D. B. Raskob Construction LLC

The one way I can sum up the project... Poor communication, nice results. So poor, however, that I would NEVER use them again... Around every corner were surprise costs. From the onset, my wife and I were clear -- we wanted NO HIDDEN COSTS. We asked that DBR give us a heavier estimate so that the costs should only come down. Well, despite that, it went up...every...single...time. And we weren't extravagant with our selections. We worked from what was scoped, and chose modestly. When we did go off of script, we actively asked about the upcharge and clearly tracked it to budget. DBR was reluctant to give details on costs, and always erred on the side of vague stating "it will all work out to be close in the end." To help control costs, we sourced out own plumbing fixtures and lighting. Mostly because it saved us substantial money as opposed to their markup. As an example, Build.com sells the same Grohe shower/tub set for $230. DBR sells it for $500. Of course I would go with the less expensive, same option... We also chose to source the lighting through West Elm and other preferred sources. All in the name of creating a home we wanted -- not what their vendors could offer. All of the parts arrived on-time, with the exception of two Grohe fixtures. Grohe was having production issues out of everyone's control. Those two fixtures arrived at the very end of the project. Over the course of the 3.5 month project, I exchanged more than 300 emails with them, and made myself available to be at the house to help them on more than a dozen occasions. Perhaps it's just me, but I thought sewing up details was the job of the general contractor. If you're not doing that, there's no reason to involve them unless you want to pay a mark-up on every service completed. And their subcontractors acted as if the house was a new build, and that nobody lived there. They parked on the lawn, smoked outside, failed to properly use the zipwalls and keep dust out of the house, never shut the return vents or HVAC vents, and left the door ajar all the time in the middle of the hot summer months LETTING FLIES IN EVERYWHERE. On more than one occasion I asked that they close the door since they insisted that we leave the AC on for their comfort. They would agree, and then...sure enough...the door would be open again (I have automation on my home that reports on door movement, lights on, security and motion and temperature control). AND, when the door was closed, they would set the thermostat to whatever temperature they felt fit. I would set it to 74, and they would manually override it to 72. Generally just being discourteous... on our dime. We cleaned, re-cleaned, and informed them again and again... Still we ran into issues. Over-spray, dust, and dirt...every day. This was not a small project, and we only asked that they be as transparent as we were with them. I found otherwise. In the end, they were extremely rude, failed to complete the project (one fixture I had to finish putting in myself), and washed their hands clean of the project once the final check was in their hands. I expected better having paid north of $100K for this renovation.