J Tech Builders LLC

The old deck was removed and hauled away without issue. That was about the only thing Jeff Herrera got right. As noted above, I provided Jeff with very detailed requirements in our contract. I asked for 6? x 6? pressure treated wood for the 9 ft deck supports and he got non-structural graded landscaping timber instead. He tried to tell me that he used those all the time. I also specified four support posts in our contract, and he tried adding a fifth post without consulting me, because he didn?t want to pay for an engineer to certify using only four. When digging the holes for the new post footings, he had to dig up the concrete landing from the old deck. I caught him dumping the excavated concrete in the open space behind our house. Our contract specified 45 degree angled deck corners, and stairs that were 4 feet wide with hand rails on both sides. He framed the deck and forgot to include the angled corners. He only allowed 3 ft for the stairs. And he decided on his own to not include one of the hand rails because he left no room for it. I asked him to fix these things, and rather than fixing them correctly, he did sorry patch jobs. If an installed board was too long, he would sloppily cut it in place and leave a jagged, crooked edge. If a board was too short or cracked, he would just slap another board on top of it and try to cover it up. And he still didn?t leave enough room for the stairs to fit properly. When building the stair landings, he buried the support posts in concrete, something that no quality professional would ever do, because the posts will rot. Throughout the process, Jeff took multiple days, sometimes weeks off at a time. He always had an excuse; he was sick, he had another job previously scheduled, his friend died, he went out of town and stayed an extra week, his son was injured, etc. When framing the deck itself, he made large holes in the side of our house to support the joists, and he left them exposed for water to enter and do more damage. He failed to follow the Trex framing specifications, resulting in what would have been nearly a foot of wasted deck space OUTSIDE of the railings. The deck frame was supported on temporary posts, and he started installing deck boards before the framing was complete. The deck surface was wavy and uneven, with visibly different height between adjacent boards. I finally told Jeff to stop work until everything could be examined by the county inspector. Jeff needed the inspection done before pouring the post footings, and I didn?t want him doing more work on temporary posts. I also wanted to ask the inspector about the questionable framing. I was hoping that would force Jeff to actually fix things correctly instead of continuing to make things worse. In order to schedule the inspection, I had to wait 3 weeks for Jeff to get the permit that he was supposed to have gotten before he started building. Upon inspection, the inspector found that the main support beam ? the one that all the joists sat on - was not built to code, nor were the 2 stair landings, in addition to multiple other code violations. Jeff lied and said his engineer approved the beam that way, and would provide us a letter to certify it. He then proceeded to do more shoddy work, ignoring the inspection items. When laying footings for the support posts, and I saw him pouring water and dry concrete into the muddy holes and mixing it up, contaminating and weakening the concrete with dirt. He improperly installed posts under the beam that was not built to code. He attached stair stringers to the upper and lower landings that still needed to be rebuilt. I asked him, why would you attach stringers to a landing that needs to be rebuilt? I also told him, for about the fifth time, that I wanted to see the letter from the engineer. He said I was micro-managing him, and he quit, about 3 months after starting the job. He dumped his trash in my yard, took his tools and left. In reality, he knew his scam was exposed, so he took the money I had paid him and ran. After he quit, I had the deck re-inspected. The inspector confirmed that Jeff had not fixed anything; he had only made things worse. I contacted the engineer, who said that Jeff had never even requested a certification letter. His analysis confirmed that the main beam needed to be rebuilt. I hired a new contractor, who informed me that almost everything Jeff did is unusable, and needs to be torn down and rebuilt. The ledger board on the house is not level, the posts are different heights, and the joists are uneven. All of which would have produced a wavy, crooked deck. Jeff didn't properly store the Trex material, leaving it uncovered and sitting on the ground, resulting in hundreds of dollars of warped and unusable decking. He also ordered over $1000 in unnecessary materials and much of it cannot be returned. Jeff walked away with $5000 I paid him to do a job that he totally screwed up and left unfinished. When I requested a refund he refused. I informed him that I would be posting negative reviews online, and he responded by threatening me. So far, my new contractor has totally disassembled the stairs, rebuilt the main support beam, replaced one of the crooked ledger boards, removed and replaced the outer rim joists, and cut 2 support posts that were not level. He had to remove half of the joists to do this, and will be replacing several that were cut wrong. He is working to repair the holes in the side of the house, will need to re-hang all of the joists to make them level. I will have to pay thousands just to re-do Jeff's inferior work. Jeff Herrera is a liar and a defrauder. He has no interest in doing quality work and he doesn?t care about you or your family?s safety. All he cares about is getting his money. I am posting this because I don?t want anyone else to go through what I have had to endure. I wish someone had done it for me. Save yourself a huge loss and a huge headache and AVOID J Tech Builders, LLC.