The Tradesman

Had this done in the fall of 2012. Lots of "grout" on the roof. We were told this would wash off. Did not happen. Bricks were not set even. Called him back in spring of 2013. He did come out, said it was not done right and would be back. Never showed up again. No answer on the phone.

We contacted the contractor to do a fencing job as well as remodel our bathroom. We were given an initial estimates on fencing and bathroom, but was told he had made an error in the price of the fencing and the cost ended up being more. Our fence is NOW literally falling apart, we have posts that spin in their holes, and the excuse given to us was that it was getting too cold. There are agents that can be put in the cement in the cold to make it set, plus, the contract states they will work until 5, but were never working later than 2p.m.Once they were in the house, again, they did not work until 5p. as their contract stated. Repeatedly we had to remind them what we wanted - we were indecisive in the beginning, but once we found what we wanted, we were still pointing out things we did NOT want him to forget. In our initial bathroom estimation visit, I insisted on 2 vents in the bathroom (we had previously had one that quit working, I wanted 2 in case of that possibility again), a bench in the shower, a hand bar for my father in law who now lives with us, and inset shelves. The shower floor, once Dan got finished with it, had to be totally redone. It was not sloped properly, and although I'd pointed it out before they were "finished," his option was to "watch and see what happens." For about a week, we were using a shop vac to remove water from the shower. When he came back to fix the flooring, I told him all the tiles would have to be pulled up because the shower floor had not been sloped FROM THE WALL. He still refused to fix the entire problem, leaving two tiles that pool water. We also have a trim with grout at our door way that my husband pointed out had to have something underneath the piece of trim. If someone stepped on the trim, the grout would pop out. Again, Dan refused to see this, saying it would work just fine. Now, as my husband predicted, we have grout popping out of the trim on the floor in front of our bathroom door - another thing we have to fix. After the hassles we had to deal with in the amount of time it took them to complete the job because they did NOT work full time hours, we had planned on fixing the problems and half-dones ourselves. After his "redo" of our bathroom floor and refusal to complete the job correctly, we decided we did not want him back in the house. We then started receiving emails that we still have an amount that we owe. Our initial estimations were as follows:Fence: 4,467.00Bathroom: 6488.50To begin work, we were to provide 1/2 down, which we did of $5477.75. We were then notified by Dan that the amount on the fence was actually wrong - he estimated less than what it was going to actually cost, then we paid another 1044.00 to get our "down" to half of the entire amount. Our estimates NOW were as follows:Fence: 6555.00Bathroom: 6488.50With the 2nd payment of $1044.00, we now have a balance of $6521.75We made a third payment of $3000, asked for the final amount we owed, which should have been $3521.75. The total we were given on the sticky provided by Dan was $3714.25. We knew from previous discussion we would owe an additional $150 for carpeting our stairs to our basement, and assumed the additional amount was this carpet placement. In December, I received an email with the subject "second notice," which included an invoice showing we had a 0 balance. I inquired, was told this was the invoice for the extras we had asked for. I assumed this was just an invoice for our records showing we had paid in full as it was a zero balance. We then received a phone call just before Christmas asking if we had a check in the mail to them. After explaining I hadn't seen an invoice for anything owed, only showing that we'd paid our balance, I asked him what extras he was charging us for. Turns out he was charging us extra for the inset shelves (requested in the initial visit), the fans (again, INSISTED upon by me in the initial visit), extra for the tile design (of which we were never notified there would be an extra charge. We had even sent him a "gag" picture of a very intricate tile pattern, and when I brought it up to him later, he said it would be easy to do, but it would have been a higher rate. I did let him know we did NOT want that design. We were never notified of a different rate regarding the tile, and he and my husband actually went to the store the same day to see the style we would have in the bathroom. Never was there a mention of any design being a higher rate, and the design wasn't done the way it had been in the store - of which Dan's significant other pointed out to when he got to the actual design portion.I asked Dan to email me an invoice of the extras we owed for, and the only thing we have ever received is an invoice of one of the first fencing bids he gave us of $6747.50, which to me, shows he applied payment to the wrong fencing bid, as the total price for the fence based on the total of the 1/2 amount we put down, would have been $6555.00.As of now, we are receiving invoices for a balance owed of $1412.50, still with absolutely no invoice showing what any of the "extras" are that we are being charged for. We are in the process of hiring another contractor to bid to fix the problems Dan created, and will be filing in small claims court for the amount it costs for these repairs. We will also be placing a "review" of the services here and on Angie's List.