Basically a 2 star experience. We contracted with Joe and Topaz for our house addition and…read morerenovation back in 2019. Joe was the only contractor that provided a free computer mock up design for our renovation project, so my wife and I decided to go with him.
The Good: In the beginning, Joe was always available when calling him and he helped us through the process of costs, time and materials. He provided a start date and information on what we needed to do to clear out our house and prepare it for his workers. After establishing our finances and payment schedule with Joe, we moved to another temporary housing location and the work started. Joe provided the dates of what was going to happen and when the materials would arrive on property and definitely when he needed a check in a payment installment. He was ALWAYS on time and communicating with us for that. The materials did arrive on time, however there were regularly delays in work due to him having his crews on multiple jobs at the same time and at times that caused A LOT of frustration and our construction was delayed for quite a while. The work proceeded and eventually the job was done. It took just short of around 10 months. My house was originally built in 1945 so this renovation was definitely an upgrade and it looked very nice and modern from its previous condition.
Now for the Bad: After we settled in within the first 6 months we started noticing A LOT of problems. The finishing process on items was horrible. Joe promised that our kitchen cabinets were going to be personally designed, constructed and pained here on site by his associate who didn't speak English and he smelled very bad of cigarettes and alcohol and I couldn't communicate with him on seeing some of his defects. We pointed them out to Joe and he said he would "take care of it." Unfortunately, he didn't because after SIX MONTHS the cabinetry was in HORRIBLE condition. The "personally applied" paint was flaking off BIG TIME, the doors and drawers were warping and the personal cover for around the microwave that he built fell off and broke into pieces. We are now in the process of financing an entirely new kitchen remodel. We have also discovered that our bathroom tiles in both reconstructed bathrooms are creaking and moving in place, the door jams are not correctly positioned in the door frames, a few of the shower tiles are crooked and the painters did not sufficiently paint the corners of the walls. There are crooked lines and over paint where the walls meet the ceiling!
The biggest issue though, is that there is NOT an adequate crawl space opening on the outside of the house to repair any plumbing, electrical, etc., underneath the house. Our outlets on our new kitchen island went out a few years ago and the electrician couldn't get under the house to fix them because Joe's crew installed a HUGE plastic PVC drain pipe **right behind** of the crawl space opening. I called Joe after we discovered this and he said that he would get one of his workers to come take a look at the situation and he NEVER DID! I called a few more times and Joe didn't answer his phone and basically ghosted me. He got his money out of us, so he doesn't care to fix a problem that his crew created. It will now cost me $2,500 with another contractor and the need for new permits to cut a new opening in my foundation for fix the problem his crew created. Also, he installed a new AC/Heater unit on top of my roof and during last years rainy season, my ceiling starting leaking into my kitchen. Upon inspection by another contractor, he said that there was NO PROPER FLASHING around the unit and he found cracked ceramic roof tiles (done by Joe's crew - I, nor has anybody, ever been on my roof since Joe's crew!) where the water was seeping into my attic that dripped through my ceiling. He said that the AC/Heater unit was poorly installed from the installation without flashing. This was a direct result of Joe constriction team. That repair cost us another $2,500!
They are more problems with his crews work, like removing my entire sprinkler system on both my back and front yards and where Joe told me that he "would put back everything in place - including my sprinklers system" when the job was done but that also NEVER happened either. There are many more to list but one can get the idea. The point is, Joe was on time with his responsibilities in consultations, with pre build and material delivery (and of course check payment collection), but very bad in communication during the job and definitely worse upon discovering the bad construction defects a few months after the job was completed and where we found his finishing crews had absolutely horrible workmanship upon closer inspection.
Thus, at this point I can NOT recommend Joe and Topaz and I strongly suggest for people to seek multiple bids from other contractors and companies and vet them out very thoroughly before your home renovation project.