Years later and we are still constantly dealing with reminders of why we regret working with RESSA.
Don't let that nice photo of our modern house they posted fool you. We would not hire or recommend RESSA.
We completely knocked down our old home to build a modern two-story house. We hired RESSA because they quoted us at the lowest price, but in the long run we ended up paying for it with more money, time and stress. We have held off posting about RessaBuilt but no other family should have to go through our experience!
TIMELINE:
The project took over a year longer than initially projected by RESSA. Keep in mind they had to return afterwards to fix multiple problems that were never resolved, including multiple ROOF LEAKS. (I recently had to call a roofer to come fix yet ANOTHER roof leak (on 10/25/2022).
PERMITS
We had to personally deal with WSSC to get the proper permits bc RESSA was unable to resolve the issues themselves. We had to personally deal with the county to make sure inspections were promptly scheduled. After months of not being able to secure certain required permits from the county, we took it upon ourselves to personally go to the permitting office, get the answers needed, complete the paperwork required, and secure the permits for RESSA. It was extremely frustrating, time consuming and something we as the client should not have had to do. Even permitting office employees were surprised at our level of involvement and openly expressed their skepticism as to whether the RESSA team had ever done this before.
LACK OF MANAGEMENT
They have a project management system but were unable to keep track of all project changes, which caused a lot of confusion, delays and unexpected expenses. RESSA was unable to keep track of tasks, timeline or the budget. We always had to go digging for emails and text messages because they were not keeping track of items properly. Many items they marked as completed were not in fact completed upon inspection. During the last month we had to physically be onsite to ensure subcontractors were showing up and tasks were being completed on time, because we had lost complete trust in RESSA's ability to manage the project. The Project Manager was unqualified. During our weekly walk throughs, he'd take notes on a piece of cardboard.
LACK OF EXPERIENCE WITH MODERN ARCHITECTURE
It was quickly apparent that their crew had no experience building modern homes, which resulted in tasks having to be redone numerous times and some were never able to be done at a high quality level. We have also openly questioned whether the RESSA team had ever done ground up construction before.
MANY BUDGET ISSUES
Near the end of the project, we were blindsided by a list of items totaling around $50,000.00 that RESSA claimed we owed. This occurred after we had to personally come out of pocket almost $20,000.00 for additional plumbing that was not budgeted for because RESSA had not warned us that the number of bathrooms in the new house would require excavating out to the street for expanded plumbing tubes, per county requirements. We also had to personally come out of pocket over $20,000.00 for a sprinkler system in the state of Maryland.
Today (March 15, 2023), yet again, we have two (2) more ceiling leaks! It's never ending. read more