The good: Gary will answer his phone. He will promptly show up and provide a quote. He is local. He seems like a good knowledgeable guy. His crew likes him and respects him, calls him a "good guy".
The bad: He doesn't do the work. He obviously has several crews. He does not supervise them except over the phone, using pics taken by his crew. You can't pin him down on when the work will actually be done; forget about scheduling your life. He doesn't seem to have any pride of workmanship...once he has the money, he is out of here.
So we hired Gary to take care of some rot on the side of our house. One side of the roof also needed replacing. He gave us a written quote, we paid half up front, and then waited. No word on when the work would be done, just "soon". A dumpster shows up out of the blue several weeks later, "crew is coming day after tomorrow" is the voice mail message. A crew shows up...they are Ecuadorian and speak mainly Quechua. The foreman speaks Spanish as do I so that is fine. The crew is very nice and keep the work site very clean. I don't think I found a nail in the yard or driveway after they stripped the roof. The rot on the side of the house...another story. I had to remind the crew to remove the clearly rotted sheathing. They were probably going to just side right over it, out of sight out of mind. They did not want to remove the window to fix the rot around the frame but I insisted. They left the trim out in the rain. Gary did not come to look at the stripped side of the house. The crew just started putting siding back on. They brought no insulation with them and had already re-sided half the side of the house when I caught them trying to put new sheathing on without re-insulating (warning sign...I should have stopped the work right there and asked to remove the new siding...my bad). I had some insulation so they used that and quickly re-sided the house. The siding was not cut smoothly and the nails were haphazardly placed...if you are picky about straight lines, these guys are not for you. I didn't really care too much. They reinstalled the window, but did a crappy job (see picture). The trim was warped but they put it back anyway.
Gary showed up to look over the job. He asked if I could give him the rest of the money so that he could pay his crew. I showed him the crappy window install and he said that he would personally take care of it. I gave him the rest of the check, thinking he was a man of his word and that his concern for his crew was laudable. And, we had even more work for him to do for which he promised a quote, so I figured he would be interested in keeping his word. My bad. My real bad. At least half a dozen calls later, some of which actually got him on the phone, all we got was "yes, that really needs to be taken care of". Crickets on any action. We went the whole winter with cold air blowing in around what had been a professionally installed window that never gave us any problem. And...our pipes froze where the siding had been replaced. Never happened before and we have lived here for 12 years. His crew did not insulate after replacing the sheathing! (Speaking with another contractor, he said that was pretty typical...the Latin American crews know how to work with wood, but they have no clue about insulating homes because where they come from, they don't need it. Duh.)
Maybe Gary is okay. I never got the vibe from him that he was shady. But perhaps he is waaaay overextended and really doesn't care about his reputation because few take the time to post reviews. Just trying to get someone to answer the phone is tough. So caveat emptor! If you have rot, DO NOT let them replace the siding without seeing all of the sheathing replaced and watch the crew like a hawk to make sure they re-insulate. This is ridiculous to have to do...after all, the name of the business is "siding". We expect that professionals know what they are supposed to do. read more
