Get matched with top deck and porch pros in Rock Valley, IA

"I had Home Solutions replace all of my windows and a sliding door. It was not a good experience at all. To highlight the worst parts: 1.Eric gave me a quote of $12000 of which $6000 was labor so $429 per window. He gave no contract. 2. If you don’t use his terms, he “doesn’t understand what you are saying.” Trim, even pointing to it, means nothing to him. 3. He only installed the windows. He never framed them out and brought it back to original. He put trim around the windows outside but never painted them. He never discussed it with me that he wasn’t going to paint the outside trim. He never said he was not going to frame out the windows. 4. Eric said he would put in the sliding door screen door knob and adjust the screen door. When I emailed him and asked him to do that along with straightening a very crooked board and putting a cable back on the house, Eric said his attorney was putting a mechanics lien against my house as we speak because I would only write him and he said I wasn’t communicating with him. My attorney told me to get everything in writing. When I said that’s fine, I will be talking to my attorney, he then states “let’s start over.” He wanted to be paid BEFORE this work was done He said “I was playing a game.” I have the email where he wrote that just because I wanted 4 things done before paying him. 5. Eric’s company scraped off the paint of my siding that was just painted in May. He did not repair it. His employees chipped huge chips from my brand new siding and would not fix it besides putting caulking over it – no painting it, no smoothing it out. He felt crooked boards were acceptable. The windows were not installed evenly in the window hole. I have pictures of all of this and the tests if anyone wants to see them. His employees messed up the landscaping around the house, broke bushes and left garbage all over. For $400 plus a window, they can clean up. They charged me $600 for a dumpster that they threw garbage in from another site. I paid for another person’s garbage being disposed of or perhaps Eric charged them money too. 6. I asked another contractor to come over – a male – and Eric changed his attitude. I told Eric that I was refi – ing my house. When the other contractor was there, Eric said that appraisers would over look not framed out windows. Even the other contractor agreed that they don’t do that. 7. I took a loan out for the windows. I repeatedly asked Eric if $12500 was all I needed, the price went up due to a complication on windows. He said yes. After Eric put the windows in, he said he would give me an estimate to frame out the windows. When I asked for him to do the 4 things, Eric refused to give the estimate. He “doesn’t do estimates for free” is what he said. His employees came over the day of the City inspection with Eric, they did the four items, he was paid and then said that he would send me the estimate for framing the windows. I told him I didn’t want it. He told me that he was going to send it anyway, just in case I wanted him to do it. Estimate was $4000 dollars for 12 windows or $334 a window more. 8. Be very careful with Home Solutions if you chose to use them. I can show all the pictures, texts and emails to you if you want to help you understand how they work."

"They said all subcontractors they tried to hire wouldn't do it for that low of price. I suppose, since I was informed it would require 200 gallons of stripper at $50 per gallon and 200 gallons of stain at $50 per gallon to do my house...that alone happens to come up to $20,000. Although they claim to give an itemized list of materials, I never did. Step one is protection of landscape, until chemicals are place directly on the lawn, then I'm told "what can you expect with this much chemical?" and step two is to ensure the wood isn't feathered during pressure wash, which is was badly damaged. Out of site, out of mind seems to be a general theory, as well as complain about caulk color, and not even follow through with stripping and caulking (just replacing that which was missing). I was also appalled when they made it seem that $800 window screens and adding new landscaping mulch was doing me a favor...since they failed to protect the landscaping and never removed the screens before blasting cedar pulp into the screens. I honestly don't think they know what they were doing, and just pretended they did."

"These windows are solid, well built and look great. I will be ordering more for my house."