The Finished Basement Company completed our basement over two months ago. But given that it ended as such a bad experience, I wanted to give myself time to cool down before writing my review. While the design process was fun and there were some wonderful, creative tradespeople, the overall experience left a very bad taste. On the surface, the basement might look good, but the process and ultimate quality of some of the work leaves much to be desired. According to their website and promotional materials, you'll experience "no headaches construction" and "quick and efficient completion" with "highly organized" project managers and "frequent communication." NONE of these claims were even close true in our case. Now we've received recent mailings that they're opening a new division, RE for remodeling other parts of the house. They have clearly bitten off more than they can chew.
"Quick and efficient completion". The project manager originally said that our basement would be complete by January 31st (we needed to extend the original finish date from December, which was fair, because we decided to expand the project--we started in early October). The project manager claims the end date was March 17th because of the final inspection (thereby avoiding paying us a greater late fee). In order to pass as soon as possible they rushed and faked their way through it. For example, they hung incorrect doors to pass inspection. The doors, but not the frames, were replaced later which has led to the doors sticking and not opening and closing smoothly. This problem has gotten worse since the completion of the project. There were several other outstanding items remaining (including staining and hanging the doors, millwork repair, and top coating which completed mid-April). I would argue that when your house stinks from staining, the project is not complete. There was also a hole in our foundation where the fireplace people wrongly drilled a large hole that was not completely repaired until JUNE 11. It was probably only finally completed because FBC came back to us after the final payment seeking more money and we would not pay until it was done.
These people are not "highly organized" or good at communication, and the best example of this was a second "final" invoice we received mid -May for the money they forgot to bill us in our "first" final installment (an "administrative" error from "corporate" totaling over $20K). We thought that they had given us a discount for their incredible lateness and our incredible patience for the numerous errors that occurred during the process. While the discount that we thought we had was larger than the late days (and they only sent back auto-replies to my emails to them about this matter), they did not deduct a late fee from the final price until we threatened them with not paying any of the money for their billing error. They even attempted to get us to sign a release stating that we would not make negative comments about them and releasing them from all liability on the basement to get the late fees owed to us by the original contract. We did not sign the document, and they cashed the check, presumably ending this brutal relationship.
The consistent errors and mistakes in the project, along with the unknown and constantly changing schedule, the total confusion in billing at all times (they were sure to calculate additional charges for us, but did not take into account items we removed from the project, such as two reclaimed wood beams, custom corbels, rope lighting, etc.) the "new" final bill, and their ridiculous attempt at getting out of their liability, makes our story a cautionary tale.
I (and others) have reviewed the FBC on other online sites--and ours is not an isolated example. Do your due diligence on these folks. read more