CARAWAY CONSTRUCTION INC

I don’t normally write reviews but Caraway Construction did such a great job, I wanted to let others know. My wife and I recently decided to reconfigure our Dining Room and Foyer area by adding an Office as I have recently started working from home. My wife wanted to make sure we had a usable Dining Room and I needed a “quiet” office space. We didn’t know how to integrate the columns and foyer architectural details into the office. Alan Caraway came out and guided us through the process, keeping each of our needs in mind. He came up with an idea to keep all architectural arches intact and to place the new walls so they would look like part of the original layout. Alan gave us an exact quote within one day along with a very quick paced timeline. The contract was very detailed but still easy to read. The workers came to install the walls, drywall, and all the crown molding and trim. Alan and his team took extra measures to make sure our wood floors were not damaged, and they even put a foam barrier under the walls so if we wanted to open the area back up again later we could without having to fix the flooring. Caraway had the project finished ahead of schedule and at the quoted price, not a penny more. We were very happy with the quality and workmanship of the completed project. Even though the project was small, Caraway treated it like it was a big project. I am so glad we used Caraway because the wall blocks a significant amount of natural daylight, but Alan added a transom window in the wall to allow some natural sunlight without losing privacy in the office. We also had Caraway insulate the walls for noise so that my new office is actually “quiet”. Thanks again to Alan and his team. We will definitely be using Caraway Construction for our next project.

I wanted to build a detached 3-car between my house and the road. Owner/Alan was extremely helpful in assisting with the design, clearing the property and coordinating the survey. We ran into a snag between Hillsborough Co. Permitting and Zoning Depts. One had told us we were fine with a 25 ft setback from the road, but the other said we would need to move the building 50 feet back, unless we attached the new building to the house. Moving the garage back 50 ft would have removed my turnaround pad, which is situated in front of my house and is vital, as I live on a street one would not want to back out on. I needed to keep my turn around space. Alan was able to come up with a plan to construct a walkway between the house and the side door of the garage, which was acceptable to the county. The project is now done, and I still have my turnaround, which now also facilitates entry to my garage bays. Alan was easy to work with, is a problem solver, and all his subs were competent and professional. I can recommend Caraway Construction without reservation. I hired a contractor, but he became a friend.

Alan and his team do phenomenal work! I had an issue with a door in my house. Alan was able to repair the door in about 10minutea and saved me almost $1,000 on buying installing a new door from Home Depot. Great customer service and quality work. Thanks Alan!!!

Done with Caraway.

The bottom line is it is done, and we are finished with Caraway. It all started in September when we met Dan, the sales representative for Caraway. Dan came to our house at least three times to get the drawings exactly what we wanted and for the price we were able to afford. This project has been a dream of mine for at least 10 years. We moved our front door so that we could allow for this beautiful portico. Our drawings were perfect and we signed off on them. Alan and Dan came and there was a discussion between them and my husband, which I was not part of. We received the blueprints and an email saying that only a few changes were made to brackets. Since we do not do drawings we just "assumed" that they were exactly what we signed off on. There was nothing in writing to show us what was going to happen next. Sorry for the long story, but this is how it went. The concrete man shows up and because we had a kneewall there was much discussion about that. We agreed at the time of signing the drawing that the knee wall would stay. Our original plan was to tarot the existing concrete porch, and pour a new concrete floor with the kneewall in place. Then the concrete guy was concerned the kneewall would fall so he suggested to just float on top of the existing concrete floor the patio, which was to be flat but now has a step. Other issues with that but won't go into it. Then I noticed that he was marking the area to put the post for the portico. It was totally wrong and I called my husband out, It was totally wrong and he had to fix it, but then we noticed that there was no space for the walkway because now pole was in the way. I explained that when we signed the drawing the poles for the roof were supposed to come next where the kneewall was. He looked at the drawings and adjusted it to the blue prints. THIS IS WHEN WE SHOULD HAVE STOPPED THE WHOLE JOB. Then part of the kneewall had to come down, and that was done incorrectly. Took out more of the kneewall then shown and then Alan wanted to charge us additional money, $400 after the concrete guy said no additional charge. No one supervised anyone of the contractors except by phone.. After the columns were put up my husband and I look carefully at the very small print on the blueprints and saw that our original portico had been shorted by two feet on the long side and 8" on the width. All this time Alan never showed up. My husband called him to tell him that something was wrong, he said that there was a converation regarding the change and that is why is was shortened. Well it's is a he say he say, but I say I never was told of any conversation and my husband an I were in total agreement as to what we wanted. So I cried and lost sleep over this. there was no change in writing except for the blue prints that said minor changes. The best part of the job was the builder Brian, he did a perfect job even correcting some of the errors in the drawing and replacing material that was defected that was ordered by Caraway. I can go on and on, Alan came over mostly to collect checks. Dan came over to try to smooth things over, he made suggestions but Alan said we were not in Kansas and they could not be done. Dan told us at that time that we were a small job and they were not making any money. Dan gave us these great stories about his time in the military and that Caraway was a Christian company. All good and well, the bottom line is this whole job for us was a total disaster. Now we have to spend addition money to fix it to be what we dreamed of. We told him we were going to sue him because of all the mistakes that was made, and we are not kids we know that money was saved because of the shortcuts. There ware certain things we stopped him from doing even at the risk of not passing inspection. We just wanted him out of our lives. It finally ended in February. Sorry if this sounds like rambling, but it was my expections that were destroyed. I should have titled this How to hire a contractor for dummies, because that was how we were felt after this. When Alan came for his final payment my husband who is a Veteran and much nicer than me didn't even want him on our property.

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We found Caraway by seeing his salesman at the Home Show at the Tropicana in St Pete, about 3 miles from our home.  When we expressed concern that they were based in Lutz, quite a distance away, the salesman Robert assured us that they have a construction "Lead" who is dedicated and responsible for our part of Pinellas county.  We were told that Alan Caraway, the owner, and the Lead would personally walk through the entire project one more time after contract signing and before work began.  The "Lead" did not appear for this walk through.  On the day of start the "Lead" was a subcontracted labor foreman with his own crew.  They left our house a complete mess that we had to clean ourselves, including dirt in rooms they weren't working in, floor adhesive on the walls, dirty hand prints in the bathroom and even blood on one wall.  This construction Lead had no jurisdiction over any of the other trade subs.  No one directly employed by Caraway was here to oversee and supervise the project. Here are just some of the issues we encountered:

Labor Crew - Did not install kitchen cabinets according to the Cabinetry Plan rendering and upper cabinets were screwed into unsupported wallboard, not studs; did not check for proper wall framing so that once the tile was installed it caused a bow in the wall; swore so loudly and constantly that our neighbors reported it to us,

Flooring - gaps were left along the walls that had to be pieced in later by the carpenter, adhesive wasn't completely cleaned off the surfaces and we just found some on the bedroom doorknob.

Plumber - installed the kitchen sink with a leak, then took 2 weeks to correct. Then in the 3rd week a plumber came by to fix the leak and didn't know who came in to fix it the week before.

Electrician - was sloppy in his installation; we had to fight to get him to install our lighting system per specs; left outlets hanging from the wall that we had to screw in ourselves.

Tile - 1st crew was clearly inexperienced, they installed pencil trim crooked and with chipped corners, left holes between the tiles where grout was skipped, left our kitchen a complete mess and didn't properly clean the grout off the tile surface (we have asked Caraway to correct, but after one half-hearted attempt, he has not done anything further); the second tile crew were often no-shows and we had to be available repeatedly for them.

We were told the job should take about 6 weeks, but the contract wasn't wrapped up until week 13.  We are still looking for help on how to get the grout off our tile.

All these problems were caused by what we had said at the outset that we were trying to avoid.  We told them we wanted a contractor onsite, supervising and leading his crew and subs.  Instead we got nothing but unsupervised subs. It was left to us to check up on the work provide Caraway with photographs of progress and issues.  Alan was slow to respond and although for the most part made corrections the project took more than twice as long as originally quoted.

The only thing that stopped us from giving this experience an F rating is that Alan put us in touch with Chris from Cab-Net cabinetry in Largo who was great every step of the way!

My 70s master bathroom needed serious remodeling. I never understood why there was a need to step down into a shower, it was a
hazard to get in and out, not to mention dark and kind of creepy. I contacted Caraway construction and they came out and gave me a free estimate for the job. The owner, Alan, was very attentive to ideas that I gave and offered options on what would work in the space. His vision and attention to detail was greatly appreciated. The transformation that took place was amazing. The space
looks bigger and feels like a spa. The tile work done on the floor and the surround of the shower are beautiful. I now have a jet tub that I don’t have to step down into. There is a feeling of tranquility when I enter the room. Caraway Construction treated my house like their own when they were doing the work. I felt comfortable and trusted them being in my home. I would come home to a clean room even on the demolition days when the old tile floor was jack hammered up! Their attention to detail and timely completion of the project exceeded my expectations. I would highly recommend Caraway construction for any construction or remodeling project.

Caraway Construction was very professional from the get-go. I sent an email inquiry, and I was called the next day. We had an appointment to review our project the following week.

I met with the owner, Alan Caraway. He went over all of our options and brought samples available for our preview.

Once we chose our flooring, we were set up for tear out and installation. Everything was scheduled very timely within about 3 weeks, once our materials arrived.

We were very pleased with the pricing as it was below our projected budget.

The crew was fantastic and very tidy. Our project was complete in 2 and frac12; days. Our wood floors are amazing and my wife is so happy!!! We have gotten so many compliments, just about weekly, we get compliments from our neighbors and visitors.

I would recommend Caraway Construction without hesitation!!!

I plan to use them again in the near future for a larger project when we add on to our current residence.

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We were very disappointed in the job - in the last 14 months we have had just 5 months of problem free time in the new bathroom. Allan is not honest, his subcontractors are sub-standard and we had a lien filed against us because he did not pay his contractors. We've had two major leaks in the shower and the tile is already falling off the walls. He tried to correct the work but failed - very poor communicator and not honest. He will not respond to our request to fix his work and we intend on taking him to court.

We tried again in Jan 2012 to work with Alan on the falling tile and now have a new problem with the shower floor slope - he refuses to do fix the problem.

Initial contact and signing of contract was great. Work process was disappointing. Final job was absolutely terrible BUT after I contacted Angies List and sent photos of the final project, Alan Caraway contacted me and had a fabulous concern and had the poor work corrected. I am now satisfied but it was something that should have never happened in the first place. I think contacting Angies List helped me get the issues corrected. Before I contacted Angies list I did contact Alan Caraway but he did not respond until I reported to Angies List. In my opinion, Caraway Construction is a little high priced for today's market and not good to use for small jobs. I think Alan Caraway can be better than most for large projects where he is making more money. I just do not think he really cared about me and my small project. I would not say NEVER USE but I will say Caraway Construction does not care about the little jobs and Alan Caraway has room for improvement. If he had been like he was after I contacted Angies List from the start, then I would have highly recommended him. But since I had to go through this I say an overall grade of C. Maybe Alan Caraway now knows his faults and will correct. I would never give him a second chance but I think he may do better for others after this episode.

The project went well. The original window installation date was exceeded but there was a mix up with the frame color. Alan Caraway readily accepted responsibility for the mix up, reordered the correct window frame color and they were installed with minimum delay. A sub contractor actually fabricated the windows and did the installation in about 3/4 of one day.