Sergio's Renovations

You may have seen my past superlative reviews of Sergio and his crew. Nonetheless, read on. This time, my 6th hiring Sergio, I hesitated to contact him because I thought my job too small. But I had to give it a try because of all the many workers I have hired, none compares with Sergio. He took my job, I believe, out of a sense of loyalty—a quality in short supply in a mad business environment. As always, the work performed could be ranked with the skills of master craftsmen. For a particular detail, Sergio made a special trip to manage the task himself. And, Sergio is a gentleman, always calm and respectful—a refreshing change from some other contractors.

This was a pretty small job, but Sergio happened to be doing a big job down the street so he could send his tile guy over to do our shower. Serigo and his workers were all super friendly and professional, did the job promptly and completely. They cleaned up and disposed of all waste as they went, and the finished job looks fantastic. We'd definitely hire Sergio again and recommend him to friends.

Sergio was professional and always pleasant in dealing with the many issues that came up and planning changes. He was a good supervisor and had conscientious workers. He promptly responded to text-messages. The complicated job was done by move-in day.

This is second time I've used Sergio's Renovations for bathroom remodel and again I'm very happy with result. In current condo I only have one bathroom and Sergio made sure I always had a working toilet and only went a couple days without a usable shower. Key to keeping project moving is ensuring all materials are available when needed so Sergio can more easily schedule various parts of work. Kitchen counters and backsplash were installed smoothly. Porch remodel extended over winter months since needed warm enough temps to finish the exterior staining / painting. Looks great.

We have used Sergio Renovations twice in the past seven years to complete renovations for us. Each was +$45K, I will go into detail on each. Overall Sergio is a pleasure to work with. He is a nice man who prides himself on open communication and has fair and transparent pricing. Sergio walked potential houses with us to give us an estimate to be used during our offers. Getting into houses is often last minute and Sergio was able to accommodate all of our requests. First house: (~$40K) Scope of the project: We gutted the kitchen and bathrooms and knocked down a few walls. We provided Sergio a tight time frame and he came in on time and on budget. At the time of the sale, five years later, because of the great quality of work it all held up well. The workers were always respectful, kept the house clean and were responsive. Second house: (~$50K) Sergio was active in the planning process. He suggested ways to accomplish the task that would save us both time and money. Since we planned to live in the house throughout the renovation he worked hard to not impact our lives and work around our schedule to get the job completed. Scope of the project: We painted the entire house, which included trim in every room, floor and ceiling and around all windows. We updated the kitchen, removed walls (some support walls), gutted and redid a room and added recessed lights. We did not go out to bid because we were pleased working with Sergio the first time. There was some team turnover and minor issues this time but Sergio quickly revolved anything that came up. During the process of completing this renovation we had many "change orders" and he was very patient with us and accommodated the changes as quickly as possible. Again, the team was respectful, hardworking and always cleaned up at the end of the day. We would use Sergio again.

Couldn't have gone better: review of work and estimate promptly provided job scheduled immediately (I got lucky on timing of painting staff being between jobs) job completed on time w/ good quality and cleanliness

He remodeled two bathrooms for us. I previously reviewed his work and gave an A back in 2014. Four years later, I am sorry to say that the work did not hold up, primarily because of shoddy plumbing. First, we have issues with a recurrent freezing pipe that he routed through an exterior overhang and did not insulate. Sergio tried to make it right by having his electrician install a warming circuit inside the wall which did not meet code. We complained and he had him take it out, then he tried to insulate the pipe and give us shutoff valves for when it gets cold. This strategy did not work and it has frozen every winter since then. We hired another contractor to do our kitchen and reroute the problem pipe, and he was shocked at the plumbing work that was done by Sergio's sub. In addition to the pipe issue, he installed a sink drain that was not properly vented and which we have now had to revise as well. Another plumber I have worked with also told me that the work was very poor. This has created a lot of problems for us and I would definitely steer clear.

This was a big project, so there was a lot of discussion upfront, and Sergio did a good job at presenting us all of our options. The work they did itself was extraordinary, and we are extremely happy with it. My one big issue was that Sergio was rarely on site, and sometimes slow to respond to emails/calls. This resulted in some miscommunication regarding particular pieces of work. Despite this, when a mistake was made, Sergio never had a problem or issue with correcting it. Given the quality of what was done, I wouldn't hesitate to hire Sergio again, despite the occasional issues with communication.

Sergio provided the most reasonable bid, showed up on time and did excellent work. I would definitely hire his company again

unknown

unknown

To date, Sergio has done 5 separate, major remodeling jobs for me. This number alone could stand as an endorsement of his skill, and attitude, but let me say a bit more. Sergio is not only a master craftsman and overseer, but also a man of integrity. He has saved me money by proposing suggestions different from my original ideas (when he could have simply done as I asked --- to his financial advantage). I have read that some people have had problems with getting return calls from Sergio (probably because he is in such demand), but please know that once Sergio takes you on as his customer, he is on-the-spot-available by phone, and he and his workers keep their commitments in a timely fashion. His men, always polite, work hard and continue until a job is finished. Over the course of 4 years, Sergio and his crew have renovated my entire condominium (5 rooms and 2 full baths), jobs that included gutting bathrooms and transforming them into showcase models, modernizing a kitchen, installing hardwood floors, and replacing doors, including pocket doors. His creation of cabinets and shelving were carried out to perfection and painting details were executed beautifully. My experience with Sergio has been A+ on all 5 projects.

Sergio charges for labor and certain materials but he suggests where you can go to buy all the big stuff.  You can pick out all that you like and pay for it at store with his discount instead of having a contractor buy it and jack up the price.  I liked that aspect of the process.  It gave his more control.
Sergio is a very nice guy and hires a small band of workers who he trusts and whose work he can put his reputation on. Because he only hires people he trusts it could mean a job might take a bit longer.  Our bathroom took 6 weeks which is what he initially told us.  It's not easy being without a bathroom for 6 weeks but we wanted the job done right and that is what we got.
We asked for ideas and suggestions and he gave us good advice.   We are VERY pleased with our new bathroom.
The $12,500 was only labor.   With all the product we probably spent $22,000 or $23,000.   It's a forever bathroom as far as we are concerned.
We plan on having him do our kitchen eventually.

Everything went smoothly over two days after the stove was delivered and they even removed my old electric stove when the work was completed. When we first purchased the stove I contacted Sergio via e-mail to notify him of when it would be delivered.  He then scheduled both his plumber and electrician around a day after the scheduled delievery date.  Sergio was always available via phone or e-mail/texting to let me know when to be at the house to let the workers in.

.

.

unknown

Segio is a very professional and knowledgeable contractor who also happens to be a very decent, honest person. It was a pleasure working with him, and also with his team of Brazilian skilled tradesmen, despite the pain associated with any major renovation in one's home. He took on our job early in the summer and started the following week. Sergio could give us a better price by doing both bathrooms at once, while always leaving us a functioning toilet and--except for a few days--a working shower. Because Sergio juggles multiple jobs, and because of the unavailability of some tiles and the fact that we added extras like the foam insulation and the threshold-less shower along the way, there were occasional delays. However, the project moved steadily on. The final result looks and works great, and is a wonderful improvement over our old bathrooms.

While all the workmen on Sergio's team were great, we particularly appreciated the fact that Fabrizio, the tile installer, went out of his way to make sure the project turned out well. On Sergio's recommendation we hired Sotiris Sotiropoulos of Spray Foam Insulation to insulate the bathrooms at a good price, which worked out well. Sergio's electrician, Edney Leite, also did some separate work for us to replace our several fuse boxes with a single modern breaker box, which we are very pleased with. On Sergio's advice, we bought most of our bathroom fixtures from Moniques, where Pat Viglirolo was great to work with. We bought our tiles from the Brazilians Eddie and Herman Souto at United Tile America.

unknown

Overall, we thought Sergio did a great job.
Pros:
- Very professional team. Our neighbors commented on how clean the demolishing day was. They had everything cleaned up and cleared out in one day. In comparison, another person in our building did a kitchen reno where some of the demo stuff was on their porch for weeks.
- Quality of work. The cabinets feel like they were installed very securely and everything is extremely level.
- Set expectations. Sergio was very careful about giving us realistic expectations on how much time the project would take (4-5 weeks). He finished right on time.
- Cost. Sergio was competitive with other quotes we received. We were on a tight budget, so he worked with us on finding ways to save $$.
- Sergio is extremely nice. We really like working with Sergio. Unlike some other contractors we had give us quotes, Sergio provides thoughtful ideas for the project. He also appears to really want to make sure that the end result is great and that people get what they want.
Cons:
- Before you sign a contract to start work with Sergio, he can sometimes be hard to get a hold of. I believe the poor reviews that say that he didn't return calls. However, please notice that there aren't these types of reviews from customers that actually had work performed. Once a project starts, he is very responsive. You just need to be persistent when getting a quote.
- Although Sergio was fantastic overall (and we would use him again for any contracting work), we felt that he could be a little more organized. When we tried to track what would happen each day, things seemed to be done more spontaneously than planned. And we weren't always certain if Sergio knew exactly what had been done to date each day. However, it is worth noting though that we went out of town for about a week and that seemed to be the most smooth part of the process. So if you don't mind giving Sergio full control, I don't think you would even notice that things seem at time to be a little disorganized at times.

Quality: Sergio's work is really exceptional. His tile man Fabricio and carpenter Ilio were especially great and did flawless work. Every time we were concerned about an issue it turned out that they had already thought of it and planned for it. Both bathrooms came out looking amazingly good. Sergio is also clearly very experienced and had a number of great design suggestions that helped us out immensely.
Punctuality/Time: Sergio's business is very busy, especially in the summer, so he is balancing a number of jobs at once. This keeps his quality high because he has a small crew of very skilled workers. Be prepared for some stretches of time where no workers will come for a few days though, and sometimes they have to wait for an inspection to take place to proceed (the plumbing inspector in Newton especially took forever to come). The project overall took longer than we expected. 
Responsiveness/Professionalism: Sergio is a man of great character and was very trustworthy in all of our dealings. He stuck to his price and was responsive to all of our needs and concerns. One thing to be aware of is that he answers all his own calls and does his own scheduling, so it was somewhat hard to get the project going and we called him several times to follow up on our estimate. However once the project was going he was very responsive whenever we needed him.
Price: Sergio's was the lowest estimate of three that we obtained. He stuck to his price despite some unforeseen issues coming up. We were very happy with the price.
Overall: We are extremely happy with our bathrooms and feel that we paid a very fair price. We plan on hiring Sergio again for our porch, basement, and kitchen.

Sergio was great.  The entire job was completed in a couple of weeks, precisely the amount of time estimated at the beginning of the job. He had recommendations on the selection of the tile which was very helpful.  Sergio Renovations works with a number of subcontractors who are quite skilled in plumbing, carpentry, and tiling.  We were thrilled with the tile installation, which required quite a bit of cutting since we were using large 20" tiles.  In every job, there is a punch list with odds and ends that needs attention. When brought to his attention, Sergio usually addressed these in the same day.

Excellent! It came out beautifully. Sergio came over for the estimate and gave us great advice (we were selling the house) to make the house more appealing to the buyer. We set up a time for the workers and they came promptly every day. They were respectful and hard-working men. They finished on time and did a great job. Sergio was right about the renovations - it was an important piece in selling the house.

Once we found Sergio, we haven't had the need to look for another contractor. Sergio has done at least a half dozen major renovations to our two-family house over the last several years. He did an excellent job on every one. We cannot imagine a contractor being better than he is. 
I recommend Sergio without reservation for any construction project. He has always done an excellent job in a timely manner. The most recent and most comprehensive project was a complete kitchen renovation (down to the original studs and beams from 1925 when the house was built). It was a challenging job and took eight weeks.  
The work was done in January and February, which made it more difficult because of all the snow, ice, and cold weather. (For example, his crew shoveled snow to widen our street when the appliance delivery truck arrived at the same time as the trash pickup truck.) Our property is small so there was not much room for outside work or collection of debris, but they managed it well by removing debris as they created it.  
In addition to doing good work, Sergio and his crew are considerate, pleasant to work with, and flexible in meeting changing requirements.
As with any old house there were problems that were not discovered until the ceiling, walls, and floors were laid bare. Sergio took care of all the problems cheerfully and efficiently.
The cost was within the original estimate and completed on time. The crew cleaned up each day before they left. I was especially pleased with the fact that Sergio was willing and able to go the extra mile in salvaging and restoring the original floor, which was of heart pine and would have been difficult to part with. 

The workmanship of the renovation is outstanding. The bathroom looks absolutely gorgeous. Joints fit, finishes are perfect, and the tilework, especially, is almost a work of art. Sergio was polite, professional, helpful, informative, and responded immediately and effectively anytime a problem arose. Every one of his workers was professional, corteous, considerate and very good at what they do. Sergio was not the cheapest or the priciest estimate. But I can't imagine anyone else could have done the work any better. The job took longer than anticipated. In part due to our special ordering several materials which may have thrown off his scheduling of jobs, although we thought a couple things could have proceeded while we awaited the materials., hence the C for punctuality. But that stands as minor considering how happy we are with the final product and the overall professionalism. And we would definitely us them again.