Do not use this company or anything John Smith organizes or manages. They will leave you out to dry and disappointed over and over and over again. If the plethora of negative reviews won't convince you, I can explain my experience below:
Overall Bad Experience
Truly terrible and regrettable experience. I had been warned by neighbors before we started a major renovation on my home to avoid JC Smith and wish I had heeded that warning. We signed contracts and provided a large down payment in Dec 2021. JC Smith didn't begin work till February of 2023 (not a typo!) They bounced around different foremen till they settled on Shane Hunter, who could write a masterclass in poor project management and unprofessional communication. From 02/23 through 04/25 they fumbled through the renovation in spurts. Providing very limited communication or updates, contractors would randomly show up 1 or 2 days out of 5. They would take weeks off at a time with no updates as to why, or when work would start again.
Subs and Foremen:
Various subs would show up the day of at 7AM with no warning. We had many bad experiences with various subs. The tile guy they employed would show up high, did a terrible job that caused a leak through my first floor and into the basement. The first plumber they used likewise caused a leak and didn't help clean it up or pay enough attention to avoid it. He also creeped out women dropping off their children at the nearby school. We went through 4 different carpenters. Several employees quit along the way. conditions. They would all bad mouth JC Smith for the same things: low pay, horrible communication, impossible working conditions. Eventually Shane (our superintendent) was fired for doing such a poor job of communicating to us. He was hired back, and even showed up on our job site months later with John Smith who had hired him back. Several suppliers or trade companies later hassled me and my wife personally. The countertop company JC Smith used was not paid apparently, and called and emailed my wife and I several times after with harassing language. The 2nd tile guy that they used, also called and even stopped by the house multiple times complaining that he had never been paid. Months and months after his work was complete. Of course JC Smith was supposed to handle all of this, but often it was me who had to deal with it and direct people when the supervisor wasn't around or doing his job.
Quality:
The work itself was ok, not great. I'm a licensed architect with 10+ years of professional experience and will admit that I have high standards, but JC Smith left several things completely undone, or poorly "finished." Our bathroom fan was never wired up, our bedroom door scrapes against the floor and doesn't open all the way. Trim doesn't line up, and the tile is sloped/uneven. Vents and cables never fastened to the side of the house and left dangling. If I wasn't a trained architect, the quality and coordination would have been much worse.
Punchlist / Ghosting
I made a final punch list in 08/24. They painfully worked through these through less than 50% of the items by 04/25. On 4/7 I got received an email from John Smith effectively saying they were pausing all work. I called several times and texted over the months and he never contacted me back. Completely ghosted me from that point on. I conveniently wrote them one of the final checks of the entire contract just before they stopped communicating altogether. I ended up backtracking and doing the math, and realized I had actually over paid them, and of course they hadn't finished the punchlist including very painful and obviously incomplete items. Now I'm having to pay someone else to finish it.
TLDR: Nightmare experience. They didn't finish the work, completely ghosted me, and I've overpaid. Millions of false promises and poor communication along the way. Ghosting me at the end shows lack of respect and credibility. I would highly recommend avoiding anything John Smith touches in the future, and assume JC Smith is now insolvent. read more