Schu Home Services

This was a father and son team of carpenters who were sub-contracted to do some additional work on a modular home we had brought in and set on a basement with a walk-out. From the very start, I knew there might be some problems because the son, Luke, had that "deer in the headlights" look on his face when he saw how big the job was going to be, especially when viewing the 3-story side of the house where the walk-out basement was. It's about 30-some feet to the peak of the roof from the patio at the bottom level and I don't think they were prepared to deal with that situation. There was not a lot of solid communication from their direction and my confidence was pretty low. However, since I did not contract them directly (They were contracted through Dutchtown Homes to do this job which was part of our overall package) I did not have much control over the situation. We were told that they had experience installing Hardie siding and trim, but it was very quickly evident that this was not the case. The first evening after they'd worked on the walk-out side of the home, I knew something was not right. The trim had been miter-cut to go around the doors and windows and the hardie plank itself was not flush to the home and was sticking out in many places. This was brought to their attention and they stated they "were doing it right". I went home and viewed the instructions from Hardie and they were doing it completely wrong. The trim should be butt-cut and siding must be installed with metal tabs. They were simply screwing it into the exterior chip board. And that's just the start of the problems we had. They ended up tearing what they did off the house and re-doing it correctly, or I should say, to the best of their ability - which was not very good. Many places the siding sticks off the home about an inch and has gaps where insects and weather can get in, which we'll have to have repaired at our cost. As far as the porch construction, it was done very quickly and the pillars which were to go all the way to the beam of the porch were cut down and a box beam was installed above them, making the porch much lower than we had expected. The trim around some of the windows stuck out and they gather rain water. Another fix needed. The flashing around the chimney and the final caulking job around the porch was very poorly done and will need replaced or repaired. The interior stud walls were sub-par, not level in many places and a couple of timbers were cracked and had to be replaced. As far as their attitudes, I've never experienced a bigger lack of respect for a home owner in my life from any vendor. Both of these guys smoked constantly and threw their cigarette butts ANYWHERE. And they looked at me as if I was the enemy because I wanted a higher level of quality and was making them re-do things that were sub-par. I'm not that picky but I'd at least like OK quality, not poor quality on a house that is supposed to be around 250 thousand dollars. I would never recommend them to even build the cheapest dog house, let alone do any finish carpentry. All in all, a very frustrating and negative experience from the word go. UPDATE: APRIL 2014 After a few very heavy downpours, our double front door began leaking at the bottom two corners. After investigating, it seems that Schu installed the door : 1. without installing a door sill pan per the manufacturers instructions 2. neglected to put ANY caulk under the door 3. put only enough screws in the door to hold it in place After caulking the door heavily on all edges and installing more screws ourselves, it still leaked and I was pretty sure that it was due to the lack of sill pan. After having the door re-installed with a sill pan by another crew (with the help of our original builder) the door does not leak at all. However, it's important to note that when questioned about the installation and caulk situation, Schu told a blatant lie by stating that they had caulked the door on all sides, especially the bottom. When the door was removed, the only caulk that was present was that which we had applied ourselves. There was NO caulk under that door whatsoever. And the home builder was standing right there, witnessed this fact and knew right away that he'd been lied to.