Zephyr Services

I had a lot of equity in my home because I'd been living in the house for 10 years. My mom lives 2 miles away so I knew I'd be here for a while. I felt the house would mean more to me if I could remodel it & do some painting, clean it up a little bit. I went to a person at US Bank who had helped me refinance my house at a great rate. I met with her & requested a little more than the equity I had in my home. At that time, she recommended I call this person - He goes to her church. She said I could look at his home that they'd been working on. My mother & I drove out & looked at the house. It was an older, solid house. They'd added an extra room & the painting was fabulous. It looked really nice. He also really liked to brag about the work. His partner does great wood work too. I called him one or two weeks later, asking him to come over and look at my house. He came out, looked around, & said, "What do you want from me?". In my opinion, first, when you're looking for work, you don't talk like that to potential clients. He then explained to me what a general contractor does, explaining that he made money off what his subcontractors don't do - such as expanding the space in the bathroom to accommodate some changes. He'd also talk about his partner - Tony - behind his back. He said a number of times that Tony had a problem with alcohol. He'd also basically slam the door in his face when going into my office to talk to me & tell him it wasn't his business how much money was being paid for the project. I found all this behavior very unprofessional. However, I proceeded with the work. I have to admit I didn't interview any other contractors & that was a mistake on my part.

The first thing I had done was the installation of a Trane a/c system. Terry engaged their services. However, the first time I went to clean the clean air filter in the system, I couldn?t completely close the door on the filter unit when I put it back in. One of Terry?s guys would do this for me while they were doing work on my house. He knew I had this problem but never contacted the company who sold me the system to see what could be done. It took 2 years before the company changed the type of door to make it easier to close. I thought part of Terry's job as a contractor was to help me resolve situations like this but he didn't do anything about that.

The subcontractors he used did good work, but I was not happy with him as a general contractor. He was a real bully. It took me a week to clean up the mess that was left after the project was completed. I work full time so that was a big deal for me. I felt he was trying to get more money out of me than was necessary. He also seems to be one of those types of guys that has many faces.

There were a lot of things I wanted to change in my home. He didn't really seem to comprehend what I was asking for until I pressured him by asking who he'd have come in to take care of it. For example, I wanted to replace the baseboard trim with solid wood. He didn't give me an estimate for the cost of it & there's a lot of labor involved. It cost me a lot more than expected. Whenever he gave me a bill it was always just scribbled out & made my heart jump. It didn't detail what I was paying for on any given day. He just was not a very good communicator. He didn't keep the project moving or explain to the subcontractors that time was of the essence because I work from home. He simply wasn't very well organized in engaging the subcontractors & coordinating all our schedules which is as a general contract is his primary job.