Homeworks Construction Inc

It has been four months, just two emails for correspondence and I'm no further ahead then when I first spoke to him in my home. I've given up on Homeworks. They may be indeed very good, however should not take on more customers then they can handle. They came highly recommended in the local Remodel magazine so I decided to wait it out for their reply. It turned out to be a waste of my time since I could have been working with another potential design contractor.

End result was overall good. The design segment and overall communication was suboptimal. Poor communication between designer and architect. The final blueprint I was asked to sign had doors and windows in wrong places, but they corrected when I pointed this out... Contractor picked up mistakes in plans that fortunately were revised. Difficult to get decorator/interior design staff to help pick paint, tile, etc. She was very nice, but slow to respond to emails and calls-probably due to being occupied with other projects. We were also told crew would work on our project continuously, but they would leave for a week at a time to work on a bigger project in our neighborhood. Final product and general construction are overall good and we use the lanai daily. However, parts of slab do not slope away from house - water pools with heavy rain. A few smaller items were never fixed as promised (drywall bulging in 1 wall, small stone tile dislodged, and some touch ups were poor quality. Note, our contractor (Jim) retired to Florida after our project was complete and the decorator moved away from Hawaii. As they have different teams of contractors, decorators, etc, the experience will depend which team you use. In 2013, a year after our project was complete, we subsequently had them come out to give us a bid for a kids bathroom remodel and kitchen tile replacement. Their bid was twice as high as competitors. Jim Cook later told me that they no longer do smaller projects and can't be "competitive" with smaller projects. He did offer the names of some less expensive contractors I could try....

We wanted a house built and we used Homeworks Construction for the job. I had sent them an E-Mail on Monday and I have not received any reply till now. We have been having a lot of problems with the construction. I also had the complaints raised with the Better Business Bureau. We made the final payment in November Last year and the house is still under warranty. We are having many problems with them and don't want to deal with them any more so we are having another contractor come in to complete the job. I do not intend to continue doing business with Homeworks Construction. They used to be very good before and I don't know what's happened to them now. The completed the job in November, not to satisfaction, but they owed us some money back but they would only pay us back till we closed out the contract, and so, we still have not got our money back. I would not recommend anyone to use them and if one does hire them then one should be ready to spend a lot of time pursuing issues with them and supervising that they do a good job and it is done according to plan The approximate cost of the contract was $881,000

Very satisfying contract and permit process. However, halfway into construction (which was very quickly done) we noticed that they were not using redwood. As a compromise I had them do more maintenance of our house, which they cheerfully agreed to. The painting process was OK - looked great -- however paint at one section began to peal within 6 months. Possibly they forgot to do a second coat on that area.

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We virtually had no issues at all with Marshall Hickcox or Employees of Homeworks or their sub contractors

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I learned about Homeworks at the January home expo. Homeworks called a couple of weeks later to set up an appointment and a sales person came over as scheduled. He spent almost an hour with me and promised a quote in a couple of weeks. This was the last time that the salesperson voluntarily spoke with me. After more than three weeks I called asking for the quote. I was told Homeworks needed a couple more weeks to complete the quote. I called again after this time passed and was told more time was needed. Called again later and the sales person said that the quote person would call me directly. This quote person called and said that the job was too small and that Homeworks did not want it. He said that my rennovation of both a bath and a kitchen and the addition of a new bath (within the wall space) was not something that they were interested in doing. They were looking for jobs involving building a whole new house or adding rooms that expanded the foundation. My job did not fit into what they were trying to do. He promised to email me the names of other contractors but that list was never received. I have looked at other comments here and find that Homeworks has done jobs costing less than $200,000 as well as jobs that involve work in singular rooms. I am perplexed that my job is too small to merit Homework's attention. I also note that the owner asks some people why they didn't call him instead of waiting for his employees to respond. Frankly, I have made my living in sales all of my life and would consider a dereliction of my job if I did not handle the sale because, after all, I would be earning the commission. Anyway, if a sales person cannot express interest to a prospect what will happen when that prospect becomes a customer? Am I to beg Homeworks for attention? Note that I have engaged a contractor who has been more than happy to work with me. I will write about this experience when the job is done.

The planning and design took awhile which was fine with us as we rushed into our first project which was definitely the wrong way to do it. We decided to raise our house to the maximum height because of the flood zone requirements which delayed the permit process. Their interior designers Sean and Tani were very helpful and experienced. They made it very easy to work with their selected dealers. Home Works have their architects, engineers, and designers in the same building along with most of things you will select from for your house. From the time they tore down our old house to the completion of our new house took a shade over 5 months. Everything went in a timely matter with progress evident each day. Any problems with permits or sub contractors were efficiently dealt with by our project manager James Mitchell. We are very happy with our beautiful new home and the Home Works experience. We would definitely recommend giving Home Works a chance to build or remodel your home.

Home works Overall I'm ok with the house only because it's new from what it was prior. Overall design works for us and some of the interior construction we're very happy with especially the kitchen and bath cabinets. They were nice people to work with and easily available, helped with selections and offered their opinion. They responded to. Emails and calls in a timely manner. Price was in my budget, BUT you get what you get what you pay for as the saying goes and its true. They corrected or fixed their mistakes for the most part. During meetings, they hear but don't listen. We asked for vaulted ceiling that wasn't included in the first plan and had to be added in costing us money, and their initial plan had the house sitting diagonally in an L-shape lot. We also asked for an outside sink and another light that wasn't put in. They were also very quick to request the money draws for each phase that you would think it would be finish quickly. We didn't move in until a year and 7 months after construction started due to certain factors with punch list. As stated I'm ok but for a well known construction company, I expected the work to be A LOT better than what they constructed and materials used that looked generic that you could get at home depot or lowes. After two years, floor creaks and bouncy (floating laminate flooring) in some places and fine in others, subfloor with warped boards? Drywall near window sill on a few windows are peeling off and not from getting wet. Initial plan was to have a concrete slab in rear of house, during construction ran into some problem with rocks, so I agreed to hollow tile that portion. In hind sight, that heightened the house, which in turn steepened the stairs aided the view. I had to request a main shut off valve and am wondering what would have happen if I didn't and we had to call the water company to use their valve. I'm also wondering what else they didn't mention that we need or be beneficial for us. I forgot about a doorbell and that wasn't mentioned or door knock. The old house was broken and lived without one for over 15 years. Kitchen/dining/living room: (open concept) Floors are uneven in living area with high points to which i used a marble and it rolled towards the center. Laminate flooring is laid perpendicular with floor joists. They used a laser level and measured floor in quarters and not the entire length and tried to confuse you with numbers but the bottom line they didn't want to repair that after arguing. What happen to customer satisfaction? The base boards with gaps throughout house, as much as 1/4 inch. Tile on floor is crooked in the corner only next to cabinet in kitchen. They said they replaced it and even had the extra tiles from box, but still looked the same and wondered if they actually did anything. bathrooms: Pleased with the cabinets and toilet, which we purchased separately, and installed well. Shower glass doors are the thinnest you can have. Base board with gaps as stated earlier. Under cabinets edge near floor, noticed a hole opening, not sure if it's supposed to be there or not or where it goes. Functional for the space. Bedrooms: Wanted to repaint costing $1500.00 to changes color, we kept the same color and it's a good thing we did, we like the color after living here. Floors with carpet,there are high points near the door so when you open door all the way, carpet drags on door. There are uneven areas when the subfloor went in near the wall and the area near the door appeared level. Garage/driveway: 19 feet across barely to fit 2 cars though they said 2 car garage. Cars needs to be nearly touching edges to have room to get out and only from inside, so you need to park one car opposite of each other. You cannot or very tightly exit on outside (near walls) that's with one small car too. There'd are patch work that is very visible and not all chips were repaired. During construction they drew on the concrete that is still the to this day, diagram and phone numbers. The Driveway Was steep and car scrapes when driving up, they tried to decrease the angle but it's still steep. They fixed a sewer line that was on our side of street and I'm very grateful for that, not sure how they found that one. Outside of house: Painting is nice we're happy with the color and contrast. They built a retaining wall to fit code for meter box at no cost which we're happy with. Under house near drain for tub, work is unprofessionally done, wood appears roughly cut, splintering around hole. Steps leading to house appears and feels steep. There is a drainage hose on side of house they put in during construction, but it leads to a retaining wall without any drainage. The main retaining wall, the drainage is very slow, I didn't see any hoses/pipes that lead to drainage hole, so i think they just filled it with dirt and rocks. After watching tv and from friends I found out what you need to do. I have to re-dig to repair and improve the drainage whenever it rains heavy, there's a pool of water. concrete steps not level in some areas and there's standing water after it rains. I certify that above is true and factual.

The room had lots of problems after their work. It took a long time, they finally did satisfy us but only after a lot of arguing. They came back and corrected what they did wrong. It was expensive. The quality was decent for the most part.

Waste of time. In response to the provider's response. Yes, I did speak to you. You came to my house even. The entire process was frustrating. Don't tell me you are going call or do this or that and not do it. It happened so many times I lost count. That is why I think that your company is unreliable. I really, really wanted it to work because I thought it would lessen the stress of this process. With regards to my own materials. I did have ideas about materials, but even getting an idea of what your materials would cost was impossible! It was like you only wanted to do a project your way and with the materials that YOU wanted even though you had access to many other material options. You wasted my precious time! I gave your company so many more chances than I should have.

I wanted a firm that could build what was designed verses the traditional route of hiring an expensive architect or settling for a plain draftsman only to find out that the builder couldn't build it and go back and forth incurring costly plan revisions along the way. They did a solid job at detailing services, allowances, materials and build specs on my new home build. As with any project of this magnitude there are bound to be mis-communications and oversights and my experience was not the exception. BUT the important aspect is that Homeworks took responsiblity and corrected any oversights with their workers or subs expeditiously and professionally. Tim Foxen (Sales Consultant) is great to work with and is a real people person, no pressure tactics like other true design builders I talked to. My final decision to leverage Homeworks vs other design builders was mainly due my interactions with Tim and his abilty to work with me. He was ALWAYS professional, sincerely and never was defensive with the thousands of questions I put forth to him. Kitchen and Bath Designer Sean Bradford did a great job at helping to design our kitchen. He went to back to the drawing board a handful of times until we were satisfied with outcome. He is very humble as well as knowledgeble...which is exactly the type of designer we needed to work with. Mario (Architect) and Lucie (drafts person) worked with our vision and turned it into a blue print reality. They did a great job working with me as long as necessary in the design phase as to minimize any major change orders once building started. We must have gone through at least 7 different design meetings before finding the core design we wanted to build upon. Heather Hickox the project manager was always there for me ensuring schedule was being met and working out any situation with subs and their own workers. She met with me practically every week and more at times to review progress and conduct quality spot checks with me. Always open to my concerns and need to understand process. Heather is also a professional painter by nature and was especially helpful in color choices for the home and was demanding of the quality of work from her painting crew. Bob (the forman in charge of cement/foundation pour) gave me great confidence that the foundation of my home was in good hands. He commanded attention to detail and hard work throughout the process. I watched Bob direct his crew with authority and demanded that prep was done right. Many times I would hear "NO DO IT THIS WAY, DO IT AGAIN!"... as the worker I would be rattled but as the owner I was comforted that he was in control of quality. When the cement truck and pumper came Bob was right there with his crew spreading the pour. Bob is a no nonsense guy whom I got along with well. Pricing is important when building a new home (or anything for that matter) but at the same time I feel you MUST find a builder that are committed to doing it right the first time or when it comes to correcting problems. I've talk to too many people that in the process of trying to save money ended up spending more or gave up trying to track down subs for a lousy or incomplete job. Homeworks pricing is reasonable, not the rock bottom and I'm satisfied with the overall work performed and their intergrity to stand by their work and those sub'd out.

He was up an up with what needed to be done. He showed me what to look for in case it happened again. His price was good. He did excellent work. He came out the next day. He was definitely punctual.

Met them at a building expo. Went to their inhouse seminar and visited their offices. A Homeworks representative visited the house to be renovated without a camera. The representative said he would check with his boss and return to take photos. He never called back and never returned. I guess the job was too lowly and would tarnish their reputation.

I started the process in August of 2010 when Homeworks came to my condo to measure and discuss the remodel. Between August and April, a number of things progressed. Detailed plans were drawn up (to be submitted for a building permit), and small modifications were made. I initially wasn't going to have the pantry redone, but ended up having that done as well. We picked out cabinets and countertops from the Homeworks show room. I visited a number of other vendors (supplied with a list of preferred vendors) to select things such as the plumbing and lighting fixtures. When it came time for the actual work, things happened very quickly. I was given about a weeks notice that work would begin. That was the only time when I felt rushed, since I had to empty everything out of the kitchen. They spent 1 day demo-ing the kitchen and half bath. At the end of the 8 hour day, nothing remained in there. The workers were pleasant, on-time and respectful of attempting to keep the mess confined to the kitchen. This level of work continued throughout the project. The next 2 days were cabinet delivery and installation. Next came flooring, which took a few days. Then painting (2 days). Countertops (2 days). Appliance install. Lightning, plumbing and finishing touches. In all, it was about 2 1/2 weeks. Evan from Grantco Electric (the electrical sub contractor) was great. He and Randal at Lighting Concepts were of great help as we figured out how to light the Corian Illumination counter we selected for the half bath. Randal researched and tested a number of applications to get us the right light fixture. It was great having Homeworks handling everything. If I ever did have a question or problem, I contacted them and they took things from there. Sarah started the project with me. As we headed into the selection process, I worked with Sean and Tanny. As the remodel began, Heather was my contact. Heather is one of their Project Manager's who specializes in condo work. This was important to me, given some of the special needs involved in renovating a condo unit. The resident manager of my condo told me that they were the best that he's encountered with keeping the building up to date on what was going on. Every night during the remodel, I took pictures documenting the work: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.469362376017.267729.702611017and l=5acf6af5eb While there were some frustrating points (can't really avoid them when the only door entering to the condo unit is into the kitchen, you have 2 cats, and you're doing a complete remodel), the speed of the actual remodel and overall quality of work far outweigh any frustrations I had during the process.

Pretty much stuck to timeline considering the wet weather. Always kept me informed as to any delay and the reasons. Would use again for any future construction job.