CQCHOME

We’d give CQCHome six stars if we could! We are veterans of several major home renovation projects (some great, others bad). CQCHome was the best. We are very happy we selected them. They delivered a full kitchen replacement, along with new laundry room, bathroom, and office. From initial sales, through design, build, and warranty, CQCHome’s experience and skill earned our full confidence. Their planning and project management expertise kept our renovation on budget and on schedule (they finished early!) Communications were seamless throughout. Their sub-contractors are skilled and courteous. The CQCHome team was outstanding. A few special shout outs: Ken Combs (owner) was great during the initial proposal process. Pricing and estimation were easy thanks to Patrick Bowers. Ericka Combs and Stephanie Palm were wonderful during design phase and throughout – special thanks to them both for their creativity and patience as we waivered on materials and design choices. LaTina handled billing and change orders perfectly. Our project was managed by Shawn Norstrud, who is a star. His customer focus went way above our expectations. His carpentry crew was skilled, friendly, and great to have in our home – Sean, Noah, Justin, Marcus. Honorable mention to Dickon Housman who stepped in to guide us through an early engineering challenge. We’ve already recommended CQCHome to friends and neighbors. We’d happily work with them again. Six stars.

CQC stands for “custom quality carpentry” and the quality of their carpentry was excellent. One of the best things about this job was Raymond, the craftsman assigned to our project. He was on site daily and did much of the carpentry himself. Raymond was friendly, worked diligently and paid excellent attention to the details. He (and his supervisor Dickon) frequently communicated updates about the project and happily answered our questions. We felt comfortable with Raymond and Dickon in our home and knew that we could count on them to lock up and set the alarm if we were out when they finished for the day. CQC used sub-contractors for the electrical work, plumbing, tiling and painting. We were generally pleased with the quality of work performed by all, though we did need to bring a tiling error to CQC’s attention. Ken, the owner of CQC, came out to inspect the tiling job and not only acknowledged and apologized for the error, but had the shower floor ripped up and redone correctly the following Saturday. There was also some painting work that needed to be redone, but they took care of this quickly and without complaint. While all’s well that ends well, this job was not without some issues. The genesis of these issues occurred during the design phase. The CQC design team provided the big details CQC needed to get started—like the brand and style of tub, towel bars and shower heads. But they failed to address the finer details, such as where to place the shower heads, the height of the shower wall, and size and location of niches. Glossing over details like these resulted in small problems and inconsistencies that had to be solved during the construction phase. This poor planning also resulted in a lack of light where some illumination would be useful. When we have worked with interior designers in the past, they have stopped by to inspect the work, talk to contractors on site, and to ensure the job progressed according to plan. Once we signed the contract, we never saw the designers again. Perhaps our definition of a designer and theirs differ, but while we felt we got our money’s worth in the construction, we would not say the same about the design fee. CQC seems to have grown significantly over the past few years, and perhaps we experienced some of their growing pains. While the on-site work was excellent, we found that the back-office administration was not at the same level. Three problems that we would link to a lack of institutional maturity were 1) their initial budget projection, 2) a convoluted and incomplete agreement process, and 3) a delay in obtaining the building permit. The initial budget projection was a significant enough problem that it almost cost them our business. During the initial walk-through and discussion of the scope of the job, they gave us a rough estimate that the project would cost between X and Y. When the actual budget was presented to us, it was 20 percent higher than the high end of their estimate. (Of note, design was a separate cost and contract.) What frustrated us about this jump in costs was that during the design process, they kept reassuring us that all the materials and fixtures we were picking were within budget. We would have understood the price increase if we made design choices that would have driven up cost, but that was not the case. Our advice: Surprise the customer with a lower price than expected, not a higher one! Once we decided on the the scope of the project and communicated it to CQC, we expected to receive a written contract that specified the agreements on both sides – ourselves as homeowner and CQC as contractor. But CQC wanted us first to sign off on a “specification sheet,” which was not very specific at all, and agree to a payment schedule. We thought the process could have been more straight forward. Apparently, they are limited by their software which lacks flexibility. And finally, after they did the demo and much of the rough-in, work ground to a halt for 10 business days while waiting for the building permit to be approved. The initial permit filing was denied because CQC failed to submit it to the Health Department first, as was required because we have a well and a septic field. We don’t know how a contractor misses an important detail like this; we guess it was a lack of communication internally at CQC. This was especially frustrating because one reason we selected CQC was that they were able to start the project earlier and predicted a shorter timetable than that of the other contractor we considered. In conclusion we would say that CQC are better builders and contractors than they are designers and business people. We would be willing to hire them again, as long as Raymond was our foreman, but we would have design work done independently and have the designer remain involved with the job. Hopefully they learned some lessons from our job, can tighten up some of their practices, and future customers will benefit from the hiccups we experienced.

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The entire experience was great. I enjoyed working with the CQC Home team. The staff is top notch - the quality, care and customer service was second to none. I would hire this team again! They are amazing people.

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Ken responded to my request for a quote, stopped by in two days and I had my cost and a sketch workup three days later. The price was fair, and when the job was scheduled his crew showed up five minutes early along with Ken who walked us all through the job. They were done in two days and when I wasn't quite satisfied with one detail they made no qualms about coming back the next morning and making me happy. The final bill was for the exact quoted amount, and the work done to the exterior of my home looks like the home was designed and built that way. Happy customer. I highly recommend, and we would use CQC again.

CQC Home re-built our house, re-using the foundation, roof, most of our hardwood floors, and most of the wall studs but little else. They did the design work, oversaw the asbestos remediation, and then in the next 4 months, rebuilt the house. The work included fixing structural issues; reconfiguring the floor plan; replacing all windows, doors and appliances; sealing the crawl space; building 3 retaining walls and repaving the driveway. The workmanship is excellent. Though we encountered a few problems and misunderstandings, Ken (the CQC Home owner), worked with us to reach mutually agreeable compromises without blowing our budget or diminishing the house's look. All of the CQC employees and subcontractors were professional and easy tow work with. They were willing to talk to us and answer all of our questions. Overall, a very good experience.

Kelly was amazing to work with as a designer. I had a lot of ideas of what I liked but the choices were overwhelming. She read my mind and managed to find products that would keep us in budget. Kenny made sure we knew what we would be paying up front. Dickon was our PM and he and his crew and subs (special shout out to Mike) worked tirelessly to get our job done in time for the holidays. They were clean, courteous, on time, and did great work. I couldn't be happier with the results! I highly recommend them for any size job!

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It took me a LONG time to find the right contractor for my project, but I?m so glad I found my way to CQC. Owners Ken Combs and
Michael Hayes and the entire CQC team have been incredibly professional, responsive and a joy to work with, and their craftsmanship and attention to detail has been absolutely outstanding. They made my vision of a new front porch and walkway a reality. 
In addition to doing big projects, CQC also has a small jobs/handyman division that works on an hourly rate. I definitely plan to use them to help with things large and small in the future.

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