Bluesky Sunrooms

see above. This was a sunroom with an endless pool inside.  It is done now.  The manufacturer of the sunroom has sanctioned Mr.Craven because they do not want him to stain their reputation.  I am in contact with several other dissatisfied customers of Mr. Craven/Bluesky.  I hope you do not have to join me. 
J

not well. see above

My experience with Bluesky Sunrooms has been essentially disastrous.  I would not be able to recommend the firm to anyone.  The story is as follows:  

1.  Bluesky Sunrooms (BS) and I agreed a draft contract on 15 April, 2010, subject to satisfactory engineers? drawings. I paid BS $1,500 earnest money. BS immediately started trying to surreptitiously remove/ignore the inclusion of a deck extension that was in the draft. In Aug 2010, BS presented me with a contract that we had previously rejected. I changed it back to the 15 April, 2010 one, I thought. BS then brought ?the? contract to me to sign on 13 Aug, 2010.  I didn?t read it carefully enough, and a number of its clauses still differed from the 15 April, 2010 draft on which we had earlier agreed.  I unfortunately signed it. In June, 2011, I discovered that that the deck extension appeared to have been removed from the contract.  I asked BS to reinstate it, but they refused, unless I made a further substantial payment to them.  However, in May, 2012, I discovered that the deck extension actually was in the contract, and notified BS of this fact.  BS denied, in each of an exchange of seven emails over the next five weeks, that the extension was in the contract, but finally appeared to accept that it was on June 10, 2012.  It still refuses to build it, however, which is unacceptable.  It is in the contract and BS is obligated to construct it. I hope Angie?s can help here.

2.  By Sept, 2011, I had paid BS about $145,000 of the contract price of $165,030.  There was much more work to be done than the remaining $20,000 would cover, so I asked for a BBB mediation meeting on Nov 29, 2011.  As a result, BS and I agreed a work/payments schedule that would synchronize the remaining jobs and payments, so that the jobs would all be finished at the same time as I made the last payment from the remaining $20,000.  A couple of days later, BS tried to renege, denying we had made an agreement.  BS later did agree we had made one, but said it wished to produce a document that would be helpful to both of us.  The ?Agreement? BS presented 2.5 months later, on Feb 14, 2012, was, to my mind, inaccurate, extremely convoluted, and biased in favor of BS; and, as such, was completely unacceptable to me.  I told BS that we had a contract?written by BS, actually?and we had a BBB mediation agreement.  That was sufficient to allow us to finish the project.  BS refused to continue work unless I signed the ?Agreement?, so that it would supersede our Aug 13, 2010 contract.  BS has essentially done only minor work on the project since the BBB meeting of Nov 29, 2011, so almost nothing has been done for 6.5 months.  And they continue to state that they will do nothing unless I sign their ?Agreement?.  I have told BS that we both signed a contract on 13 Aug, 2010 and that document is binding unless we both agree to replace it with another document.  The two least expensive estimates I have to finish the work are about $65,000 and $76,000.  I have already paid BS $145,000 out of the contract price of $165,000.  If BS is not willing to finish the work according to our 13 Aug, 2010 contract, then I would ask that they send me a check for $45,000 to $56,000 to allow me to get another contractor to do the work.  There is another complication, however.  BS claims that it upgraded the electrical supply to my property from 200 amps to 400 amps.  It did not do so.  Such an upgrade could be quite expensive.  I would like BS to arrange for the upgrade that it claimed it had made.  We can get an accurate estimate of the cost later from Xcel or some other contractor.   An unfortunate implication of the work stoppage by BS is this.  When the excavation was done by BS for the sunroom/bedroom addition, a ?sluice? was inadvertently created in the 8 ft dirt passageway between the southern side of the addition and the northern side of my garage.  As a result, water and mud slide down the sluice over the retaining wall between my and my neighbor?s properties.  He has put a tarp there to try to ?catch? the mud, but it has been only marginally successful.  Consequently, he cannot use that area and it is very unsightly.  This has gone on for about a year now, so recently the chief inspector of the City of Westminster?s Building Division told me that he will not pass the final rough inspection of the property until Bluesky rectifies that situation.  I forwarded to the president of BS an email to this effect from one of the chief inspector?s colleagues.  I also mentioned to the president that our contract requires BS to build a pathway down to my backyard.  It will go through the sluice passageway, so BS is obligated to deal with this issue.  When I told BS?s president this and how much it was inconveniencing my neighbor, he replied, ?Not concerned with your neighbors.?  I find such callousness to be especially objectionable.

I hope Angie?s can help here (1) in inducing BS to complete, on a timely basis, all of the work it is already contracted to carry out and (2) in convincing BS that it cannot unilaterally change the contract that exists between it and myself anymore than I can unilaterally change it.  Contracts are meant to be binding documents. Otherwise there is no point in writing and signing them.

3.  On August 29, 2011, BS sent me a demand for $7,463 for the ?Completion of rough framing inspection.?  On Sep 2, 2011, I sent them a check for $6,901.50.  (The discrepancy of $561.50 is unimportant here.)  Much later, in Apr, 2012, Westminster Building Division informed me that BS?s rough framing had failed the inspection. I took legal advice and was told that BS?s action was fraud, a criminal offence.  BS obtained the $6,901.50 under false pretenses!  On Apr 10, 2012 I wrote to BS?s president and asked him to return my $6,901.50.  He replied on Apr 15, 2012 and said, ?sorry ed. There will be no back payments made to you for anything so far??

I would appreciate Angie?s assistance in obtaining the return of the $6,901.50 that I was fraudulently charged by BS.

4.  In March, 2011 BS arranged for the excavation for the sunroom/bedroom addition to take place.  The electrical cable to my property went directly through the area where the digging was to be done, so BS had the meter and connecting cable moved so the excavation could take place.  When Xcel learned of this, its personnel were quite annoyed and, I understand, almost fined BS.  In the end Xcel and Westminster?s Building Division instructed BS (a) to move the meter to the west side of my new bedroom and (b) to run a new cable from Xcel?s boundary electrical cabinet through the meter, then internally around my bedroom, then through its south wall, across to and through the north wall of my garage, and (c) from there to the existing circuit-breaker panel in that building.  It would have been obvious from the beginning to any half-competent builder that this work would have to be done, and it all would have to be done through the area where the excavation took place. In that case, this should not have been an ?unforeseen event structural or subsoil condition that could impact on the work to be performed hereunder,? as the contract required if I were to be asked to pay for the work.  BS claimed that it was unforeseen and wanted me to pay. On Aug 29, 2011, I was billed for an amount of $3,050.  Eventually, under duress, I paid $2,500.  Among other things, I was trying to get BS to start work again.  In addition to wrongfully charging me for the cable moving, BS got their facts badly wrong.  Their president repeatedly told me that the electrical supp