Kerr Construction

Kerr Construction is amazing. They are artists and craftsmen and they have incredible integrity. I had used them previously to rebuild my 120 year old house to make it look like it was still 120 years old. When I needed to do a conversion of a room into a family room due to illness, I wouldn't have considered calling anybody else except them, because I wanted it to look like the rest of the house, which was just so beautiful and a work of art. In the world of construction, as anyone who's built a house can attest, that it's not just about the work that's done at the time. It's about whether or not they will be there if there's a problem. And there's always going to be a problem, because general contractors are dealing with many subcontractors and there's only a certain amount of control that they have. At the end of the day, you have to have somebody that will stand by you if there's a problem and will handle the subcontractors with integrity and will make sure that everything is put right and that's what Jeff Kerr and his company does.

The construction period had delays, not due to contractor fault. The quality of work done was very good overall. The major issue for me was the painting contractor. He worked in the house independently without supervision during the end of his tasks. We returned to the house a week or so after all work was complete, with the painting being the last. A week after our return a drain that exits only from our unit (we live in a two unit condo) began to leak into a neighbor's property. White "gunk" was flowing out of the drain. We asked Teevan Restoration, a respected contractor and maintenance service that we have used for many years, to clean out the drain. They discovered paint residue, including a great deal of light colored and white latex based paint. This paint had clumped with a variety of other residue in the drain, and had clogged it. We incurred $3,800 expense cleaning out this drain. 

I reported this incident to Jeff Kerr, head of Kerr Construction, and forwarded photographs of the damage. I said that I had incurred expense cleaning this up, that it had to be his painting contractor disposing incorrectly of residue from the paint job, and that I thought at least the painting contractor should be given corrective instrucition from Jeff or that he should stop using this sub. I heard nothing for over three weeks and pressed the issue today via email. 

I received an expected but disappointing response. Jeff Kerr said that he saw there was brown paint in the photographs and that there was no brown paint used, and so it wasn't his sub's fault. Any potential client of Kerr Construction should be very leery of using this firm. Think of the judgment exhibited by the principle, Jeff Kerr. The only damage to the drain occurred immediately after his painting contractor left the job. The drain contained paint, including a great deal of white latex. I had already signalled that I did not want recompense despite incurring $8,000 because of Kerr Construction's failure to supervise. Blowing me off, in essence, Kerr picks up on a comment about brown material and said that no brown paint was used. Kerr has demonstrated the most cavalier treatment of a serious issue instead of making a good faith effort. Potential clients should be aware that, to me, Kerr Construction is "just another shoddy contractor". Clients can do better.