You sound like an honest contractor and businessman; I wish my
contractor was as so. He downright lied about his credentials, gave us
references who turned out to be his relatives and neighbors, he took
us to construction sites which were not his, and was downright
fraudulent with his credentials as a general contractor.

He tried to use slipshod construction practices that even the subs came
to us and told us about. (Thank god for them and the building
inspectors)

For example He dug the foundation and pored the footings, he was trying
to save $2000.00, but had a sub come in and poor the cellar walls,
during the poor for the walls the footings shifted and he had to knock
the walls and footings down and re-do them again, he wanted to charge
us additional because of this. The reason for the footing shifting, he
didn't properly protect the soil under the footings from water and
the soil became saturated. If he would have installed a simple sump
pump this would not have happened.
f he tried to use triple two by tens where a glue lam was specified,
which supported the entire second floor and the roof The architect,
framers and inspectors all called him on that one, and the bank
refused to pay him until all structural problems were fixed.
He neglected to figure in the cost for wiring in our split AC system,
he didn't even figure in the rouging of the two circuits at all. He
did not know or figure in for the cost of insulation for a radiant
flooring system, then claimed insulation under radiant tubing was
unnecessary as heat rises.

As this was a partial teardown and addition to an existing house we
asked to have the existing portion of the house re-sided with the same
material as the new section and it was stated in the contract as such.
He comes to us near the end of the project and states we owe him an
extra $12,000 for the siding on the old section on the house as he
forgot to include that in the original estimate.

This is when we got a lawyer and fired this looser.

Of course we learn about this guy's incompetence from the subs and
that his references and the houses he claimed to be working on were
bogus. He was so incompetent the subs started to ask me about
scheduling and guidance on this project, as he was usually only on site
for about 2 hours a day and they could never reach him on his cell or
pager, I on the other hand was living in the old section of the house
and was readably available by phone or in person.

I guess this is an opposite rant from yours showing the other side.
Even though we tried to fully check out this guys credentials we were
mislead and deceived.