Brooks Design Build Corp

We had a large addition put on our house & garage & are happy with the end result. Unfortunately Brooks Design closed their doors as soon he finished our project so we are left with no warranty. Fortunately we haven't had major issues & I was able to contact the subcontractors directly for the couple of issues we did have. We would definitely have hired Brooks again to do our kitchen remodel & dining room addition if he hadn't closed. Fortunately the framer, Dewco Construction, who Brooks subcontracted our framing to is a wonderful general contractor who has done some small jobs for us since & we will likely hire him to do the framing on our kitchen & diningroom. So we did meet some good subcontractors through Brooks at least!

Jonathan Brooks was easy to work with and (most importantly) honest. Most of his subcontractors did great work, with one exception - the touch up guy (would have been better off doing our own touchups). Jonathan was the only contractor who saw our proposed floor plan and said and quot;I can make this workand quot; instead of and quot;I don't think you really want to do this.and quot; We did really want to do it, and love the finished result!

BDB sent out a representative to give us an estimate. He helped us create a very good plan, but was vague about costs.
The work was done by a series of very good subcontractors, but ran over deadline by a month, and we spent a lot of time helping to solve problems like heating for workers and acting as go-fors. We also spent an additional $10,000 for items it turned out were not covered in the contract.
The final product was excellent, but we paid at least 10% more than we should have, did more work than we had planned to do, and felt that in some ways we were "nickled and dimed", particularly toward the end of the project when we had paid for the entire thing.
For example, some lighting was installed that included very expensive bulbs. When we discovered that they didn't work we asked BDB to replace them. They refused and we ended up paying for them ourselves.

First, the project took about two months longer than originally projected. Some of the delay was due to weather but the main problem was that Mr. Brooks had at least four other projects going on at the same time. This meant that his crew was working on more than one project. We were aware that Mr. Brooks was working on other projects but we did not fully understand the implications of this arrangement. On some days workers worked only a few hours per day. When we expressed concern about the time schedule we were assured everything was going as planned. Mr. Brooks was not on site every day. We felt we had to be present every day in order to ensure the project was being completed, which negated the whole idea of paying extra for a general contractor. Some of the workers (finish carpenter and tile) produced high quality work. Mr. Brooks always returned our calls but we would rather have had him managing the project on site. In addition to other projects being worked on during our project, Mr. Brooks has several rentals of his own and was also taking a real estate license class. In short he was stretched to thin to be an effective contractor. We would recommend hiring someone whose only project is yours.

Second, the billing procedure used by Mr. Brooks obfuscated the actual costs. There was no breakdown of labor costs, materials or profit. We did get a list pricing of some of the materials but as to how much he paid the plumber, carpenter, laborers and electricians for labor and materials was unclear. This billing process leaves one with the feeling that we paid too much for the work completed.

Rob [our Project Manager] was very professional and kept us well informed every step of the way. Even your subcontractors were polite and respectful of my home.?