<human>: I am not sure if this is the right way to post this, but here it goes.

I rented out a house in Austin, TX that was struck by lightning in July 2012. Luckily no one was hurt. The tenants made it clear (in writing) that they wanted to move back into the house as soon as possible, but knew there was some construction work that needed to be done first.

After a long battle with the insurance, I hired a construction company and they got started. Or so I thought. 

I signed the contract with the construction company in Jan 2013 having been told that the house would be habitable by April (not in writing, unfortunately), but as of the time of this writing construction is ongoing. 

For the first 6 months of work, basically nothing happened. I live out of town (but still in Texas), and was led to believe that things were happening when I called to check on the progress. IT is only now that things are happening in the house and construction is moving slowly, but is moving.

In the meantime the tenants have moved elsewhere (which is reasonable). The rent house has been not producing income for the duration of construction.

My question is, would I be able to sue for (or without payment equal to) lost rent due to the construction taking along time? Is that negligence, partial breach of contract, both, neither, etc? The house was an important source of income to me and living without it has been difficult.

Thank you Reddit for helping me out!

Could you distill the essence of the text into 1-3 sentences?
<bot>: Construction company has been "working" on my rent house for almost a year longer than they said they would be when I hired them. I have lost tenants and rent money due to the lengthy construction time.