Smith Brothers Ultimate Builders Inc.

My wife and I signed a contract with Smith Brothers Ultimate Builders in April of 2022 to build a 24 x40 foot detached garage on our property. Ron came to our home, gave us a quote on the project and we signed the contract and gave him the initial third down payment. We were told that it would take two months to get a variance approved as we needed to build within 5 feet of the property line. Two weeks later we requested a change to the height of the structure and siding, signed and paid for the change. I stayed in contact every two weeks looking for updates, and each time was told things were progressing as planned. Come to find out the variance wasnt even applied for until June of 2022, meaning the approval wouldnt happen until July 2022. Ok things happen. The day the variance was approved, I called Ron and asked when we could get started on the job, he said it would be a week or two before the permits were issued. I called back two weeks later, the start of august and was told it would be 5 weeks before they could start. Again I stayed in contact every two weeks checking for updates and was told the permits were in process and that everything was on track. The first week of Sept. I contacted Ron to find out when they would be starting the following week, and was told they were still waiting on permits. At this point I called the county and was told that they county had been waiting on them for weeks to provide information and to pay various fees to get the permits. I called Ron and told him this and he tells me they never said anything to him. Again I called the county and they tell me they have contacted Ron multiple times. Another week go by and I attemted to call and text Ron every day with not response. At this point we have zero confidence that Ron had any intention of ever completing the project, so we contacted a lawyer to attempt to recoup some of the $29,000 that was paid to Smith Brothers. It is currently Oct 31 and ZERO work has been completed.

On 9-3-21, we hired Ron to build our attached garage and paid him the initial 1/3rd down payment. The day before we signed the contract, we asked Ron how long it would take and how fast it could be built. He claimed it would take 12 days to build and that as soon as the permits were returned, he could start right away. We inquired if that was true, and he answered yes, I have numerous crews. We discussed it and signed the contract the next day, which was 9-3-21, as indicated above. We didn't hear from Ron for 6 days after he got the 1/3rd down. He works with a lady named Cindy, and they've submitted so much incorrect paperwork to gain permits. They say they're great friends with the city of Greenwood, and don't worry, we'll get this approved. However, the building inspector we spoke with had never worked with Ron before. We had to go up to the city multiple times to correct Cindy and Ron's mistakes since we thought they were just attempting to put anything on the documents to get it approved. Finally, we, the homeowners, went to the meeting to get it approved that Ron required additional money to get the permit approved. The permit was ready on November 16, but Ron didn't pick it up or pay for it until 12-3-21, and he only did so because the permit building said the permit would be canceled if it wasn't picked up. We texted Ron after he paid for the permit and picked it up and inquired whether he was going to work tomorrow, to which he replied, "That puts you 15th in line with us." We inquired why you indicated you could start right away when we signed our contract, and his response was, "I have other clients." We understand that, but that doesn't negate the remark you made before we signed. So continuing to the day he finally showed up for work on December 20-2021, the first day he came to work, Ron threatened to walk off the job twice because we had concerns and questioned his work Ron stated our lot is not square but our lot has been surveyed. a lot of the issues we had with Ron could have been solved all by him using a simple measuring tape The city approved us to go 10ft back and even came out and told Ron you still have 2 ft to go back but he chose not to listen to us or the inspector and chose to place the footings where he wanted. The homeowners felt like Ron arrived at the project site knowing exactly what he wanted to perform and was unconcerned with the home owner's preference. Once Ron has your signature on that document, he will walk all over you, shout at you, and threaten you. We have never been put through so much emotional turmoil before. The first thing he did was dig and lay footings, then the next day he struck our kitchen wall with his bulldozer, which shook the wall and was caught on camera. Ron stated the wall is OK (how do you know? can you see through the wall? we still don't know if he did serious harm to the interior of the wall) additionally he chipped the driveway while cutting our concrete. They attempted to pull out the ground wire to the house with the bulldozer and one of the employees yelled that's the ground wire don't take that out. Ron asked to use our extension cord then once he was done he threw it on the ground and ran over it and busted it. We had just purchased brand new white vinyl fencing and Ron's workers just had the funniest time peeing on it even after we told them not to and that there was a bathroom inside, their entire time here they kept peeing on the fence. The inspector came out, and we almost didn't pass because Ron didn't get the water out. Ron did not return until January 13, 2022, that is indeed day 3 of work in 16 days off 3 days working then he didn't return for another 33 days that's right 33 days later he finally showed up he loves to just show up no call no text he showed up on Feb 15 and 16,2022 and continues to work Ron's employees put up our outside walls which for some reason were fiberboard walls that were falling apart as the team picked up the pieces which we thought was a little strange as we thought the garage was OSB so read your contract carefully since he loves to slip things in there thinking you won't notice. So we contacted Ron and told him we wanted OSB and would pay the difference in price. Ron had us pay for 28 sheets of OSB for a 20 x 28 garage although a 20 x 28 garage only calls for 27 sheets with NO holes taken out of it. We had 2 complete walls cut out for 3 overhead garage doors with 9 ft walls 20x28 garage to get to the point they only used 18 sheets of OSB for the walls the other 5 went on the roof (the 5 on the roof are on Ron as he was short so the contractor took 5 of ours to put on the roof the contractor even told Ron on camera he took 5 out of ours) and the other 5 went back with Ron. He snuck up my driveway on camera and stole 5 more pieces of OSB. When we called him to tell him you stole our OSB and it's on camera, he said we were retarded and was cursing up a storm. He ended up stealing $400 dollars worth of OSB and getting away with it. We're still debating whether we want to spend any more time or money trying to get that back under arbitration. When they clean up, instead of bringing a broom, they prefer to use a metal concrete scrapper thing and scraped the crap out of my driveway. When they took down the wooden fence with the metal poles, they dragged it down the driveway and scratched up the driveway instead of picking it up. Ron employs the cheapest and laziest staff he can find. They smoke 24/7 while here and toss all the cig butts down even after we told them not to because our dogs would eat them. Be advised that everything I say on this review has been recorded by my home surveillance system! On February 18th, Ron arrived for the second one-third payment. They delivered concrete on March 23rd, and it was extremely wet. Even the manager of Shelby Concrete acknowledged the contractor should have rejected the load and we would have reloaded, but because it had already been poured for 45 minutes, there was nothing they could do. We believe this was their strategy all along, delivering us as-is concrete with no warranty, we are anticipating it will crack in the future and we will have ongoing difficulties with it since they brought it so wet. Ron also utilized old materials, so be aware that more than half of the items he brought to the house had labels that were a year to two years old. Some items read 2021, while others said 2020, indicating that not much was brought new. When Ron's crew attached the garage to our house, they did not flash the area; instead, they used VBR paper and shingles that will completely leak in the future. We have told Ron countless times that the area needs to be flashed; you cannot simply shingle over where two roofs are joined; it simply will not work. Our contract also stated that we were supposed to have three 20-amp circuits from the home to the garage, but when they installed the circuits, they installed one 20-amp and two 15-amp circuits. The contract also specifies that we were supposed to receive two 36-inch doors, but instead received one 36-inch door and one 32-inch door. Ron has cheated us so many times and is still attempting to get away with it. Ron employees anyone who is cheap, those same employees were hurling hammers from the garage into our driveway, cracking the concrete in many spots. Ron will be the nicest guy until you sign the contract, but once you do, he becomes tough to work with. Anytime you call Ron out on his faults, he either goes ballistic or says that it's not true, and as previously said, all of this is either on our home surveillance system or on our personal phones; we now have over 433 photographs of just the garage project on one phone alone. In addition, Ron brought a strange blue door, which we thought was strange given that our entire house has white doors with nickel handles. We made it abundantly clear the day we signed the contract, and even in texts to Ron, that we only had nickel hinges and door knobs in our home, and that's what we want for the Garage as well. We ended up having to buy our own door knobs, which he was supposed to supply, and were never reimbur

We hired Smith Brothers and signed a contract with them back in Sept. 2019 to have a two-story garage built in our property. Nine (9) months later the garage was finally completed but had some imperfections. Two months after project completion we are still reaching out to get this resolved (unsuccessfully). Of note: - They were the most affordable option when paying cash. - The actual work took them about five (5) months. Not sure what they were doing the other four (4). This is a rough estimate, but they would not show up for weeks at a time, then come and do some work and leave again. - Them showing up on schedule was a hit and miss. Sometimes right on time, sometimes later, sometimes not at all. - Slow to work, fast to collect. The day they finished they expected to be paid in full. The following day they said I'd be charged the late fee ($75) for every extra day without paying. - Siding was not installed properly, and we have humidity spots inside the structure. While the warranty covers us for a year, it's taken them another 2 months to come and fix both problems. They haven't yet - Now the job is done and they have been paid, scheduling them is harder. - They did provide us at no cost with dirt to cover the holes and uneven ground around the worksite.

Smith Brothers was to build a parking pad next to the new garage they built for us. The initial pad they built was not as large as the contract required, and was too small to use. Smith Brothers agreed to add more gravel and expand the pad. They dumped three or four yards of gravel on the driveway, told us they would be back to spread it, and never returned. I gave them the final payment the day we discussed the problem with the pad. Since we had not had any issues with them correcting problems up to that point, I felt comfortable paying off the contract for the entire garage project as they requested before the last bit of work was completed. This turned out to be a mistake. Once Smith Brothers got the last of the money, they simply could not be persuaded to return and spread the gravel. See photo -- that's how they left it. My multiple requests were ignored. I was surprised by this extremely unprofessional behavior. The garage took longer than planned and the process did not go perfectly, but overall I found the company to be responsive to my concerns. Having learned in earlier projects to never pay the last dollar until the last work was completed, I made an exception in this case, and I had to learn this lesson again, the hard way. Most puzzling is how unnecessary it was for Smith Brothers to behave this way. It wouldn't have taken much to finish the job, and I can't for the life of me figure out why they decided it was better for them to disappear than to put in the effort to live up to their obligations. This was no communications mishap. It was intentional.

Very well...Ron was great to work with. I highly recommend Smith Brothers, my friend had them build a garage for him, I got their info and called Ron (the owner) and he was at our house the next day (this was a Saturday no less) and his quote was half the price of the two previous quotes. I'm very happy with my garage and have since recommended them to my neighbor and he is having them build a garage for him. Highly recommend Smith Brothers Ultimate Builders Inc.

Awful. Wood pieces of garage are now warping out that were placed 3 years ago. Cement that

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Very bad !!!! First of all when tarring down old garage some irreplaceable items were taken WITHOUT PERMISSION. When using the dumpsters for ruble the law states NO PAINT can be grown in dumpsters, Ron three 6 cans of industrial paint was thrown in the dumpsters. We had a old cellar which was filled with dirt. In our contract it stated the fill dirt was included I'm our total price. Ended up we paid for the fill dirt $ 500.00 on top of the total price. And as the fill dirt was being put in Ron threw industeral paint cans filled with paint into the old cellar Ron knew about the old celler and ended up falling through the celler with the bobcat. He accursed us of not telling him about the cellar even though it was in our contract. A similar wrecker was called to pull the bobcat out of the old cellar at our expense. Which because of his mistake we ended up paying for the wrecker which was $ 500.00. In discussing the extra costs Ron became very irate and cussed my husband out on front of the workers & threatened to walk off the job before it was finished. It took Smith Brothers 3 months to finish our new garage. Our contract called for NEW MATERIALS wrong. The workers were to lazy to go get new 2 x 4s they spliced lumber in. Used 2 x 4s were used. Sole of the lumber was twisted, saw cuts in the middle of the lumber. A $ 15,000.00 garage ended up costing us $ 16,000.00 +.

I spoke with Ron on the phone about some permit issues and he was receptive to correcting the permits. When they were building the garage they installed a french door that I had to paint and prime. As I was painting it I realized the door was used. I texted Ron to let him know the door appeared to be used and attached pictures as well. Ron never responded back to me about having a new set of french doors installed. The entire process was horrible. The company communication and professionalism was terrible. Scheduling was never kept and they never showed up on time. I've told him that I would never reference him and he said to me I understand and I will earn your trust. That remains to be seen as he hasn't bothered contacting me back regarding the doors. Ron was supposed to be at my home today to get the permits fixed. I texted him and he let me know that he'd call me around 11am to let me know what time he'd be out today. 11am came and went and he hadn't called. I texted him again and he hasn't responded back to me.

They did not communicate well with me. They did not handle the permit correctly. They pulled a permit for an un-finish garage not a finished garage and did not tell me. I would not recommend them to anyone.

I'm very pleased with my new garage. Once construction started, it went up in about a week despite bitterly cold winter temperatures. His crew and subcontractors were very friendly and efficient.  His crew and subcontractors were very friendly and efficient.  
There were delays regarding getting approval from the historic society and permits from the city. None of those delays were in Smith Brothers' control and they took care of all the leg work to get the approvals. This was a huge value to me!  I would have liked more proactive communication, but Ron was always responsive via text and phone when I inquired about the timeline.
Overall, it was a great experience and I've had lots of complements on my new garage! Thanks, Ron and team!

We contacted Smith Brothers to get a quote for a garage addition to our house after getting quotes from a couple other builder/remodelers in the city.  We worked through the details and made sure we all on the same page as to the level of work to be done and the finishes required.  He gave us a very competitive bid on the work.  We weren't yet Angie's list members, so I asked a friend to check them out on Angie's list and there were some reviews that made me question whether it would be a good idea to continue with them as the contractor.  I asked Ron to provide me references of other clients for which he had done work.  I thoroughly check out each of his references speaking with each home owner and looking at the work that was done.  Everyone was happy with the service that they had received, so we decided to use them as our contractor.

Ron really has an eye for the details and made sure that the addition was completed to match the existing home.  Ron is actively involved with the construction and work along side with his employees.  He made sure the roof tied in nicely and trim pieces and brick all matched the home.  I am very happy with how it turned out.  We have had so many neighbors stop us and tell us how nice the addition looks.  Everyone tells us that it looks as if it was always there.  I feel that is the highest complement since the original structure was built 60 years earlier.  I'm very glad with my decision to have Smith Brothers build my garage addition and would recommend him to others.

Ron is a really nice man.  He has a wonderful gal name Cindy Thasher who took care of getting the permits and variances I would need to build my garage since I could not meet the normal zoning codes my house has been placed in.  Ron was willing to offer me money back on that if we could not get the permits I needed - WHO WOULD"VE DONE THAT?!  He worked with me in every aspect of the build, and even offered to help me on his own time with a portion of the build (pouring concrete) and not asking for labor payment.  I did not use his help as I was able to complete the other work with a different crew.  Ron does come out to talk about the project on weekends and evenings that is convenient for the home owner.  Ron is a salesman and will offer some options that maybe the homeowner did not think of to make the project better.  However, when the project was completed, there was a wrinkle in the metal exterior I asked to have straighten.  Several weeks have gone by and no word or attempt to complete.  The wrinkle is pretty minor compared to the overall job, and I guess I will be doing it myself.  Ron says he has many jobs lined up, and is always talking to people about their builds.  I still felt he should have kept his word without me making additional attempts to make sure the work fully meets my satisfaction.  I would have given him an A- because of this, but that isn't an option in the review.  He did work with me on other parts of the project that were appreciated though, several things I'm sure other builders would not do.  Bottom line, I am pleased with my garage and it was built in a very timely manor.

Work Completed Date: May 17, 2012Hire Again: NoDescription Of Work: All around bad experience with Smith Brothers Ultimate Builders.  From the beginning, clearing the area for garage, to the laying of cement, the finishing of the garage..  Theres a laundry list of things i could mention, but looking at them on Angies List, it seems no one uses them anyway.  With that in mind, I suggest using anyone BUT Smith Brothers Ultimate Builders.  

The representative came out to our house on 8/25 and provided us a detailed quote of the work to be done.  He was very professional and helped us chose the best options for our budget.  We were informed the work would begin as soon as the city issued the permits, which is approximately two to three weeks.  We were then told that it would be completed 45 days after receiving the permits.  I wrote a check for a 1/3rd of the cost.  I did not hear from Smith Bros for three weeks and had to call several times and left a few voicemails.  Finally I was able to get in contact with the owner that explained they are still waiting on permits.  Finally, on 10/19 the demolition of the old garage started.  From this point on, a crew would show up and do work on a day and then a week or two would pass before they would return to continue the work.  There was little to no contact from Smith Bros and almost always required me reaching out to them to find out what the status was.  During the demo, the crew damaged my neighbors fence and my landscaping along the driveway.  I was reassured by Ron that they would replace the section of fence  that was damaged.   Finally around the second week of December the garage was completed.  The garage looked great and the construction appears to be solid.  The week before Christmas Ron stopped by for the final payment.  I asked again if Ron was going to fix my neighbors fence and he said "I give you my word." I called one more time the second week of January to see if they would be out soon to fix my neighbors fence and was told that a crew would be out "this week."  Sixty days have now passed and my neighbors fence has not been repaired nor has Smith Bros even attempted to contact me.  I will assume that they have determined my case closed.  Bottom line is Smith Bros builds a nice garage for a really good price.  However, they do not provide a time line on the contract on when job is to be completed plus are really horrible on communication and are fairly careless when doing the job.  Luckily I had plans on redoing the landscaping along the driveway.  If I had already done it last summer, then I would be out that money as well.  I will add that every time I talked with Ron or his wife, they were very polite and pleasant with me.  I am just not pleased with the amount of clean up I have to do, the lack of communication during the process, and that I am out money to fix my neighbors fence.  I am happy with my garage. 

They did a fairly good job. The job took longer than it should have but it was in 90 degree weather. The roof turned out pretty good. They did break my front window, and didn't end up admitting it until I went to the police. We are enjoying the roof now.