American Restoration

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Having worked for American Restoration as a canvasser over
the summer, when I experienced a house fire over Labor Day weekend, I called
upon them to do the restoration of my home. 
I was almost talked out of it by another former coworker of American
Restoration because he said they would cut corners and use cheap materials, but
Dan Johnson, one of the co-owners convinced me that ?I was like family? and
that they would take care of me.  I am
very sorry that I didn?t trust my coworker?s opinion.
My main complaints:
Being over charged for upgrades
·        
I elected to change out counter tops, lighting
and plumbing fixtures at my cost as upgrades and was never told until after the
fact not only would I be charged the purchase price of the items and labor but
also 20=30% overage and profit on each items (i.e the countertop I was told
would cost me under $100 ended up being over $400).  This 20-30% overage and profit was applied to
each and every upgrade I had that instead of costing me around $1600, the bill
was over $5000 I believe.
·        
I wanted black cabinets and they received over
$3000 in insurance money and additional money from me.  They installed cheap particle board ones and
only painted the outside leaving the interior unfinished and looking like
crap.   They maybe spent $600 on them.
Work has not been completed
·        
A back door glass was broken by the workers they
employed.  Despite numerous texts and
emails by myself to both owners, the shattered glass was left in my back yard
and on my patio.  We finally did it
ourselves last week despite being told they would be out on numerous occasions.  The glass was there for 6 months.
·        
Painting touch up services, never completed.
·        
Painting on interior cabinets never completed
·        
Painting above the garage where it was smoke
damaged never completed
·        
Pressure washing garage floor, supposedly
completed but you can clearly tell where the fire was
·        
Painting of door jambs (Although paid to clean
the exterior of the doors, I finally did it since they had not)
·        
They lost the remote to my ceiling fan so they
replaced it with a transmitter than rarely works, is slow to come on and in
which the lighting is very dim
·        
There are many other small things that add up
but I only have 10000 characters
Materials used were indeed cheaply made
·        
Cabinets?they look okay on the outside, but they
are unfinished particle board on the inside and look like crap
Poor quality in workmanship
·        
Doggy door off center
·        
Lights off center in main bath
·        
Storm door lock doesn?t line up with whole for
lock
·        
Paint on half wall makes everything stick to it
and leaves black pock marks
·        
Bifold doors constantly fall off
·        
Bi=fold door bottom plate never attached
·        
Cabinet shelves wobbly
·        
Plumbing fixtures not attached
·        
Keypad door lock struggles to lock
·        
They attempted to put my garage door opener button
inside the house instead of the garage and when I vetoed it, they patched the
hole and painted over it, but it is readily noticeable.
·        
Plus more
Non-responsiveness to complaints
·        
I moved back in before Christmas.  It is May and many things as listed above
have not been completed.  In March I was
told they would be out to finish since snow was gone.  Three weeks later, when I asked again I was
two more weeks.  They have not answered
any of my texts or emails since 4/21 even though I told them if they didn?t
refund my money I would give them a bad review?I sent them texts to their personal
cell phone and work email and never heard back
Arrogance and accusatory attitudes by Tim Emkow, co=owner
·        
Anytime anything went wrong with something they
tried to install, Tim would blame me for the choices I made in product or
timing in having things done saying I was rushing things.  A week or two after moving back in water came
pouring out from under my kitchen sink and all the plumbing had collapsed.  Tim claimed it was from my daughter being too
lazy to put thing up so she had probably kicked or shoved something under the
sink dislodging all the plumbing.  The
plumber told us it was a faulty part.
 
Thefts
·        
The fire was Friday night of Labor Day
weekend.  When walking through that
weekend one of the employees told me to take pictures of my electronics in case
they got stolen?.ironically they were all stolen sometime between Monday Labor
Day and Tuesday when the adjuster came. 
I live on an isolated street.
·        
One of the guys helping inventory items  that I had asked to do the inventory loaded
up tools and other things after taking pictures of them for insurance and took
them without authorization
·        
I arranged for someone to pick up my very nice
stove and refrigerator that no longer worked and advised Tim of the name and
time the person was coming.  When the person
showed up, he was told by Tim that they had already given them to someone
else.   No one else knew about the
items.  I truly believe Tim or Gary his
worker took the items and resold them
·        
I complained that Gary and his crew got paint
overspray on my patio furniture?.ironically that also came up missing while
they were working on my house along with my glider and fire pit.
Note: I did withhold $500 towards work that was completed
when I gave them the final insurance check, but the warranty issues, little
things not being done and the interior painting of my cabinets and other things
add up to more than that.
 
My advice?.run, run, run as far as you can from American
Restoration performing any work for you. 
It will be

It was terrible and horrible.  They were supposed to come out and do roofing that they had done but it never happened.  They killed my lawn and the plants I have to replace.  It was a really bad experience. 

I started to type out all the nitty gritty details, and then decided to summarize since those of you reading these reviews don't need the whole scoop I suppose.  Essentially, they only called when they wanted their money (and I mean they'd call 2 times a day...God forbid you were at work and couldn't answer the first time), they didn't do everything they said they'd do, we have now found 15 roofing nails in our front yard alone (was told they'd do 3 sweeps with a metal magnet to pick up nails since we had a toddler- we haven't been able to check the back yard yet due to weather), HORRIBLE communication (literally impossible to get a hold of even though they are "local"), was fed several lies and some really lame excuses regarding needing their money (including the salesmen needing to buy his son birthday presents and the founder needing to pay the roofers so they'd have money for Christmas?), job took longer than promised (promised 2 weeks...ended up taking  3 months....and those 3 months didn't include frequent check-ins to let me know status updates due to prolonged time...and they didn't answer when I'd call to check).  The real kicker for us, though, was when after SO MUCH had gone so wrong with the entire process (and thus we lost confidence in the company's integrity and workmanship) the founder didn't understand why we wanted a second (unbiased) opinion on the roof to ensure it was done properly. After having the roof checked we found out it was done very well (which was a huge relief and I'm glad we had the second contractor confirm that for us because we didn't believe anything American Restoration said anymore at that point).  Just extremely disappointed in every other aspect of the process, BAFFLED that they tried to make us feel bad about getting a second opinion and for not holding themselves accountable for all the problems (instead just kept interrupting me, providing me with excuses, and making me feel like I should be sympathetic towards THEM), and will most definitely never be using or recommending American Restoration again.  
 I have nothing to compare the price to, but assumed it was good/fair so that's how I scored the price category. I gave the quality a "B" because even though the roof was confirmed to be done well, the quality of the process/clean-up of the roofers wasn't stellar).

9/14/2012  Signed contract ( Matl's to be delivered 10/2/2012, work to begin 10/3/2012, est  2 days to complete)
10/2/2012 Materials delivered
10/3/2012 Work began
10/4/2012 Workers ran out of shingles
10/9/2012 Finished shingling
10/10/2012 Production supervisor inspected problem areas that I pointed out (  cracked ridge shingles, loose hip
                      shingles, exposed nails unsealed, & chimneys not re-flashed. The production supervisor promised
                      that corrections would be completed on or before 10/12)
10/17/201 Production supervisor arrived with workers @ 2:30pm @ said they should be done by 4:00pm. He then left.
                   The workers said their tools would arrive in another truck. At 3:30pm it began to rain, thunder & lightening,
                   still now tool truck. I had to leave at 4:00pm, still no tool truck.
10/18/2012 I inspected the roof. Cracked ridge shingles were replaced but no other work was completed.
10/19/2012 One worker arrived , repaired loose shingles, It started to rain while he was flashing the first chimney area.
                      I thought he would return to finish the job later.
10/25/2012 The office manager called wanting to set up an appointment for final payment.
10/29/2012 After leaving three messages over the last 3 days informing the office manager that the job was not complete I finally
                     made contact with her on this date and informed her that the job was not yet complete.
10/30/2012 All work was completed and final payment was make.
 Note: I am satisfied with the quality of the work done & especially so with the cleanup done after the initial work was done.

After contract was signed they kept rescheduling the start date for the job because of problems with there crew. Was 2 months after the contract was signed before work started. Crew was short handed so they took 3 days to complete a 2000 square foot house. Was told it was going to take 1 day. Damaged my landscaping  because they were short handed and left 100's of pounds of shingles on tarps that they layed over my bushes and trees. They say they will replace them next year if they die. We will see. Oil stains all over driveway from compressor and trash flew all over neighborhood and was not cleaned up. I had to do that every night after they left. All the company seemed to be worried about was getting there money and leaving. I would not recommend this company for roof replacement.

They were very good.

The insurance company approved it and everything went through. The process was very easy from start to finish. When they got some clear weather, they came out and it was done in a day. They had to do some inside work because of the damage and they partially rebuilt the chimney. They did everything and it seems to be great. They handled the insurance company so I didn?t have to do much of anything. They came out when the appraiser was here and they went on the roof with him so they could talk about what needed to be done. They had a bunch of guys doing the work so they could get it done. Their clean-up was fine and I didn?t have to pick up anything. Kevin was always right there, he gave me his cell phone number, and he always answered the phone. They called recently to check and see that everything was fine.

We contacted Chris Shepherd for an estimate and he came out the very same day. He called our insurance company and he also met with the insurance adjuster. (note: the insurance company had been sluggish in responding to me, but quickly addressed the issue after Chris became involved). The roofing crew was extremely polite and professional and did an excellent job - not only with the roof but keeping the yard and flowerbeds free from debris. The new roof looks fantastic!! Chris outlined every detail and the entire experience was incredibly organized and easy. Words cannot explain how thankful we are to American Restoration. I had zero stress over this project.

The threat of rain prevented them from starting when they wanted. Once the weather cooperated, they were done with 95% in 1 day. They came back saturday morning to finish a few things, but were only there about an hour. The roof looks nice and we are very pleased.

The job went great! We had signifigant wind damage to our roof. I contacted our insurance company and they offered to repair the water damage inside and replace the few shingles that had blown off with non matching shingles since the company who had made our shingles had ceased making them (we had already done this on our own a couple of times before so the roof was beginning to look by a patchwork). The problem was that more shingles were blowing off with each storm. We were referred to American Restoration to see what they thought should be done. Tim Emkow of American Restoration diagnosed the situation. Apparently, and over time, the wind had broken the seals on a whole section of our roof and more shingles were destined to blow off with each storm. Tim interceded for us with our insurance company, explained the problem, and submitted a quote for a roof replacement in the form that the insurance company wanted to see. The insurance company then accepted the claim and quote. The work proceeded in a timely fashion and was professionally done in less than a week. My favorite part was their clean up. A roof tear off is a messy job--but it was never made into my mess at all. They even went around with magnets to find spent nails that they might have missed otherwise. Also, we went out of town for a couple of days and that's when they did the drywall and painting---so perfect was the clean up, it took me a couple of days after I got home to realize it was done. I can't say enough good things about American Restoration and Tim's services.