Montclair Construction

I was very satisfied with his work. He showed up when he was supposed to show up and he did the job like he was supposed to do the job.

They put color in it. It looked half wet and half dry. They told me it would look better once it dried but two years later  it still looks awful. They also removed a step before they concurred with me. I was disappointed with that and they did the work in the rain. After I signed the contract, they added on an additional fee for the portable toilets for their workers. I told them I would not pay that and there were no problems. They did not charge me. The overall fee seemed expensive for the work performed.

My wife and I will never hire Monclair Construction again. We signed a contract and gave them a check for $1000.00 in November 2010. Then nothing happened until March 2011. Robert the estimator and Tony the construction foreman came over in early March 2011 to measure the windows and draw how the new windows would open. On March 26th, we gave them a $40,600.00 check to order the windows. Then Monclair started jackhammering the garage floor. After they removed the material, they hired an engineer to design the replacement floor. The original garage replacement contract was $5,000.00. After the engineer's plans, the contract was rewritten for $30,000.00. Yes, 6 times the original contract. Then at the end of April, Robert came by and asked for more money. I said, "No, I will not give you another dime until you order the windows or finish the garage." The next week the windows were ordered and the garage was finished. The windows did not arrive at a nearby warehouse until after July 4, 2011. Remember we signed a contract in November, 2010!
When the first window was replaced, I looked at it and said, "It opens the wrong way." Then foreman took me over to the warehouse and I discovered EVERY window opened the wrong way! Robert ordered every opening window to open the wrong way! So we insisted that Montclair reorder the opening windows. But they only reordered the single opening windows. Every large unit that had more than one window was NEVER reordered. The owner, Carlo, of Montclair took our lead estimator, Robert, off the job and took over. Carlo was worse than Robert. One day Carlo brought Robert, and the foreman Tony over to figure out the backward window problem. Robert admitted it was his fault, so I bet that was why he was replaced! Carlo said that he would have his men put in the "good" windows then we could pay him or someone to come back and replace the dry rot, termite, beetle wood. I said, "No" He repeated his idea. I again said, "NO". Carlo repeated his idea again about putting in the windows before fixing the plywood and framing under the plywood. I turned to Robert and Tony and said, "Which part of No doesn't he understand?"
Now it was Sept. 2011. We wanted all of our windows that we had paid back in March to be on our property. But the warehouse people told us that Montclair owner, Carlo, had taken (kidnapped) the windows and drove them to another warehouse. I told Carlo to deliver the windows to our garage. He said that we owe him money. I agreed and he told me the price and it was $3200.00 more than I calculated. He said he would deliver the windows to our door Sept. 7th at 3:00 p.m.
At that day and time he rang the door bell. I asked, ?Where are the windows?? Carlo replied, ?They are right behind me.? I told him, ?When the windows arrive ring the bell again.? I then closed the door leaving him on the front porch. He went down to his truck which was parked in front of our garage. He sat in his truck with the motor running and the AC ( it was about 80 degrees that day) on for two hours waiting for the windows that were ?right behind him?. I mean two hours. He sat in his truck from 3:00 until 5:00 with the motor and AC running. Finally the truck with the windows arrived. I jumped up on the truck and inspected the windows. Then I said, ?Put them in the garage. He replied, ?Give me the check.? I said, ?Not until the windows are in the garage.? He said, ?No?
I jumped down from the truck and picked up the smallest window. He was on the truck bed and grabbed the plastic covering the window. He asked me, ?Where are you going?? I told him the garage. He yelled, ?No?. I tore the window out of his grip and yelled even louder, ?Yes!? As I was walking to the garage Carlo told the driver to, ?wrap them up and drive away.? So he kidnapped the windows twice!
Carlo then sat on our front stairs and said to my wife and I, ?I know they are your windows, but I?m just trying to help!? When he said that for the 3rd time I said nothing and walked away. How could I listen to someone who just lies! Nadine worked out a deal with Carlo. We would meet the next day Sept 8th at his place of business and sign an agreement on how the windows would be delivered.
The next day we showed up and I noticed right away that the windows had been transferred to a different truck. That meant that Carlo kidnapped (window napped) the windows out of warehouse onto a truck. Probably moved them into a warehouse. Then back onto a truck for the ride on Sept. 7th. Transferred them onto another truck that night, then back onto another truck for the final ride to our house on the 8th. Not good for wooden windows!
We all agreed that Carlo would deliver the windows and after each window unit that went into the garage, we would give him a $1000.00 check. But he did not trust us, so she had to go get bank checks. While we were in the office my wife had the sect. print out a letter stating that Carlo and Robert could not step foot on our property as long as we owned the house. And they signed it! Like it was normal business! I could not believe it, but Carlo wanted his money, he would have signed anything.
That afternoon he arrived with 3 workers and Robert. Carlo did not want to accept the checks from us so he had Robert do it. I opened the garage door, the 3 workers carried the first unit into the garage. Carlo asked for the first check and I said, ?My wife is at the bank because you would not accept our check.? So Carlo would not allow another window to go in. So I said, ?Fine? closed the garage door and walked up the stairs to our house and left him (and the others) waiting for my wife. So for the second time in two days Carlo sat outside our house waiting! I guess he had to pay the workers for their time, but knowing him and hearing the really bad stories about Carlo, I believe he shorted them on their time sheets. Then my wife arrived, I opened the door again and we got the windows. The last window group was the largest unit. It was our large living room picture window with two windows on either side that opened. The plastic was all torn up and pulled up the sides. Like a skirt that should be down around your ankles, but torn and pulled above your knees. I asked my wife to get the camera and as I was waiting, Carlo pulled the plastic down, as I was yelling at him, ?You don?t know how to treat windows at all?.
Then I kicked Carlo out of the garage and was finally rid of the worst construction company my wife and I have ever dealt with.

The job dragged on for over five months, due to problems with permits and with the contractor. Work did not pass the inspection and had to be re-done. I did not understand why the job was taking so long. Change orders on the original job brought the cost up very high, and we felt pressure to continue the work because it had already begun and we were convinced by Montclair that it was necessary.
Then, in December, 2012, we began experiencing backups in the exterior drainage that Montclair had installed. We were unable to resolve the problem with plumbers, so we called Montclair back to try to get them to resolve it.
Montclair offered to tear up the paving that they had done to attempt to find the blockage, at no cost. Based on our previous
experience, we were unwilling to trust that the job would not 'grow' into another expensive repair after the sidewalk was torn up, so we
declined to have them make the attempt. We decided to go with another contractor,

The roof replacement was amateurish at best. The workmanship is second rate. If you care what a project looks like when it is finished,
go elsewhere.

The estimator was on time.  He listened to what I wanted, and took measurements.  He said he would mail an estimate, and I received it about a week later.  It was very high - about double another estimate I received.  I decided not to proceed.

I haven't totally decided yet to grade the work and I need to take another look at the side walk to see i am happy with their work. The work seemed to be okay and they were going to give the cost of the affordable toilet in front and which I didn't agree to it later. I didn't pay for the extra work and I haven't heard any more form them about constructing the toilet. The final payment I had already made a check out and I didn't have any more blank checks to pay them. I suppose they assumed that I would pay them later for the work. I didn't sign on the contract and it was not they in my original contract to get the toilet done and I told them that I was not responsible to pay. After all this I didn't receive any more information and bills about it. Thy had sent out lot of flyers and I had considered using them years ago and they were two high in their price at that time. They were canvassing the area and it was just a spur of moment thing that I decided to go with them because I knew the water has been coming for long time so I went ahead with them. They had removed one small step that I wasn't expecting it to be removed and the error was done. They put in a drain right outside of the door and I don't know why they put the drain in first place which never was there in last sixty years. I don't know if they are normally supposed to put the drain and I don't why it had to be there and I would definitely like to find out in future. The price was high never compared it with others. They were right on time and early to work. I will not use them in future.

1-20-15 This is an update.  The telephone transcription of the above was not very accurate. The reference to the workmen's toilet was a miner part of the deal. It was one of those sidewalk blue portable toilets that workmen use. It had not been previously stated on the proposal that I would pay for that, and so I did not. The main problem was that I had them put in a new sidewalk by the side of my house. Some color was added to the cement. It did not dry properly.  I continued to have the look of  partially dried cement two years later.  That was my complaint.  Montclair called me to correct the problem, and after much searching, they found someone to paint over the sidewalk.  It looks much better now, but recently someone almost slipped when it was wet, so I don't think the proper kind of paint was applied. And an even more annoying problem was the fact that i wanted no steps on the sidewalk, but I didn't mean at the end, where a normal step would be expected. I guess I didn't make that clear to them.  I just assumed that was understood.  The way they finished it looked amateurish. They would not redo the step without further pay.  I am now having it redone properly by another service.  They tried to fix the problem, so for that I will give them a B rating, because it is slippery when wet.

We called Montclair Construction to repair a water leak in our living room. The leak affected some plaster molding work and re-plastering of walls. Once the project team provided us the estimate, we elected to have them do some additional work replacing metal window frames and installing French Doors off the dining room. The entire project was to take three weeks. By the time they finally cleaned up their suppllies and left, it was nearly 12 weeks later. In the course of our project, MC fired their primary project manager - the one who made significant promises to us about re-painting, professional cleaning and schedules. Everything we had in writing, we held them to. They sub-contracted most of the work, and as the project wore on they quit paying the subcontractor saying that he had gone over budget. Meanwhile, I had a sub contractor who's schedule was erratic. Who brought day laborers in and out on a regular basis and who didn't seem very experienced. As evidenced by the night he landed in jail and delayed the project a few more days. When the team began installing the french doors, they had to take up some boards from my deck. They then offered to update the boards on the entire deck. I agreed. The first set of replacement boards that went down were only 1 inch thick. I had to demand that they be pulled up and replaced. After all the work was done, I learned that my original boards had been mahogany (I was a new home owner) and that the subcontractors had in essence stolen them right out from under me. As the project dragged on, I had to monitor and harass both the project manager and Montclair Construction almost daily. I was continuously told that they were way over budget and that they would not be addressing any more details: carpet cleaning, professional cleaning of my house from dust and dirt. All things that were promised to me. Let along broken light fixtures. When the work was finally done and the painting was initiated, the subcontractor brought in laborers to do the work. They put the wrong finishes on the wall and trim (flat on trim, acrylic on wall). I could only get Montclair Construction to pay for the cost of new paint to repair the work, and not for the cost of the professional painter. We ultimately tried to take the paint cost (about $1000) to court, only to have the professional painter (that MC recommended finally) arrive and refute our claim that we had hired him to repair the originally faulty painting. The whole process was a nightmare.

They came on the appointed day (the salesman showed up, late) and the engineer said he would recommend helical piers for our foundation. One week later we get a scratched up piece of paper attached to a contract for $70,000 to do the work. No report was included. We didn't trust them and have since hired another engineer. We learned that helical piers are NOT safe on a hillside. Montclair was going to charge us $70K for a solution that wasn't sound. The contract was also completely out of line - they, of course, want to pass on the risk to their clients. I wouldn't recommend them; they will tell you anything to get the work.

The estimator forgot his flashlight, and borrowed one from my fianc e who was at the house. He did not go under the house, he only looked in the crawl space and immediately decided I needed a new foundation. He then told this to my fianc e this and scared her to death. Then, he sent me an estimate for $70,000 for replacement of the foundation and seismic retrofit. He called me twice asking for the wrong person (had me confused with another client I guess, not too professional). Anyway, I had three other estimates after that, all of which told me that I had a 90 year old foundation, but there was no need for replacement and they could retrofit with the existing foundation. The other three estimates were all in line, in the $8,000 - $12,000 range. I'd take an estimate from Montclair construction with a serious grain of salt. I think that Montclair construction's estimate is at best overly cautious, and at worst outright fraud.

The workers were very efficient and conscientious. They came early (7am) and left late(7pm) but were not intrusive or loud. We continued our daily routine uninterrupted. They were very kind to our curious 5 year old, but were sure to caution him (and us)about the dangers of the work area. They covered the ditches well and cleaned up the yard each night. We worked with Robert Jarratt. He was very informative and patient. He gave us well informed options (and how each would effect pricing) and let us decide the best plan of attack.

THE JOB TURNED OUT TO BE MORE DIFFICULT THAN EXPECTED. ORIGINALLY ESTIMATED TO BE COMPLETED IN 5 HOURS; IT TOOK 12. THE WORKERS HAD TO COME THROUGH A CARPETED ROOM TO GET TO THE AREA UNDER THE HOUSE. THEY WERE VERY RESPECTFUL OF THE ENVIRONMENT; LAID DOWN EXTRA PLASTIC TO WALK OVER TO NOT STAIN THE CARPETING. THE DIRT REMOVED TO MAKE WAY FOR THE CATCH DRAIN WAS BROUGHT OUT THROUGH THE SAME ROOM. YOU WOULD NOT HAVE KNOWN IT, THEY WERE THAT RESPECTFUL AND CAREFUL. THE LEAD, ROBERTO, EXPLAINED EVERYTHING TO ME AS THEY WORKED THEIR WAY THROUGH THE PROJECT.

AS SOON AS I SIGNED THE CONTRACT, A TEAM CAME OUT AND TARPED THE HOUSE TO PREVENT FURTHER WATER DAMAGE. HOWEVER, I WAS ONLY PROVIDED 24 HOURS NOTICE BEFORE THE START OF THE REMOVING OF EXISTING ROOF. DUE TO CATHEDRAL CEILINGS THROUGHOUT THE HOUSE, THE WORKERS ASSISTED ME IN GETTING EVERYTHING COVERED PRIOR TO TEAR-OFF STARTING. THE JOB TOOK 4 DAYS. EACH DAY THE GUYS WERE VERY PUNCTUAL. THEY WORKED HARD ALL DAY LONG. EACH EVENING THEY CLEANUP UP BEFORE LEAVING. THEY EVEN HELPED INSIDE CLEANUP EACH DAY ALLOWING US TO REMAIN IN THE HOUSE DURING THE JOB. THREE DAYS AFTER THE JOB COMPLETED WE HAD A BAD RAIN STORM. NO PROBLEMS SURFACED.