
If the owner, I tip if they've gone out of their way to do the work, make an improvement that wasn't covered in the initial discussion, went out of their way to correct a problem that wasn't included in the initial bid or part of the negotiated job, etc. I.e., the guy who owns a marina my boat was at worked through his lunch break to get me back on the water sooner - at the beginning of a vacation, dropping a boat off in the morning that isn't running right, and having it back by 1 in the afternoon the same day, because he knows how important people's vacations are to them? Thank you thank you thank you! When I picked up the boat, I had a case of his favorite beer for him.

I don't run into this with contractors working on my house myself, since I don't hire contractors for anything. But, my sister recently had work done to put in a new exterior spigot so she could have a hose closer to her back yard. When the water was turned back on, water hammer or something caused a burst somewhere else under her house - it was probably a ticking time bomb waiting to happen. The plumber said that since it happened during his job, he would consider it something that was potentially caused by him, even though he was never within 10 feet of where the fitting burst. He fixed it for free. That was definitely deserving of a large tip, imho. Even my sister knew it wasn't his fault and would have happened if she turned the water to the whole house off and on; but the guy did it simply to protect his reputation.
 
NetWareHead said:
Huh? The homeowners keeps all extra materials. He already paid for them. When I replumbed my house, we had an extra 10 footer of unused PVC that could have been returned. I "sold" it back to my plumber who credited my final bill.
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You bothered with getting a credit for one stick of PVC?

That's like $12.
 
DrPizza said:
If the owner, I tip if they've gone out of their way to do the work, make an improvement that wasn't covered in the initial discussion, went out of their way to correct a problem that wasn't included in the initial bid or part of the negotiated job, etc. I.e., the guy who owns a marina my boat was at worked through his lunch break to get me back on the water sooner - at the beginning of a vacation, dropping a boat off in the morning that isn't running right, and having it back by 1 in the afternoon the same day, because he knows how important people's vacations are to them? Thank you thank you thank you! When I picked up the boat, I had a case of his favorite beer for him.

I don't run into this with contractors working on my house myself, since I don't hire contractors for anything. But, my sister recently had work done to put in a new exterior spigot so she could have a hose closer to her back yard. When the water was turned back on, water hammer or something caused a burst somewhere else under her house - it was probably a ticking time bomb waiting to happen. The plumber said that since it happened during his job, he would consider it something that was potentially caused by him, even though he was never within 10 feet of where the fitting burst. He fixed it for free. That was definitely deserving of a large tip, imho. Even my sister knew it wasn't his fault and would have happened if she turned the water to the whole house off and on; but the guy did it simply to protect his reputation.
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I'd tip in those situations too as they went above and beyond.

Humpy said:
You bothered with getting a credit for one stick of PVC?

That's like $12.
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It was really the plumber's idea and I didn't object when the job was complete. What else am I going to do with 10 feet of pipe in my basement? Money is money, no?
 
Humpy said:
You bothered with getting a credit for one stick of PVC?

That's like $12.
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$12 is twelve dollars, I'd get my money back too.

That's a steam sale game and a slim Jim.

Or

A twelve pack of coors light and a candy bar.

Or

Anything else that adds up to $12
 
its so strange to me that everyone in our country wants to pull everyone else down. We off shore good paying jobs to save 10%. We demand minimum wage never goes up. We want everything to be cheaper always. And we dont want to tip some person.
 
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