Brian Gregory Opp Design & Construction

Brian is a likeable person, and a neighbor.  He is licensed #5-822134, he had remodeled his own house and we went to see his work. We checked that his license was current and there were no complaints on it.  We signed his standard work and material contract.  He gave a an estimate of $104,000 to $125,000 for his side of project.  Up to us to decide how much we spent on appliances, fixtures, floor finishes, etc.  which would be our additional expense.  Demolition began late 1/2013 early 2/13.  Removed 1 fireplace, 4 patio doors and 8 windows, removed one interior wall (opening kitchen to living room), gutted the kitchen and 2 bathrooms.  Dug a trench from kitchen and two bathrooms to front of house to install new sewage lines to street.  New cement foundation & framing of  new  5'x8' pantry.  In March, we noticed that the roofing material used on the pantry didn't match the existing material.  When we asked Brian,  he said the roof would not look the same because one section was old and the other had new material. We kept on telling him that it was not the same quality or thickness in the material that looked so different.  He kept on saying it looked the same to him.  So, it took us hours of running around looking at roofing materials to prove to Brian that he had purchased a lesser material (30 year) vs lifetime that was already on roof.  After we found the correct roofing material he apologized and said it was an honest mistake on his part.  This wasn't the first time that we pointed out a discrepancy, we had had quite a few discrepancies in the drawing of the existing blueprints.  Wrong size of doors or windows, drawn in wrong locations.  Everytime we pointed at another error, Brian would correct one error, but leave out most other errors.  Every change to the blueprints cost us plenty.    By March we knew that "billing" was his specialty!  At $65.00/per hour, plus 15% supervision fee (yes that's correct, Brian charges to supervise himself),  the hours continued adding up.  Every visit to the City for permits or changes cost us hundreds.  The final straw came when we got to the new electrical upgrades.  When we signed with Brian he said he didn't have any staff, that's why he didn't have to pay any workmen's sompensation insurance.  Not true.  He has two assistants, for which he charges $35.00/per hour + 15% fee.  He had told us that he hired subcontractors to do the work.  In March Brian decided that "he" wanted to bid on the electrical job, he didn't want to deal with the electrical subcontractors, we were running behing schedule, plus he could do it for a lot less than the contractor and he said he had an electrical license too.  He'd charge $12,000 vs $16,000 for electrical contractor, we said ok.  A few days later, we went down to SC (we live in L.A) on the weekend.  We're not electricians, but know a low quality job when we see one!  It turned out that Brian doesn't have a separate electrical license ony a general contractors license.   We had had enough, we had spent $85,000 and were not even 1/4 in completion in the remodel.   Thank God, that the "time and material" contract that Brian had had us sign had a cancellation clause.  We lost 3 months looking for a new contractor to take over our remodel.  On July 2, 2013 we resumed construction.  We thought that we were done with Brian Opp.  It turned out that we were not done spending money with the micky mouse work that Brian had done.  It turned out that the existing house blueprints still had a couple of errors.  When we followed Brian's blue print door schedule, we ended up with two wrong size doors. Unbelievable! This guy couldn't even correctly measure existing doors for the blueprints to present to the city for permits, and we spent $20,000 for these prints.  Also, sadly, the few items that had been upgraded in the house under Opp's supervision had to be "corrected".   Our new contractor kept on saying, "well it was probably not your old contractor who did this work, it was probably a young assistant who didn't know how to frame yet".   We were too embarrased to say anything to Mr. Villegas our new general contractor.  It's hard to admit that two older adults with plenty of remodel experience got taken to the cleaners by the likes of Brian.  Our children asked us, but didn't you see his work? of course, we went to see his house, and saw his extensive 2nd story remodel, it looked great.  In retrospect, we should have paid the 15% supervision fee to Mrs. Opp, she obviously woundn't  put up with his shoddy workmanship at their house.   Bottom line about Brian Gregory Opp Design & Contstruction,  Beware!  Expensive and not worth it.