M in East York

UPDATE 30 May 2011 ---> Steve H came back in April to replace the flashing on the back of the house. At this time he also offered to pay for materials to replace the ceiling in this part of the house as well. Today, Steve has come through with his word on materials. Cheers Steve! It was the hottest time on the summer (beginning of July). The guys always showed up late instead of taking advantage of the cooler mornings and then complain about working in the heat. They were sloppy. I still have large nails in the side of my house and a hole in the metal soffit where they would either nail in a tarp or hang their shirts/towels. Initially we all thought the back roof would need all the boards to be replaced. This was not the case but was still done b/c it was agreed that it would "most likely" need to be. The new boards were not fitted to the edge of roof neatly and there are not big gaps that I have to close up. When ripping up the boards on the front porch roof, the guys didn't notice they busted a support beam. To keep them working, my partner and I fixed this before they arrived the next day. The flashing on the lower roof attached to the house was re-used. It should have been replaced. It was basically swiss cheese. A few months later there was a rain storm and water came into the house. I called Steve to tell him about it as "Workmanship is Guaranteed for 5 Years". When he finally returned my phone call he was not very nice about what I had to tell him and didn't even come to take a look. I ended up getting some roofing glue/caulk from home depot and filled in all the holes myself. ALL these guys are usually very nice and polite. I was shocked to say the least. I don't like confrontation and should take these guys to small claims court but I'm not like that. I should be.

Prep of the house was to be completed in 2 days per quote. This "was" to include a powerwash with TSP, bleach & detergent, Scrape and Sand all areas to solid base, repair damaged caulking and putty. Full prime on all brown areas (our house was brown on the house, front porch, etc). The guys came in and said there wasn't enough time to powerwash, they barely scraped until the second day when my husband showed Ben Sun that scraping didn't happen. They were very sloppy with the painting as well. They did not use drop cloths. I have more to add but I've said enough. The positive i can say is that they are all very nice men. When i told Ben i was going to paint my window frames a 'yellow hue' he gave me a pint of yellow prime to put on the windows. (Free of charge b/c it was leftover from another job). I realize this was the rainiest summer on record. There for they were running behind. Ben had to come and finish the work "in order to make a profit" which he informed me that he "lost $300" on this job.. HOW?!?! they didn't even do 1/3rd of what they said they would!?!?

I called to have the drain the in the basement augured. Water and leaf litter were coming up after a big rainstorm. Right away Armondo could see that there was all dirt not far down the drain. The pipe had collapsed. Once we were able to get a camera in there we could see more cracks in the pipe and it was disheveled in other places. Also the 'breather' on the outside had collapsed as well. These guys were clean, efficient and complete gentlemen. They kept me up to date with everything they were doing at every step and why they were doing it.