I would like to make four major points in this review, followed by some photos to illustrate the…read morepoor quality of work done on my second floor/attic extension over my Cape-style Levittown home.
**1. Unprofessional and condescending**
The initial consultation is with William (the son), who is very personable and sits down with you to go over concepts. After about three visits, they ask for a deposit and a signed contract. From that point on, his father, Bill, takes over as "the licensed architect" -- a title he constantly reminds you of -- and the project becomes entirely his. Anything you agreed on with William is off the table.
Bill only meets on his own schedule. He made my wife and me take time off work three times and refused to budge, since he only works 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. He is condescending and disrespectful in how he speaks to you. This was supposed to be my wife's and my dream project, and he made us feel terrible every time we interacted with him. If you didn't use the exact technical term for something -- for example, saying "crawl space" instead of the correct term for the empty space or didn't say "rafters" and said "the beam in my living room"-- he would claim you had no idea what you were talking about. For the record, you don't have a crawl space in that part of the house; you have a wall cavity.
**2. Poor craftsmanship**
As shown in the photos I uploaded, several walls were not straight. This only came to light because the flooring installer noticed the shift in the walls. I also included a photo showing my exterior wall next to the newly framed interior wall -- they only insulated the interior wall, not the exterior one. Meanwhile, my radiant water line runs in contact with the exterior wall, which means it will freeze in the winter. When I pointed this out, Bill said it wasn't necessary because it's not a code requirement for the town.
**3. One-sided contract**
Demo work and debris thrown from the second floor broke my front sprinklers. The dumpster also destroyed my blacktop driveway, leaving tire tread marks all the way down it, which I'll now need to get resurfaced. The contract you sign holds them not liable for any damage like this. They did not cover my driveway to protect it
**4. Unreliable subcontracted work**
When they build a dormer or add a level, they don't replace the subfloor unless it's part of a new footprint. So if your house is 80 years old, as mine is, they leave the existing wood in place -- often the subfloor are cracked or bowed with age -- making it impossible to properly install new flooring over them. Levittstyle will replace the subfloor, but at an inflated additional cost.
I paid them to tile my small 8x8 bathroom -- just the floor and shower. Not only did it take their subcontractors three weeks to finish, but the price didn't even include tiling the niche (see attached photo). I've since asked three other contractors about this, and all three said they would never walk away from a job where they'd been paid hundreds of thousands of dollars without tiling that small section.
**A few more important details**
A large section of my first-floor ceiling had to be broken open to support the second floor. This wasn't in the original drawings. I repeatedly stressed that my family and I wanted to move back into the first floor as soon as it was safe after demo. Once the project was underway, Bill realized he'd need to open the ceiling -- even though it wasn't part of the original scope -- and had me sign a revised drawing to reflect that. What I didn't notice was a clause stating they were not responsible for finishing work, including painting.
Three months into the project, the ceiling was still open, as shown in the photo. Bill schedules his subcontractors across multiple job sites at once, so he couldn't send anyone to close up the wall -- let alone paint it -- until it was convenient for him. As a result, my family couldn't move back in for four months. I only agreed for them to open up my first floor for the safety of the project and the house for my family. The new drawing they made me sign included in the corner, no finish work (painting). I ended up hiring a painter at the end of the project to paint the entire first floor myself, at a cost of $1,500.
A week after we moved in, we noticed a crack in our ceiling running from the kitchen to the bedrooms -- about 25 feet long. Levittstyle dismissed it as a "stress line" from the house settling, showing no empathy for two obvious concerns: (a) whether it's even safe