Echoing William G's review. Wanted to share my experience about Don Craighead . We hired Don Craighead in 1999 to do a big job involving adding 1000 sq ft of living space and 2nd level addition in my house in San Francisco
Bay. Area. What a nightmare. Everything Craighead and his laborers touched was not done properly. Many were code violations. There was no Yelp or social media in those days to look at reviews. He was a high school buddy of a neighbor. As young and inexperienced homeowners we made the mistake of hiring him based on price. Big mistake. He hired unskilled people unfit who worked with no supervision . Every morning he would bring 4 laborers that he picked up from SF. He would drop them off, give them a few instruction, spend a few minutes and leave. Lunchtime he would come by to bring them lunch. He was never around to supervise . He allowed these unlicensed laborers to do skilled trades jobs including plumbing.and electrical . At that time I was an uneducated homeowner. This was our first house. One month into demolition, my husband had heart attack and passed away. I knew nothing about construction. Don left me with a big disasters due to his incompetency with building codes and using unskilled laborers to do electrical. plumbing . An example of his sloppy work is the stairs he built for our 2nd level addition did not have the required height clearance. On the day my mattress was delivered , the delivery guys could not deliver my mattress up to my room and had to turn around and put the mattress back in their truck. The stairs had to be rebuilt. He also did not measure properly when installing granite in my kitchen. The granite was 1" lower than it's suppose to be, resulting in water intrusion . The pocket door was not installed properly and cannot close/ open without the tracks jumping off its tracks. He did not install GFCI outlets in the kitchen and bathroom. The cement he poured was not cured properly and the walkway had to be removed and redone. The electrical panel was not to code . He had to call in a licensed electrician to install it properly. His people cannot measure properly to properly align and center windows. light switches . , I ended up spending $17K ( a lot of $$ in 1999 ) to pay to document all his crappy work. My plan was to take documented evidence and sue him, I talked to several lawyers - all said based on evidence. It's an iron clad case and I'll win. Then I found out he already has several judgements against him. If I sue I I would have to pay attorneys fees up front . And as much as I have an iron clad case and win a judgement , it'll be years before it's my turn to collect. I didn't have the money to pay attorneys fees up front, it's the only reason I didn't pursue legal actions. His DBA in Bay Area was Craighead Construction. Lic #522050. And yes I remember he has a son named Jason who must be in his late 30s by now. Craighead moved to Granite Bay around early 2000 . If you are considering hiring Craighead for any type of work, know what you are getting into. I would not hire Craighead for anything. read more
