"Lemke & Sons is sorry we did not meet your expectations. We believe in being honest and upfront from the very beginning. You are correct, we do not provide free insurance estimates. We require a down payment or retainer on insurance work. If hired to perform the work, 100% the money is credited to your account and deducted from your bill. Insurance work can be a lengthy and complicated process. We provide a full detailed and complete estimate. We take a professional and thorough approach to all insurance projects and always advocate on our customers behalf for a fair insurance settlement."

"We are sorry to hear about your experience. We do apologize if we did not do a good job of explaining our process. You are requesting a bid for a second story addition which does take a great deal of time. In order to provide a detailed estimate for your addition there are many aspects that need to be addressed such as structural details and energy calculations as required by the city building officials, selections and specifications from electrician, plumber, HVAC and any other necessary trades. As you stated you only have personally drawn plans and not construction documents to work from yet. Many professional companies do charge for their time for this process which is becoming the industry normal. It is not unrealistic to request a retainer before we commit that amount of time to your project. We do not accept credit cards at Lemke & Sons and have no way to process them. No one here requested a credit card from you."

"Lemke & Sons has an outstanding reputation based on 48 years in the industry as you can see from our many positive reviews. We understand that members can post a review whether factual or not. In this case not much of the review is based on facts. This customer signed a Design contract and paid the required, non-refundable fee for the design process on November 24, 2014. We had a Contract with this homeowner for Design work only. After many phone conversations and emails, three meetings at the home, a meeting at the home with our Designer, Masonry contractor, Electrician and Plumber due to the fact that a fireplace/chimney would be removed, furnace relocated, ductwork, plumbing lines and electrical would be rerouted. The homeowner was presented with preliminary plans which included four possible layouts per their input and feasibility on December 19, 2014. December 26, 2014 we were contacted by the member’s son and told that the work had been done by others. To date no Building Permits have been issued for this address by the City of St. Paul. The son then threatened us with a bad review and court if we did not refund the fee. The member did take us to court and the Judge dismissed his claim. Coincidentally, we have learned of another contractor having had a similar experience designing another area of the house with this same homeowner. We find it highly unethical for this member to misrepresent his experience with us and try to get services from reputable businesses without having to pay for them by threatening bad reviews. It should be noted that this member also claimed to have not renewed his Angie’s List membership in his review. He did renew and is a current member."