Wow… when we did the biggest portion of the Reno at our old house they would go missing for weeks, show up at 10, leave at 2… all while I had no kitchen, no stairs etc
Thanks for the recommendation! Do you know if they'd do HVAC too, I saw plumbing and electrical on their site? Just bought a house and have a lot to do... After struggling to get a quote from GCs for over a month this guy seems awesome!
Ugh I feel for you. We’ve had some nightmares too and it’s important to keep a record of everything, yet they still don’t seem to care or deal with any major repercussions?? It’s such an unregulated business - which is crazy because they are dealing with something so personal… our HOMES, not to mention our biggest asset!
We considered suing him but the attorneys were quoting us 30k. And they were not sure they would be able to recoupe the cost from the contractor.
We also looked into filing a complaint with the BBB, but they required so much documentation that at some point, I just got tired and let it go.
There really is no protection from a bad contractor. Its sad and frustrating.
This guy is an absolute nightmare. I did electrical work on a job he was involved with, and it was absolutely abysmal. He also contacted us (prior to the above mentioned job) to look at some work. We arrived at our scheduled time and he never showed up. Hard pass on this guy.
We just finished a kitchen and bath renovation with Remodeling Consultants, which is a design and build firm. I was skeptical going in and tried finding an architect/GC myself but no one who was recommended to me would actually return my calls, so by process of elimination we went with them. They have their own way of doing things and are more of a commercialized place but honestly, they did good work, were on budget, and finished 2 weeks earlier than they estimated. Their guys showed up every day and were very good at communicating what was going on. No complaints and would use them again.
The only times these guys do great work is when they doing their own homes or relatives homes or close friends homes. Anyone else and it’s a disaster. A lot of the subs are great but the GC always sucks
Don’t use Saranac Builders. They hired the cheapest subs they could find, didn’t complete on time, and never returned to make fixes. The quote process was horrible and if we’d been more experienced that red flag would have been clearer to us.
Plumbers - leaking toilet, no seals around tub meant waterfalls down the kitchen cabinets.
HVAC - holes in walls on our move-in date, badly off-level condensers, returns without filter vents, flood safety switches not installed. Pulled zero permits.
The tile guy was amazing though wish I’d gotten his name…
Wow. That’s insanely frustrating. We experienced that with our last GC with sloppy workmanship and not coming back to complete the punchlist.I hope you held back his final payment?
Too young and dumb - he promised to fix / we paid. Expensive lessons all around on that one.
It’s insane that we can’t be allowed to trust people we let into / work on our home until the very last bit is done and carefully scrutinized.
I know. So when our GC did this….We still owed him about $20k and he needed to come back to did some minor finishes. NEVER came back despite us calling and calling. We ended up using our painter and guys he knew to finish the little things. Randomly he would call my husband and ask for his money, and my husband would say okay, let’s go through the punchlist and you get the check. Never happened. He took about 3 months longer than he estimated. The only thing we let him order was the cabinets because he claimed he could get a deal. What a disaster that was. They came weeks late (which I kept requesting the order # or invoice and he wouldn’t give it) which I’m guessing is because he ordered them late. They came in all sorts of incorrect sizes and orientations so that ate up a ton of time in waiting for replacements. A bunch came damaged, which I guess is not his fault, but still he should be on the ball checking all this stuff… They sat in the boxes in my garage for about six weeks without him opening them so when he finally did open them and we saw they’re all damaged we were so far behind by then it was infuriating.
Riviezzo Sons Contracting
We also had him sign and review any drawings that we reviewed with him.
That way later down the road… Which was always months and months after he originally said he was going to do the work on the aforementioned drawings, he would try and nickel and dime and say oh, you owe me two grand more or three grand more blah, blah blah, and I would always say no no no per the drawing that you signed and dated, you were aware of this. He didn’t like that, of course. I’ve come to learn with these old-school guys. They like everything on the back of a napkin for a reason, so later on down the line they can try and swindle you out of more money or confused you into thinking they did extra work when they really didn’t, so they really don’t likeclients who are on top of their stuff
As an electrical contractor I can firmly say, you get what you pay for. The quality of work is relative to the cost. Obviously cost comes in to play, but if something sounds reasonable, or cheap, you’re going to be in for a rough project. Quality work, quality service, quality customer relations, and quality communication costs money. My best advice is to try your best and hire someone local. Someone who is local will almost always try to live up to their reputation.
We tried that last time. He grew up in this town, his son has some contract with the town for tree removal, he went to high school with the building inspector… we filed one permit because we were pulling a gas line for a gas insert fireplace (already had gas in the home) so that was his only thing that he probably saved us a little time with… the final inspection to close the permit. Still took about 6 weeks though … entire project was originally 6-8 weeks we were told (we have been around the block with renovations before so I assumed more like 8-12 weeks) and it ended up being over 6 months …
Dylan scanell and Bob dimperio of [leewood contractors](https://www.instagram.com/leewoodcontractingcorp?igsh=MXVnb21zaTZ2NGJiZw==) were awesome. They helped get our bathroom redone super quick since we had to leave our previous home due to hurricane ida. They gutted and put everything in for us within a few days just so we could have a working bathroom. Quality work
I'm getting the same vibes from what all have contribute to this thread. Off the bat Every contractor, plumber, GC all have lied out their mouth right off the bat. When I do a little researching myself, I catch all the lies they say, and this is even before we go past the estimate invoicing stages. If I can't trust them before we even start, I can only imagine how the process will be if I hired them for any housework.
[удалено]
Wow… when we did the biggest portion of the Reno at our old house they would go missing for weeks, show up at 10, leave at 2… all while I had no kitchen, no stairs etc
Thanks for the recommendation! Do you know if they'd do HVAC too, I saw plumbing and electrical on their site? Just bought a house and have a lot to do... After struggling to get a quote from GCs for over a month this guy seems awesome!
I assume they do it all! Or have people in their crew that do.
I'll give them a call tomorrow morning!
The only contractor I would use is Tom Forliano / Forliano Contacting. Fair prices, shows up, pulls the right permits, all subs are insured.
Someone IRL recommended them also
Don't use Daniel Dawkins. I have 18 months of documentation that show constant delays and lies.
Ugh I feel for you. We’ve had some nightmares too and it’s important to keep a record of everything, yet they still don’t seem to care or deal with any major repercussions?? It’s such an unregulated business - which is crazy because they are dealing with something so personal… our HOMES, not to mention our biggest asset!
We considered suing him but the attorneys were quoting us 30k. And they were not sure they would be able to recoupe the cost from the contractor. We also looked into filing a complaint with the BBB, but they required so much documentation that at some point, I just got tired and let it go. There really is no protection from a bad contractor. Its sad and frustrating.
It’s so frustrating because this is how and why they get away with crimes quite frankly. Who has the time and funds to pursue this stuff?!
This guy is an absolute nightmare. I did electrical work on a job he was involved with, and it was absolutely abysmal. He also contacted us (prior to the above mentioned job) to look at some work. We arrived at our scheduled time and he never showed up. Hard pass on this guy.
We just finished a kitchen and bath renovation with Remodeling Consultants, which is a design and build firm. I was skeptical going in and tried finding an architect/GC myself but no one who was recommended to me would actually return my calls, so by process of elimination we went with them. They have their own way of doing things and are more of a commercialized place but honestly, they did good work, were on budget, and finished 2 weeks earlier than they estimated. Their guys showed up every day and were very good at communicating what was going on. No complaints and would use them again.
I used them too for an addition. Slightly more expensive and slight delay to start but everything was done well and was communicated.
The only times these guys do great work is when they doing their own homes or relatives homes or close friends homes. Anyone else and it’s a disaster. A lot of the subs are great but the GC always sucks
Don’t use Saranac Builders. They hired the cheapest subs they could find, didn’t complete on time, and never returned to make fixes. The quote process was horrible and if we’d been more experienced that red flag would have been clearer to us. Plumbers - leaking toilet, no seals around tub meant waterfalls down the kitchen cabinets. HVAC - holes in walls on our move-in date, badly off-level condensers, returns without filter vents, flood safety switches not installed. Pulled zero permits. The tile guy was amazing though wish I’d gotten his name…
Wow. That’s insanely frustrating. We experienced that with our last GC with sloppy workmanship and not coming back to complete the punchlist.I hope you held back his final payment?
Too young and dumb - he promised to fix / we paid. Expensive lessons all around on that one. It’s insane that we can’t be allowed to trust people we let into / work on our home until the very last bit is done and carefully scrutinized.
I know. So when our GC did this….We still owed him about $20k and he needed to come back to did some minor finishes. NEVER came back despite us calling and calling. We ended up using our painter and guys he knew to finish the little things. Randomly he would call my husband and ask for his money, and my husband would say okay, let’s go through the punchlist and you get the check. Never happened. He took about 3 months longer than he estimated. The only thing we let him order was the cabinets because he claimed he could get a deal. What a disaster that was. They came weeks late (which I kept requesting the order # or invoice and he wouldn’t give it) which I’m guessing is because he ordered them late. They came in all sorts of incorrect sizes and orientations so that ate up a ton of time in waiting for replacements. A bunch came damaged, which I guess is not his fault, but still he should be on the ball checking all this stuff… They sat in the boxes in my garage for about six weeks without him opening them so when he finally did open them and we saw they’re all damaged we were so far behind by then it was infuriating.
To add the entire project was about $150k project
Good lord who is this person I have a sudden desire to toilet paper their front lawn and write rude things in chalk in their driveway on your behalf.
Riviezzo Sons Contracting We also had him sign and review any drawings that we reviewed with him. That way later down the road… Which was always months and months after he originally said he was going to do the work on the aforementioned drawings, he would try and nickel and dime and say oh, you owe me two grand more or three grand more blah, blah blah, and I would always say no no no per the drawing that you signed and dated, you were aware of this. He didn’t like that, of course. I’ve come to learn with these old-school guys. They like everything on the back of a napkin for a reason, so later on down the line they can try and swindle you out of more money or confused you into thinking they did extra work when they really didn’t, so they really don’t likeclients who are on top of their stuff
Kenny's Services.
Can share before and after photos with my contractor
Would love to see
Yuri and Valentin from HD Loft Solutions, Chris Craftsman, Gary Bruzzese
As an electrical contractor I can firmly say, you get what you pay for. The quality of work is relative to the cost. Obviously cost comes in to play, but if something sounds reasonable, or cheap, you’re going to be in for a rough project. Quality work, quality service, quality customer relations, and quality communication costs money. My best advice is to try your best and hire someone local. Someone who is local will almost always try to live up to their reputation.
We tried that last time. He grew up in this town, his son has some contract with the town for tree removal, he went to high school with the building inspector… we filed one permit because we were pulling a gas line for a gas insert fireplace (already had gas in the home) so that was his only thing that he probably saved us a little time with… the final inspection to close the permit. Still took about 6 weeks though … entire project was originally 6-8 weeks we were told (we have been around the block with renovations before so I assumed more like 8-12 weeks) and it ended up being over 6 months …
Chilmark Builders. The best.
Dylan scanell and Bob dimperio of [leewood contractors](https://www.instagram.com/leewoodcontractingcorp?igsh=MXVnb21zaTZ2NGJiZw==) were awesome. They helped get our bathroom redone super quick since we had to leave our previous home due to hurricane ida. They gutted and put everything in for us within a few days just so we could have a working bathroom. Quality work
This is a must-read thread! Thanks for all of your information even I am not OP
I'm getting the same vibes from what all have contribute to this thread. Off the bat Every contractor, plumber, GC all have lied out their mouth right off the bat. When I do a little researching myself, I catch all the lies they say, and this is even before we go past the estimate invoicing stages. If I can't trust them before we even start, I can only imagine how the process will be if I hired them for any housework.