I had a very, very poor experience working with 1st Choice Home Construction with an attempt to fix a small area of a leaky roof.
When Shay first called me due to my Porch request, he was very friendly. I was looking forward to an easy, honest, straight-forward process. We made an appointment for about a week down the road. I ended up working from home on the day of the appointment (Monday) so that the work could be completed. Monday morning Shay called stating that he wasn't feeling well and would need to reschedule for the following day (Tuesday). I know that this certainly does happen, but it was just the beginning of a poor situation.
Because I couldn't work from home again on Tuesday, my girlfriend stayed home for the work to be completed. He showed up with another worker around 11:30am. He explained what he was going to do and spent just under an hour completing the work (leaving at 12:30pm). Now, my girlfriend never asked for an estimate which she probably, in hindsight, should have, but Shay never offered one and just started working. After the just under an hour, my girlfriend was presented with a bill for nearly $800, of which $450 was labor. Two guys, 1 hour, $450. Just let that sink in. Also, payment right then at the end of the service was demanded. Having worked with other contractors in the past, this is somewhat unorthodox as bills are usually mailed. I now understand why he requires money right away.
Now, when I got home, I asked my girlfriend what they actually did. To make the explanation shorter, they more or less put a small area of bladder under the shingles in an area right near the bottom edge of the roof, near the gutter. I thought this funny as my admittedly rather moderate home repair knowledge would tell me that the water from the leak further up the roof couldn't have run UP the roof because, you know, gravity. I figured that perhaps they knew something I didn't and decided that, while the bill was highway robbery, if it fixed the problem we'd swallow the bitter pill.
Less than a week later, after a rain, it became clear that problem was not fixed. In fact, it was now somewhat worse. I contacted Shay to explain the issue. He told me that there was no guarantee. I mentioned that he had charged us what is roughly $225 per man/hour for a fix that did nothing to solve the problem. Shay offered to come do a very large-scale, whole-roof repair for about $3000 and apply the labor cost from the first repair to the second, larger repair. Considering that he had already vastly overcharged us for a repair and hadn't actually accomplished anything and that our roof is relatively new, I called another company that actually specialized in roof repairs.
Upon their inspection of the roof area, the new company mentioned that the previous work had actually split a shingle making the leak worse. They also mentioned that the larger repair Shay had mentioned could be done by them for considerably less (even if you take out the labor charge from the first repair, as Shay would have done). They also mentioned that they could fix just the leak, which they then did. I attempted to work with Shay to obtain some kind of even partial refund. I was told that there were no guarantees and thus no refunds. Porch was also very much less than helpful despite their guarantee. However, Nicole, the Porch representative, was polite and prompt despite not offering anything substantial for a terrible, frustrating experience.
I've never written a bad review like this in my life, but I've also never had such a bad experience. My girlfriend and I are out nearly $800 and all the hours we've spent trying to rectify this situation. All we got for it was a roof that was worse than it was to begin with and not a penny of refund from 1st Choice Home Construction or Porch.
In the future, I will simply roll the dice on selecting a contractor on my own. Going through Porch clearly offers no advantage and whoever you go with will presumably be less expensive.
Anyways, I have concentrated this story very much, as the whole thing would take too long to outline here. Please take my word for it and avoid this company. read more