Wow, I'm super impressed. We used Armando for re-stuccoing nearly half of the exterior of our house after a big foundation project and addition. Armando came with recommendations from our project designer, our foundation contractor, our general contractor and the guy at the sheet metal shop I was using. Also lots of praise for his work on the Berkeley Parents' Network website.
His price was just a tiny bit higher, but close enough to the price quoted by an unknown stucco contractor who walked in off the street to provide me an unsolicited quote, as well as some other quotes our general contractor received.
When I called Armando to start the work, he pointed out a few discrepancies with the waterproofing. It added a delay to the project, but I'm thankful-thankful-thankful he pointed this out instead of simply forging ahead, because his advice undoubtedly saved us from structural water damage down the road, or code compliance issues here and now.
When I was truly ready for him to start, his crew of 5 showed up in force. Completion took 10 working days, in and out of rain and the Thanksgiving holiday. I believe real-time it was three weeks and a day. He didn't demand a penny up front (thought I'm not sure if this is his official policy). His crew arrived on time each day, and worked over a couple of days into the dark in order to complete the task-of-the-day.
He manages his crew well. On a few of the days he only sent two or three guys, as needed. I was told the others were kept busy on other projects, and on rain days were working on interior projects. Good to know that he can operate so efficiently, not a bunch of guys sitting around twiddling their thumbs but here in force when needed. Oh, and Armando worked as well, which I certainly hold in high regard.
While the project was underway, Armando pointed out a giant crack under one of our windows, and asked for approval to open it up (me, fearing time-consuming dry-rot repairs). Luckily, the dry-rot he exposed was easily remedied, with little delay to the crew.
In the end, his crew expertly matched our existing stucco texture, and on the last day applied a thin slurry coat to "round off" the new stuff and make it more closely match the decades old, painted-over old stuff. At the end of the day, the calvary rolled in, the plastic sheeting, scaffolding and trash disappeared, and we were left with what looks like a whole new house.
On time, on schedule, on budget -- what more could I ask?
Contact me if you'd like a link to an online photo album of Armando's work. read more