MC DRAFTING SERVICES

I recently bought a house that was fixed up by this contractor. Upon the home inspection, we found numerous mistakes that will cost us an additional $10,000 in repairs. I'm guessing the seller hired him for his price and not the quality of his work. When we made an appointment for Jose to fix the open gas line (one of his many mistakes), he came ONE hour late without any apologies. He said he couldn't fix it because there was a lock on the gas line. Any licensed plumber should be able to test a gas line without unlocking it. Of course we found out he's not licensed. Save your money and go with someone who has a clue. We did.

Mauricio (Luis Mauricio) came out and measured my house. He's generally a pleasant person to deal with even when we had our disagreements. I basically have an L-shaped house and wanted to fill in the L to make it a rectangle-shaped house. One complication is that I have a detached two-car garage that requires a setback that would interfere with the plans unless the garage was relocated. I had told Mauricio my ideas and gave him a Visio drawing of what I had envisioned. When we realized the interference with the garage, he gave me diff. options. One option was for a 2-story structure although I told him at the initial meeting that it was out of the question. This was typical of the back and forth. I would take the time to be as detailed as I could be with my limited Visio skills, and he would send me a design that would be similar but still very different and not represent what I wanted. I know that there are restrictions on what could be done but I don't believe that the options he presented were very sophisticated or practical. Sometimes it would take more than a week for a reply from him. I would email and then have to call a few days later to get a reply. I paid for a pre-demolition report. When I reviewed it, I realized it was for my neighbor's property, not my property. This represents some of the level of detail. The most responsiveness I had from Mauricio was when he had a contractor friend who was willing to give me a bid on my project. If I had an empty lot and needed to build a basic four wall property, I might consider using them because of the cost. But my project is not overly complicated and I was not happy with the results or the responsiveness. Ultimately I did not proceed with the final plans because I was getting bids from contractors between $100K and $250K when my budget was well below that.

Overall quite good. Mauricio came to the house and did some measurements and later go me the quote. Although I had some layout drawings already done, they do the entire plan set anyway to conform to the LA city permit requirements. They hired the engineer and added those drawings. Also the drawings included "how-to" instructions on all the changes needed which was a great thing for me because this was my first owner-builder job and the drawings were EXTREMELY educational on how to do all the mechanical changes; headers, footings, strong-tie brackets, nail schedules, etc. It was a great set of drawings. They only hiccup, which was not there fault, is that the engineering drawings were done at the end of the year and by the time I started the job in March the LA engineering requirements changed and we had to go back to the engineer to re-do some of the calculations. Although this did not delay anything since they rushed it for me, it did cost a bit more which I expected since the re-work was not their fault. The only other hick-up was that they assured me that they were getting ALL the permits I needed but I later found out that for a kitchen remodel where you are redoing the electrical and plumbing you have to get SEPARATE electrical and plumbing permits, not only the overall permit that is for the overall job. I had to rush to the planning office one morning and get two express permits. Although I would have had to get them anyway and pay for them I didn't expect this since I thought I had everything at the start.

They did a good job in coming out on time to do the work as described on the phone. The reps were friendly and answered questions I had. We went through several revisions of the plans and they made the changes accordingly. We paid a fee at the time of the on-site house measurement and the second half of the payment once plans were submitted to the City for approval. Plans were approved. Overall a very good experience working with this company

VERY PROFESSIONAL STAFF, EXPLAINED HOW EVERYTHING WOULD LOOK, WHAT WAS THE BEST WAY TO GO, SUBMITTED PLANS FOR OUR APPROVAL. MADE NECESSARY CHANGES, TO OUR SATISFACTION, AND ASSISTED US IN GETTING ALL THE WORK PERMITS FOR THE CITY.