SMITH BUILDERS

My initial discussions with William Smith went wonderfully.  He assured me that he worked closely with his customers to make sure that they were happy with his work and that he wouldn't be satisfied until his customers were satisfied.  He told me of a dying man that was a customer he had helped that asked him to make sure that his home was in tip top shape so his wife wouldn't be left with any burdens.  He seemed very honest and sincere.  I am wrestling with even writing the report because I'm still a little shocked at how he has handled this job.  I really trusted him and didn't think his work would be such poor quality.  The first surprise was that the work was contracted out without notifying me.  William Smith was rarely on the site to oversee the work.  The subcontractor showed up with his dominant good hand wrapped in a bandage.  He had been injured and had to do all of the work with his left (non-dominant) hand.  The subcontractor rarely showed up (if ever) before 11:00 every day and left most days by 5:00.  Needless to say the project was not completed before winter which was promised.  William asked me to pay his team (since it was Christmas) and promised he would come and complete the work at the first sign of spring.  He returned to complete only a minimal amount of what was left.    The subcontractor was also a very nice man but the skill level and quality of his work was horrible.  Nearly every nail missed the board it was intended for.  The shingles were held on by one or two staples.  I have a cedar house and shingles are supposed to be held in place by galvanized nails.  Staples are never to be used on cedar.  They are already popping through and have black stain drippings because some of them weren't galvanized.  The didn't install the sump until after the crawl was completed and I had to ask them to complete that.  They dug for the sump after the fact and left a mound of mud, dirt and a rusty half-shovel in the crawl.  It was a mess.  I had to (by myself) haul about 30 buckets of mud out of my crawl and dump it in my woods.  It took me three days.  He also never vented the crawl space..which I had to ask him to do.  When he did install the vents the holes were cut too large for the vents.  I still have 2 inch openings on all four vents which will allow animals, water and the cold to come into my crawl.  I've currently nailed pieces of wood over the holes.  Two of the vents are broken.  One doesn't even have a back so it can't ever be closed.  
        I have called, texted and emailed William Smith repeatedly.  He has chosen not to respond to me.  He literally just disappeared without coming to complete the work correctly and fix the mistakes, although I did come home one day to find more staples in my shingles.  He must of showed up when I wasn't home and certainly never told me he was coming or that he had been here.  I took an entire week off of work and emailed Mr. Smith asking him to meet me sometime during that week.  He never returned my call, text or email.  There were many times I offered to meet him but he somehow could never meet me at any of the times I was available.  He maybe met with me on 2 different occasions throughout this process.  I had not planned on writing a report or taking any legal action until this past week when I hired a heating man to run my heat ducts in my attic to the new part of the home.  He informed me that the new roof was never tied into (nailed) to the existing roof.  MY ROOF ISN'T EVEN SECURED.  That just went too far!   I could ignore and deal with the little things myself...but this is my roof and the integrity of my home.  That is just too much for me to sit back and not do anything.  So...I'm now considering very seriously  (after much debate) talking with an attorney.  I also will probably contact the attorney general to file a complaint with his licensing board (He was licensed and did pull a permit). I am a person that doesn't really believe in law suits and would much prefer working things out relationally, but that is impossible when someone will not communicate with you.   I honestly had decided to let all of this go until I  found out about the roof.  So...my advice to you is to use a different builder.  I have a feeling that William Smith would do great at small jobs or handyman projects...but he definitely took on more than he could handle and something that was outside of his expertise when he told me he could do this job.  This makes me very sad to write because I really trusted him.   He seemed like such a nice and honest man.  Many, many of my friends told me along the way that the work was very poor quality.  I just kept telling them that William said he would fix anything that I wasn't happy with.  That is what he promised...but his promise wasn't sincere.

What I love about William is he can do anything, and he always has somebody he knows to do this sort of thing. He even re-stretched the carpet in my bedroom, he rebuilt my shower, retiled and he put those rails in so you can hang on to and a bench to sit on. I had a lot of storm damage, and insurance paid for most of it.

I am very happy with their work and they do everything. No job is too small or too large. He even dealt with the insurance company to increase the amount I got back.