Many construction disputes center around a low quality of work. In some cases, it is more cosmetic than anything. The crew installs the kitchen counters but does not take the time to level them, for instance. They still work, but they do not look as good as they should and it detracts from the aesthetic appeal of the kitchen.

In other cases, it’s functional. The crew does not hook up all the recessed lights in the kitchen. They forget to run the wires. Half of the lights will never turn on. To the homeowner, the job is nowhere near complete.

These are just two examples, but issues like this can show up in a thousand different ways. But the real question is, “Why do these mistakes happen?” What makes it more likely that a homeowner will find low-quality work in a project?

One potential issue is simple: interruptions. Studies have found that people who get interrupted often see the quality of their work dip notably. One report claimed that most workers see about 12 interruptions per hour. It estimated that these interruptions cost the companies that they worked for around $588 billion as productivity and quality decline and mistakes become more common.

Mistakes during construction can easily happen due to interruptions. For instance, perhaps the work crew was running the lines to those kitchen lights when they got interrupted by the general contractor. When they came back to the job, they hooked the lines to the switches without hooking them to the lights themselves. They forgot what step they were on. It’s an easy but costly mistake.

No matter why construction disputes begin, it is important for those involved to know what legal options they have to recover their losses.