Armstrong Drywall

Arrived promptly & got to work. Guys did not speak much English but Bob the owner came to help get them started. My first red flag was that Bob initially gave me a quote & contract for a level 5 smooth finish but on the start day brought another contract which stated a level 4 finish. When questioned he said not to worry, it was just 'industry' speak & level 4 & 5 were the same finish. Hmmm. Ok, did a bit of research & questioned him again as I found differing opinions but he told me that he had his best guys on the job & that I would be very pleased. At the end of the first day, I came through to find one of the guys standing on an upturned bucket on top of a trestle table whilst also hanging on to my chandelier for balance. They had forgotten to bring their tall ladders & despite offering them the use of mine, having told them that what they were doing was not safe, they said 'it's ok, we bring ladders tomorrow - almost done for today'. They came back the following day to finish off the taping and jointing. I had told them that they could only leave a 1/4 gap by the beams in my vaulted ceiling as I was having the beams 'beefed' out but in some areas it was almost an inch. I also queried the two horizontal lines which ran all the way down my back feature wall but again was told these would not be visible once they had been sanded. They left everything to dry out for a day and came back a day later. They asked if they could start at 7.30am which was fine. Arrived promptly, but I didn't realize they would be starting up power tools that early in the am, & I told them they would have to wait until 8.30am to use their power tools as I live in a HOA and the rules state no noise prior to 8.30am. Clearly because of the language barrier, they did not understand me. Turns out they thought I'd said they couldn't use their power sander at all & spent the day sanding by hand! Bob turned up around 4.30 & asked why they couldn't use their power tools. (They had called him first thing but Bob didn't think to call me & query it, so we could have cleared that up quite easily!) As a result, the sanding was mediocre at best. I had to get them back to re-sand the two 18' horizontal lines that were standing proud the length of my wall & also to fix a few other areas which were either proud or had big gaps. (e.g around power sockets). To be fair they came back & took care of what I asked them to but it wasn't until painting started that I realized that there were still many areas that were sub standard. All in all I would say the finish on most of the walls is fair at best, but certainly not level 5. A lot of the internal corners are bumpy & there is still an orange peel effect on my feature wall. I also had an area above my fireplace that stuck out & ran at a funny angle. When I tried sanding it to level it out it just started crumbling so I took a photo & emailed Bob. I never heard back. Bottom line, I would not use these guys again. They were nice enough but just not skilled enough. I maintain that despite Bob telling me I was getting his best guys, I actually got a 3rd party team that I imagine he farms work out to when he is busy as these guys were based in San Jose. Very disappointed with the results.