Douglas Reid

Chad, the contractor, was referred to us by our neighbour. Chad was nice and polite and gave us a quote in a timely manner.
He waterproofed 1/2 of our house and rebuilt our front porch, including the steps. He also had the porch painted.
a month after the painting was complete, there was some bubbling on spots of the porch. I was unsatisfied and he had the painter come back and re-do the job.
Part of the porch construction included a railing on one side of the porch, with the railing's column going into the stair on the base of the railing. I wondered why Chad didn't caulk the post at the base, but hey, I'm not a contractor.
5 years go by and i thought that i'd maintain the stairs and sand and re-paint them. I prep the bottom stair and i notice that there's rot right against the post. I email Chad and he says "chip out the rot, buy auto-body filler and putty the spot. When it dries, repaint."
I start to work on the rot and realize that we're talking about a 4" x 4" spot i've dug out of the stair, plus the entire post's veneer is rotted away going 4" up. Autobody putty won't fix this.
I email Chad and he finally agrees to look at it. Emails me back and says that he's no longer responsible for the work after 5 years of completion. This type of wood should not be rotting in 5 years and he should have caulked the base. He caulked the caps at the top of the railing, so it clearly was an oversight. But nope, his email replies to me start to take on an offended tone. He doesn't even offer to come to do the repair and charge me for the work.
I find another contractor who's willing to do the repair. He agreed with me and said that it should have been caulked and has no idea why the builder didn't do it. He also points out that the rest of the bottom stair is rotting through.
I can't wait until I find more porch-related surprises.