I cannot recommend PG McAdams, owner of SVI Home Theater. In brief, PG twice did not complete…read moreagreed work and demanded payment in full anyway plus extra money to finish. He was often unpleasant to deal with from a customer relations standpoint, frequently argumentative on the phone and by e-mail. Several times he tried to change the terms of the job after the fact. I had to hire someone afterwards to clean up the mistakes he made and finish the items he promised to finish as part of the estimate but insisted on charging me extra for. Here is the story in more detail.
PG made a fixed-price bid to install working ethernet and coax cabling to five rooms in my home, one under construction, so that I could, in every room, get high-speed internet and TV from Verizon FiOS as well as the option of TV from an antenna. He additionally contracted to reattach the external FiOS feed to the internal cabling, to mount the antenna on a roof, and to hook up a phone line in the new room. I paid him 50% in advance and told other contractors who had bid on the work that I was selecting someone else.
The attic was under construction for a new bedroom and closets, and that was why I hired PG to do the work. The walls were open and the need for fishing cable was minimized, so that made his job easier. Additionally I cleared away all construction debris so it would not get in his way.
What PG actually did in the first service call was pull all internal cables, but he only terminated two out of ten lines, so the others were useless to me without further work. He did not set up a central hub, since there were no connectors on the lines. He also did not reattach the FiOS feed as agreed, nor mount the antenna, nor connect the phone line. Despite that he claimed he had fulfilled the contract, and demanded full payment for the job based on the original fixed-price estimate. He also demanded further money to return and complete the work so that I could actually hook up computers and TV sets.
I was understandably upset and ready to call the whole thing off with the partial payment. However, I calmed down, and after some negotiations, I agreed to pay PG the original estimate plus a negotiated additional amount to return and complete the work. Basically, I felt sorry for him that he had apparently underestimated the job, and I wanted not only to get it done, but to give him the business and be able to recommend him. So he returned and completed most of the work, except terminating connections in the new bedroom under construction and the new phone line, which he said he would return and finish after our construction was complete. I let him off the hook for the roof antenna mounting since it seemed to work fine indoors. I paid him in full for the original estimate and the additional money.
When our new room construction was done I called him to return and finish. I also wanted him to repair one of the ethernet lines that did not work and to look at the internal TV signal booster which did not seem to be working properly. At that point, he agreed to work for "free" but demanded $160 for his travel time. I said that wasn't in any sense free and didn't seem to be part of the bargain, especially since he had already once shorted me on the work and demanded extra money. I expected him to finish and put everything in working order for no additional charge. He refused that, argued with me some more, and ultimately said he would not come back. That was the end of our business relationship.
In other words, PG left a very unsatisfied customer who had paid him almost $2000, and for a mere $160 travel fee. Besides that, he argued with me at nearly every turn and constantly tried to change the original terms to fit what he had completed. I found it to be, on the whole, a very unpleasant experience.
Also, I ultimately had to hire someone else to finish the job. The new guy also discovered a number of errors and non-functioning lines left by PG.
So, I cannot recommend PG McAdams nor his company, SVI Home Theater. If you do go with him, be sure to get every detail you expect in writing and withhold a significant amount of the payment until the work is totally finished and tested.
