So, our whole neighborhood got hail/windstorm whacked on March 14. Egg to golfball sized hail. I've never seen anything like it.

Goldendoodle was so scared by the noise, she wanted to run out INTO the storm.

Anyway, we find a reputable locally owned contractor to replace our 8 year old archetectural roof, some siding, and a few other things.

Roof was completed a couple weeks ago.

Siding was done yesterday.

Yesterday, contractor (owner) is at my kitchen table, and we are wrapping things up, I happened to notice our cockoo clock (adjacent to the kitchen table) was gone from the wall.

I look down at the floor, and there it is. Parts all over the kitchen table area.

I'm like D*mn! What the...? Then I start picking up the pieces and putting them on the table.

Contractor continued talking about whatever he was talking about at the time. Made no mention of the clock.

The clock was mounted inside the main wall where all the new siding had just been installed outside. There was a lot of loud pounding for several hours. Other items in the area were displaced, but not damaged.

We just bought it a year or two ago. Its a Black Forest, Germany origin. Quarts, with multiple moving motions (dancers, beer drinker, etc,) It cost close to $700.

Now, the problem.

This is a REALLY nice guy. Goes the extra mile and crosses all the T's in every aspect. We've come have a great relationship. I dare say he made a few recommendations which saved some serious dough. I was for replacing all the siding (34 year old house), he was for doing partial (half of it was already replaced about eight years ago).

The clock is "possibly" fixable. From what I can tell, the clock functions good. Cuckoo does its thing. Chimes and music work.

So its largely the exterior stuff that was broken up. Along with a linkage (or two) to the moving figurines.

Wife wants to call him out on it and see what he says.

I know she's right, but I'm having a hard time for obvious reasons.

She's really dissed (and I'll admit I am too) that he made no acknowleldgement as I was picking up the pieces, and obviously in a minor state of shock at the initial discovery.

In approximate terms, this was about a $30K project. Roughly 20K handled by insurance. I had a $4500 deductable, and about $6K in extras to cover what insurance didn't (some siding, barn roof, yada, yada) to make things all even, right, and color balanced.

I've gone so far as to price a near replacement (new) at our expense, which would be obviously around $700, or a bit more with inflation.

Wife is strokin....

What say you all?

My life hangs in the balance!

Defective/improper attachment to the wall. Nail or the wall stud not strong enough. Can't blame the contractor for that.

I think you have to eat it myself so then I asked the wife.

First she said its on the contractor then I asked why and asked if you heard them start to bang on the outside wall would you have thought "oh my clock"?

If it didnt fall on the first hit on the outer wall which you admit you heard them for hours.... just buy a new clock.

You could tell your wife at least your both not displaced like many from the recent tornadoes. I dont think it has any bearing on what the contractor made off the job.

But its easy to arm chair quarterback.... Good luck with the wife.

Why is the contractor to blame? Were they expected to come into the house and remove things from the walls before starting the job?

I'm with the majority. Fix the clock as best you can. Raising hell with the contractror isn't a good idea if you have to call him back for any touch up kind of work."TRY" to explain to your wife that he isn't responsible for anything inside, if he's working outside, as long as he took normal percautions. It was just an unfortunate accident. Good luck.

Thanks all! Very good points!

As to anticipating this, and removing hanging items…. We all likely had multiple roofs replaced.

And we are all familiar with that house vibrating effect.

But how often do we have siding replaced?

I didn’t know there was similar pounding and hammering. It’s not my area of knowledge.

Granted, we had half of our siding replaced about eight years ago. But it was in the less used sides of the house (and I may have been at work, Now retired)

I do concur with your input, and appreciate it all!

I think you all are on target.

Sometimes life just throws you weird ones, and you have to suck it snd not focus so much on blame.

If I understand right, this is a $30k+ project, your cost is approximately $10.5k, you and your wife are upset over a $700 cuckoo clock?

If it were me, buy another clock, don't piss off the contractor and move on.

He's a nice guy, saved you money during the project, probably a pretty good resource to have in the future. I wouldn't risk that for $700.

I do not see where anyone saw the clock fall. So you assume the contractor's work did it.

Good luck with that in court.

Anything else fall off the walls?

This is exactly why I hated working retail.

Mark it up as an accident. It's not the contractors responsibility to check how secure everything on the inside of the house is. Maybe you or your wife should have thought gee that's a lot of banging maybe we should take stuff off the wall but then again why would you if you've never gone through that sort of work or had a problem before.
We have more then one cuckoo clock and quite a few expensive paintings and we've never thought about taking them down during work but also wouldn't think of blaming the contractor unless they were in the room and physically knocked something down.

I used to be a warranty manager for a large residential homebuilder. If we had a crew working on the outside walls of a home, we'd inform the homeowner that it would be best to remove the wall hangings (pictures, etc) and that we weren't responsible for any loss or damage. The contractor should have reminded you to remove loose objects from walls being worked on. At this point, it's probably better to let it go.

I had an issue with a roof replacement several years back. I'll try to make this short.
Complete replacement after a HAIL storm. OK. I go with the insurance companies suggested contractor. Working from home I was in the den/office when the new roofing material was delivered.
Bubba and Jethro proceeded to DROP 85 bundles (I think that's the correct #) on the roof. Some hit so hard a full 1 quart oils can vibrated off a cabinet and hit the floor.
I proceeded to go outside and told them to stop DROPPING THE _------ing bundles on the roof. I also noted they were doing so in the middle of the roofs ridge beam. I suggested they spread them out to distribute the load. I was told this is what they do all the time. OK, who am I to argue with a couple of professional delivery hacks. Well the contractor was delayed and 3 days later we came home to find cracks in the ceiling and drywall through 3/4 of the house.
An inspection in attic revealed 4 trusses had broken under the load. OOOOOPPPPPS.
I proceeded to call MR. contractor and SHOUTING into the phone to him to get the F-----g load off the ridge beam and redistribute it.
2 days later the owner of the supply company shows up with his lawyer. He says I am lying and that his employees said they distributed the load when it was delivered. I have a short fuse with lying and told as much. He said well I trust and have to believe my employees as I have no reason not to. BLOODPRESSURE ROCKETING UP 🚀🚀💥💥🤬.
So I asked if he would like to see visual proof that his trusted employees were feeding him a line of 💩. he responds I'm not sure that's possible at this point. I reached in my back pocket and produced PICTURES of the stacked bundles.
he thumbed through a few and asked if he could take them with him. I said no problem I have them on my computer😁
i hired a structural engineer to assess the damage and recommended approach to repair it. I then selected a another contractor to do the work. The engineer than came back to verify and sign off on the repairs. A drywall specialist then came in and repaired all the inside damage. he was followed up by a painter who repainted about 80% of the inside.

OK, Who's at fault in the OP's case? IF the clock was hung properly and whatever it was hanging on was still in the wall, that would indicate that something made it JUMP off the wall. I say Contractors liable.

What does any of that have to do with the clock falling off the wall? The siding guys didn't do any of the ridiculous stuff your roofing guys did. Everyone rants about personal responsibility as long as it only applies to everyone else.

Unfortunately, it's not a perfect world, and stuff happens.
I can't speak for the OP's cuckoo clock, but the one I have - grandparents', from Germany - is pretty heavy.
I've done some siding on a manufactured home (not as rigid a structure as stick-built), and not knocked a thing off of an interior wall.
That said, I'm not sure I can knowledgeably compare the two jobs.
I can understand the logic of assuming the contractor's work caused the clock to fall off the wall, but I don't think that could be proven.
It's just as likely that the clock wasn't sufficiently mounted, which is hard to discern from here, right ?
You're more likely to need a good relationship with the contractor in the future than a free replacement clock.
Some battles aren't worth fighting...

The battle isn't with your contractor, it's with your wife. I've got no advice for you there, buddy.

Everything bad that happens is NOT automatically someone else's fault. If I was the contractor and you tried to pin that on me, that would be the last job i would ever quote for you.

Having done some siding work in the past, I have alot of difficulty finding that the necessary pounding would have shaken things off the wall if they were properly hung to begin with.

Or, your walls have big problems.

Granted, My situation was quite a bit different but remember initially they denied what they did with the bundle stacking. The vibrations of their dropping the bundles made the full 1 quart oil can slide off the shelf. That was a lot of vibration and I was in the house to feel it. That was not even brought up. I will quote what i said

So what should the contractor have done? Where is his negligence?

The roofing contracts I’ve seen say they are not responsible for items left on the wall during the work.

I sure wouldn’t make this guy mad. Finding people to work is a waaaaaayyyyyy bigger chore than replacing a clock. I’m sure he didn’t acknowledge the clock as he’s had people make demands before. Having dealt with enough people, I wouldn’t be surprised if people have damaged things intentionally and asked for a discount and he knew the setup to that when he saw it. Just being realistic, he shows up to get paid or go over the final outcome with you(we found rot here, replaced this and that more, etc) and you just happen to reach down and pull out a busted clock. I could see that looking like a staged scene to him.