GARBART CONSTRUCTION CO INC

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I recommend them highly. I liked everything about them. They were skilled people. They worked on time and they had good communication. We did do some comparison shopping with the basement bathroom and they were on a par with others. I have recommended them to friends.

Jack Garbart gave up a complete estimate beforehand and helped find places to look at and buy materials. Staff arrived on time and cleaned up each day. Had several minor problems afterwards that were promptly handled. Referred Jack Garbart to other family members for windows and carpentry work. We were very satisfied.

We hired Garbart Construction Co. (hereafter referred to as and quot;Jack,and quot; after owner Jack Garbart) to build a large, ground-floor addition to our house. The addition consists of a large (16 x 26') bedroom, a large luxury bathroom, a laundry room, and a walk-in closet. Exterior is brick facade to match the existing facade and vinyl siding to match the sides and rear of the house. The addition has its own HVAC that is installed in a fully insulated concrete crawl space. My wife and I designed the addition, but we emphasized to Jack that we are not architects or interior designers, and we necessarily gave him license to make such changes as necessary where our design was impractical or even impossible to build due to code requirements. Jack's design matched our design and our needs so closely that we accepted every improvement that he had made to our design. By so doing we ended up with a better addition, particularly a better bathroom. All fixtures, doorways, shower, etc. meet ADA standards.
The scope of work included some renovations to the existing house--replacement of all baseboard and shoe mouldings, refinishing of worn hardwood floors, repainting, and replacement of shutters on the facade. Jack's partner, John Moore, handled all of the fine details of this project with the hand and eye of a master.
We did not seek competitive bids for this project because we knew Jack's work from two beautiful, award-winning additions that he had built for our friends' home in Columbia, MD, and we knew that that was the quality level we were seeking. Terms such as and quot;reasonableand quot; are entirely subjective, but considering our requirements--the large size of the bedroom and bathroom, the high-end cabinetry and other fixtures that we chose, (polished solid brass for bathroom fixtures and all door hardware, white-oak hardwood flooring, e.g.) and considering the quality of work that Jack performed, we think that our money was well spent.
We did not have a completion date in our contract with Jack; such a clause doesn't have a lot of meaning when one is subject to forces majeures such as Frankenstorm Sandy and unpredictable Christmas holiday schedules. Jack moved the project along diligently and it was completed within the time period that we had hoped for.
As the project proceeded we were constantly reminded that the most important job of the general contractor is to choose top-notch sub-contractors (subs) and to carefully coordinate and manage their schedules. Jack kept us constantly up-to-date by e-mail, telling us what was going to happen the next day and farther into the future, and if nothing was going to happen, he told us why (waiting for materials, mostly)--but there were no delays except for a short period after and quot;Sandyand quot; and a few days around Christmas. When Jack said that a shipment was coming on a certain day, it came. When Jack said that a sub was going to show up at such-and-such time, the sub showed up. He scheduled every county inspection and either Jack or a representative of the appropriate sub was present for the inspections, if appropriate. We passed all inspections, including the final, with verbal remarks on the nice quality of the work.
A key thing to remember when beginning a project such as this one is to make sure that the design that you start with is the design that you want. Every contract has provisions for extra charges for additions and changes. We made virtually no changes--a testament to our original design and Jack's improvements to our design--and the job was completed at the agreed contract price.
By now the reader knows that we would hire Garbart Construction Company again, and that we recommend the company without reservations. In fact, we are going to hire the company again in the spring of 2013 to build a similar, though smaller, ground-floor addition to my wife's mother's home.