GREATHOUSE INC

It is difficult to assign a fair overall grade as GreatHouse's work on my house was in multiple areas, with some areas executed flawlessly and others very poorly.  Their work ranged from A+ to F. The interior carpentry was very well done. The exterior carpentry looked great at first, but has had some minor issues in the intervening six years (mainly elements that were formed from multiple pieces to save money rather than from larger single pieces of wood are separating and now show clearly that they are made of separate cheaper pieces).  The porch floor was very well done. The staircase work was very well done.

There were two areas that were both very expensive and very poorly done:  The exterior paint job for which we were billed $25000 began to fail within a year.  Although they were supposed to replace rotting wood, in several areas they failed to do so. The windows were not adequately prepared for paint, nor were they adequately caulked.  I think the real issue here is that GreatHouse subbed the work out to a sub par painter who didn't have the skills or willingness to do  quality work.

The other area that has been a chronic problem is the radiant floor heating.  It never did perform adequately.  We eventually brought in another hvac team to redo the project.  GreatHouse took some responsibility for issue in that they agreed to forego $4000 of their bill as compensation for inadequate floor heating system.   After the project began, it was clear that GreatHouse did not have ANY radiant floor experience and that our house was their learning project.  I wish they had been more upfront about this.

In closing, I would not use GreatHouse for general contracting in which they had to hire painters, plumbers or other trades outiside of their core competency areas.  I would feel very comfortable using them for carpentry, framing and finish work.

They were very professional and easy to work with

Overall, not well. The project ran over by three months, the exterior paint job was very poorly done and began peeling within months due to grossly inadequate prep work and the floor heating system cannot heat the rooms it was installed in adequately. Although the Greathouse owners Brent Jones and Harvey Willis have been very polite and have repeatedly stated that they intend to make the heating functional and repair the paint job it has been nearly TWO YEARS and they have done neither. Greathouse blames the manufacturer of the floor system (zurn) for poor advice, Zurn denies giving any specific advice on the installation. The one bright spot was the quality of the carpentry work, which was quite good.