I would not recommend this builder. When we hired Barden Home Builders, they were riding the wave of lucrative home building activity in our area that started pre-COVID and were expanding their business further into custom home building. Not unlike many builders, Barden tends to over-promise and under-deliver, particularly in a high demand market when they're stretching their capabilities beyond their company's historic record. Unfortunately, with our build they could not deliver on some very important items for us, even when the owner promised he would. This is probably because they really are only a small local Flagstaff area builder with limited capacity and financial resources to remedy higher dollar misses in quality and promises. In the end customers end up having to compromise their plans and pay more to compensate for this lack of contractor ability. Added to this, the schedule slipped and progress seemed to slow significantly when the contractor owner of the company, Aaron, left town on vacations, hunting trips, and builder conferences. I once told him "seems like progress stops when you're not on site." Our build completion was delayed by over three months and finished in the dead of winter instead of late Fall as promised. Our custom home build experience with Barden fits this description.
Significant costly misses include:
* Inferior quality garage door spec'd and installed - unusually, noticeable rippled surface. We were promised a replacement if unacceptable - Barden told us the manufacturer (First United Door) said in time it would smooth out. The Barden owner, Aaron, promised to provide a replacement if it did not and we were not happy with the garage door. It did not smooth out. Then when pressed about the look, First United Door told Barden it "looked good" and that nothing could be done about it. So Aaron changed his tune and said he would only absorb the labor to replace the door, but not buy the new door. To this day it still looks flawed.
* Barden's Pella rep spec'd and installed unusual, non-standard sliding doors with paired screen doors on the inside, not outside where 99% of screen doors are in place. We got stuck with 3 of these Pella exclusive screen doors on the inside - We were never informed of this design and it wasn't even noticed until they installed them right before the owner walk-through. Even Barden owner, Aaron, was surprised and said they would never work at his house either. But neither Barden or Pella would provide viable replacements. Every time I open and close them is a high cost frustration.
* Kitchen window spec'd by Barden's Pella rep was not the size requested. We had to pay the cost to reorder the correct size.
* Electrical outlets and light switches in the wrong locations. One spec'd outlet was covered over by the drywaller. Also, minor changes were identified as our build progressed. Beyond the initial plan walk-around with the electrical subcontractor, there was no follow-up by Barden to inform the Electrical sub so that corresponding electrical details could be changed, leading to outlets in the wrong place, light switches in the wrong place. BHB would not remedy it, unless we agreed to pay for them.
* Barden did not even have the house professionally cleaned at Certificate of Occupancy. It was such a mess, it cost us over $1,000 to have cleaned. Even our area's commonly acknowledged cheapest quality builder has their finished houses professionally cleaned before handing over the keys to a home.
Bottom Line
The overall workmanship of our home is fine, but for the entire experience from design through post-build warranty service on a 1 to 10 scale, 1 "awful, run from this builder" to 10 "outstanding, never build with anyone else," we would rate our experience with Barden Home Builders to be no more than a 5 "passable (even though he is the most expensive builder around) but too many misses to use again." We would not use Barden ever again, nor would we recommend them to friends, family or for that matter, to anyone else. read more
