ZERO STARS due to incompetence, dishonesty and poor quality.
·Constant delays and no shows. For example, this was par for the course..."We'll be there Monday morning. No show. Call Wednesday and inquire, told they would be there Friday. No show Friday. Down payment made in January, build did not start until early September (partially covid delays, see more below), finished 13 weeks later for a total of 11 months which could have been much less given all the issues below.
· Owner doesn't live in the area. That's neither here nor there, but, if you're expecting local ownership, this isn't the case. Moreover, this wouldn't be an issue if the owner had a clue what was happening onsite. On multiple occasions, I had to explain to the owner and his wife when they thought they were ready to wrap up that it wasn't close to being done and listing off all the remaining tasks. All of which was a surprise to them. For example, all the quality issues listed below existed when they asked for final payment. Bad relationships and communications with their onsite workers lead to massive incompetence.
· Owner called me up when they were about a month in and ~90% complete to ask for an advance on their final payment to cover his payroll. Feeling bad for the workers, I obliged. All workers except the foreman quit after getting paid. It took 2 more months to finish the final 10% and to fix quality issues.
· Quality issues: The following issues leave me worried that I won't have issues downstream and if I do, they won't fix. I caught many quality issues I can see. Are there ones I can't see?
o When they said they were done, I did my own inspection of the work and found a bunch of planks not fully bolted down, jagged cuts, unaligned gaps, and just weird issues with siding and old pieces of the deck not removed.
o A railing was leaning up against a light pushing the light to an angle. This is a measurement issue for the deck, they had to redo a section by shaving off 1/2 inch to fix. I'm the one that had to point the issue which is absurd. How do you not see this as you're doing it?
o Railing was installed flush next to old decking that wasn't fully demo'd. They literally left some old pieces of the deck with exposed nails on when the railing company came and installed the rails. Neither the decking folks or the railing folks considered this a problem. They had to fix it and now two side railings reach the house with different lengths. Off by a couple inches. From a distance, its not noticeable, but, looking up close looks unprofessional.
o Screws in the driveway. I asked multiple times for them to ensure no screws were in the driveway as I have run flat tires (a puncture equals 4 new tires). I'm still unsure why screws were in the driveway when the work is happening elsewhere on the property. I gave up on the workers doing the right thing and scanned the driveway every day to remove screws.
· Disrespect of my property. A worker took a shovel out of my garage without asking and then left it in the grass for days. I don't care about a shovel, but, don't take client's things without asking and misuse them. I still wonder if they took other things that I'm not aware of.
· Sales rep's communication was abysmal and a sign of things to come.
o COVID had delays to both engineering work and city permits. No problem with that, however, when the sales rep over promises something like completing drawings in 2 weeks and 2 months go by without informing the client, that's incompetence.
o I ended up having to call the city on his behalf to move things along. Note, the owner said engineering work usually is done within a week, it took 4 months.
o Things I asked to ensure happen, like laying down weed tarp on the grass where new decking is going, never got communicated to the workers.
· No clean up was done. I still have planks with mud on them and finding random screws in the yard. I found another loose plank. When I informed the owner, he said he had no workers to complete this. I have no faith it will be done.
· Workers all hated the owner and voiced their opinion regularly. Why would you tell the client this? It must have been so toxic that they couldn't help but talk openly about it.
· With all the delays, lying, disrespect and quality issues, the owner brings up offering me a partial refund to compensate me. This was his idea and ultimately, he offered $400 out of the $60k spent right after bragging he had $2M is open projects. Something doesn't add up here. He has $2M is open projects, yet, can't cover payroll or offer a reasonable compensation?
· Finally, I told the owner to keep his $400 refund, it was such an insignificant offer. I mentioned that I was writing this review. He hung up on me, told his only worker (the foreman) to "do the bare minimum" to wrap things up. The foreman told me this and then quit the following week. read more