I hired Pokorn to do demo and framing on an interior condo renovation project. It is fortunate that…read moreI kept the initial contracts small. Thankfully, I wasn't stuck with them for the whole project. I have experience in renovation and historical restoration, and am detail oriented, and had high hopes for a successful professional relationship.
On the plus side, they were always responsive to my communications, and seemed to understand what needed to be done. On the minus side, I don't know where to begin. All of the work, except management, on our project was handled by sub-contactors, not direct employees of Pokorn. Adding that additional layer of management inflated the cost of the job significantly. Too many generals, not enough soldiers.
Their subs are of varying quality. For example, one subcontractor framed for a new closet in a way that partially obstructed an adjacent door because of a measurement mistake on the architect's plans. The sub didn't think "Oh look. Something's not right. I should ask how to proceed". They just went ahead and built it, even though the drawn plans showed no obstruction, necessitating tearing out the mistake and rebuilding. They also put the subfloors down in the bathrooms before the plumbing drain work was done. The plans clearly showed the fixtures being relocated within the rooms. Something else to tear out. When they removed the subfloor I saw that the bathroom vent duct for the bathroom below had very obviously been crushed (stepped on at the joist), which is why the bathroom vent below had no air flow. If the subfloor hadn't needed to be torn out, this air flow problem could have been difficult to diagnose and expensive to fix later on. Somehow all the generals didn't notice the substandard work.
All these blunders would be comical if they weren't so frustrating. Pokorn did correct their mistakes after I pointed them out and asked them to, which is the only reason they got 2 stars. I should not have to do this work: it's their responsibility.
Read their contract carefully before signing. It is written in a way that keeps too much power in their hands. They are strict about expecting payment within 72 hours of their submitting an invoice, even if they've screwed up and not yet corrected the work being invoiced. If you're late in paying, they can immediately stop work and require an extra $500 to start up again. You can make the payment "under protest", but then have to trust that they will fix the issue. To their credit, they always did, but I was upset that I had to trust a company that was messing up left and right. Why should this even have to happen in the first place? As is pretty standard, they ask for periodic payments as work progresses. They are the sole determiners of when a phase is substantially completed, which is not unusual, but ask for payment at a point when other contactors I've worked with (and I) would have considered the phase only partially completed.
These examples do not exhaust the deficiencies or problems experienced during the short time I employed Pokorn. Let the buyer beware.
