Wish I didn't hire Sundog
Sundog is Ferrari pricing but pinto quality and service. The sales job was great, Autumn will convince you, he & his team are highly qualified. But, in our opinion, they do not follow through with the quality of work or the level of competency that their prices dictate. A few subcontractors were good, but most were not at the level they should be and from our perspective, Sundog did not supervise them to ensure things were done right. There were numerous things that had to be done multiple times because it wasn't done right the first time. We had to argue and push them to do it right. From our perspective, they do not do what they say they would. We also found their markup to be double or more than the underlying subcontractor cost. Our remodel was complete knob/tube removal, new kitchen, new bathroom, new windows, new roof, new heater & AC, and some other areas. Of more than 30 specific examples of their substandard work, here are some:
1. Sundog had a custom made vent duct built to vent the stove's hood out the side of the house. Custom made, yet while they had cabinet specs for months, the duct stuck out in front of the cabinets. This resulted in having them cut a new hole in the custom vent to move the opening and patch the drywall in the ceiling. While they did complete this, the new opening was still not centered and connection to the hood ended up being at an angle.
2. Pocket door was moved 3 times after first framing it in because they couldn't or didn't read the design details they had for months. The last 2 moves required the tile to be fixed.
3. We, and the cabinet guy, pointed out the sink trap in the bathroom had to be higher to accommodate the vanity. Sundog had those specs for months yet pipe was installed too low. This resulted in an argument to get them to move the pipe up 3 inches. And resulted in a false back installed to cover the fix, which Sundog refused to pay for even though it was their mistake.
4. The bathroom walls were not level, not even close to level. This caused the tile guy to fix the underlying wall structure to ensure their hardy board would be level for tile. At this time, it was mentioned that the wall next to hardy board and where a new window would be installed was not level. It was pointed out before and several times after drywall was put up that the wall was not level; the wall was con-caved in the middle and stuck out at the top. Yet project manager said it could be mudded. It was a drywall mudding nightmare and in the end, we had to compromise and fir out the window molding. It would have been so easy to just do this right the first time, or take down the drywall when you could see the wall was not level, but Sundog appears to have no desire to do a good job unless you push them.
5. The gas line for stove was too far from wall. Getting it to the right place took 3 visits from the HVAC guys -- first to move it, then to come out and put shutoff valve per code (and we smelled gas), and the 3rd time to put in a 90 degree turn so that stove could be hooked up. On the 3rd visit, 2 gas leaks were patched. HVAC subcontractors were not at the quality level they should have been.
6. We had them move and install a new AC unit. The wires for the old unit were uncapped for months. While it is true, the breaker was turned off some of this time, the electricians did turn all breakers on at some point, and we had to point out that the wires were live multiple times over a few weeks. Sundog did not cap them after we pointed this out. We capped them. There were also various other outlets that were not capped or left in an unsafe condition.
7. Drywallers were the worst subcontractors and mostly unsupervised by project manager. Once they were 'done', we pointed out 30-40 different areas that needed to be sanded, remudded, or re done; the project manager saw only a few issues vs. what we saw. We had to argue with them to get them to fix. During this time, we hired a different drywaller (outside of sundog) to come do a dining room ceiling. First, this drywaller was great and by seeing him work, we realized just how bad the other drywallers were. Second, sundog's quote was more than double what we paid -- $3500 sundog quote, $1460 my drywaller.
8. Project management was a major issue. The order of things was just wrong. We pointed out early on and multiple times to the owner that the project manager was not doing the level of job we expected. The owner said he would closely supervise the work and we know he was getting regular progress photos -- which means he watched bad work being done, did nothing about it until we argued and pushed them to fix it.
Sundog sells themselves as experts but in our experience, they are not at the level of competency they claim to be. Hire someone else. read more