GREAT AMERICAN HANDYMAN

Contracted Great American Handyman, Mr. John Baile (vendor) on 11/22/16 to do two bathroom remodels. The work stopped at 40%, meaning a shower with no doors and the kid's bathroom with unfinished sheetrock and subflooring, completely unusable for months and months. We were stolen from. We paid for the projects and both were abandoned. We won a judgment in May 2018 against the company, but still have not been able to collect. After doing some research, I see that this is a theme with a lot of his jobs over the years... which is abusive to consumers. We have paid $16,956.00 to date broken out as: 11/22/2016 $9,696.00 60% Deposit for Master and Boys Bath 12/12/2016 $425.00 material up grades 12/12/2016 $2,154.00 weekly draw 12/20/2016 $266.00 toilet upgrade 2/17/2016 $3,345.00 fixtures, delay time, tile, plus draw 3/2/2017 $1,070.00 Sub Floor, Toilet Plumbing, Window, Move Light Never delivered the following labor for items listed, nor items listed: Shower Doors and installation for master bath Light in shower for master bath, fixture and labor Toilet grout and grout sealing for master bath Caulk and finish work on trim in master bath Floor tile and materials to install for main bathroom, labor to install Tub refinish for main bath, materials $300.00 Fixtures and plumbing for toilet, vanity/sink, shower and tub in main bath, labor to install Light fixture, move light fixture Finished sheetrock and paint. Do NOT consider trying your luck with Great American Handyman.

only 45% of work was completed after demanding 60% upfront and requesting multiple draws. Paid over $16,000 on what would have been an almost $18,500 final cost. Did not complete Master Batch, and less than 1/2 of main bath. Disappeared and stopped communicating after agreeing what was owed. Owes us at least $8,000 since we had to hire someone else to complete the jobs.

The work stopped at 40%, meaning a shower with no doors since November, and the kid's bathroom with unfinished sheetrock and subflooring, completely unusable for months and months. I'm disheartened that there is very little we can do but sit and wait for legal process. We are a family 1) in stress with military son overseas 2) out $10K+, and 3) had to cancel plans of listing our house until money is recouped so work on house can be finished. We feel abandoned. The turning point was when we asked for a completion date to aid in making arrangements with a real estate agent. This ended up angering John Baile. He had made so very many "final dates" from November through March that my real estate agent asked for a completion date so we could know when we could list and start showing the house. He then made a request for the final funds which was completely ludicrous. Honestly it was completely ludicrous that we gave him the money that we did upfront. But to continue to pay out without receiving materials and services would have been idiotic. Ultimately we feel abandoned. We worked through differences in style and communications. Even though we were the customer, we had no say-so in when and if he showed up to work. His communication style went from hostile to emoji's, with very little middle ground as he simply didn't like to communicate what his plans were. When John Baile, the "Great American Handyman" went completely silent we sent a certified letter which was never picked up. After doing some reading, I see that this is a theme with a lot of his jobs over the years... which is abusive to consumers. But the fault is ours for not doing enough research to read all of the bad posts about him and stopping when we read one good one. I sure wish I could go back in time and work with someone qualified, and that possesses work ethic, even ethics at all.

Does good work, not good to work with. Makes you worry that he's got your money and is never going to complete the work.

I was happy with ALL the WORK performed.  I was not happy with the treatment that proceeded after the work was complete.
It took 4 days to receive an invoice after paying CASH IN FULL before the jobs were started.  This postponed closing on my property and was stressed on numerous occasions.  Not only was my request and urgency for this invoice ignored, the first two sent weren't correct and they were never sent to the correct email address. 
Rude and Arrogant to deal with in my opinion!

We had several contractors go out and give us an estimate on repairing our deck.  He was the only one who told us
that the deck was in good enough condition to just repair.  Everyone else wanted to tear down and replace for thousands of
dollars!  When John went out to see the deck, he saw that the deck, which was built only 6 years ago, just needed power washing, stain, and seal.  He quoted us $655!  We asked him how much to go ahead and power wash the whole house, and he came back with $200!  We jumped at his excellent offer!  The job took a few weeks to accomplish ONLY because this was January/February, and weather and temperatures have to cooperate!   It has been almost 2 weeks now since the work was finished.  We are VERY please
with the results. 

I'm highly dissatisfied with the work performed. The fence is not straight. The gates do not latch adequately. The wire installed on the interior of the split rail is a sloppy eye sore. I tried to resolve these issues with the owner, John Baile but he appeared more interested in making excuses that correcting the problems. I am dissatisfied with the company and would recommend finding another fencing contractor - it would be hard to find one who produced a worse finished product.

We received several quotes to remove our existing wood deck and build a much larger one. The pricing was very similar for all the quotes but we decided to hire Mr. Baile's company because he was very personable and said they could start "today" and the project would be done in a week. This was very good news for us because we were expecting out of town guests in 2 1/2 weeks and we were happy that we would have our new deck to enjoy with our guests. Mr. Baile promised to work closely with us and help us with the layout and seemed to understand exactly what we wanted the finished deck to be like. We paid him 30% of the contact when we hired him. He returned the next day for an additional 30% to "purchase the material". His men did start the same day and completely demolished our existing deck (which left my children and our dog with no access to the backyard). We had expected that would be the case for a few days. Well, after receiving 60% of the total contract money and demolishing our old deck, Mr. Baile and his company disappeared for a week. There was one excuse after the other as to why they weren't building our new deck. I reminded him that we hired him because of his assurance that the project would be done in one week. At which time he said "we never put that in writing". After about 1 1/2 weeks they finally started constructing the new deck. Each day they were only at our home a few hours at a time. During which his workers showed up with no shirts on and my son witnessed one of the workers urinating in our backyard. When the decking boards began to be laid down my husband noticed that they were using a nail gun instead of screws (as Mr. Baile had stated that the ends of the boards would be screwed down). Mr. Baile even went into lengthy detail when we first met with him as to why his workmanship was so superior to everyone else and he would screw down all the ends of the boards. When my husband questioned the way in which the deck boards looked, Mr. Baile called us back and left a message on our voicemail using profane language and stated that he was leaving town and our project was on hold. After many phone calls on our part for the next several weeks Mr. Baile's company finally finished the deck after 7 weeks. Our summer was gone, our backyard had been unusable for 7 weeks. My husband and I had many, many sleepless nights wondering if we had lost thousands of dollars that we had paid this man and perhaps he would never actually finish the work. The entire project was done using a nail gun. Mr. Baile can best be described as a wolf in sheep's clothing. We put our complete trust in him and gave him thousands and thousands of dollars up front because of his smooth talk and professional demeanor when we first met. He proceeded to single handedly ruin our entire family's summer.

I obtained an estimate from John to do a few of my remodeling projects, including removing a load bearing wall and refinishing hardwood floors. This was my first remodel and I knew nothing of the proper process to follow and therefore no inspectors were called in to oversee the project. He removed the wall and placed a beam in my ceiling that was to replace the load bearing wall. As discovered later, the beam was not properly placed on 4X4's and the joists he joined to the beam were joined with drywall screws. I feel fortunate the roof of my house didn't cave in. After refinishing the hardwoods I noticed the floor sagging under the wall separating 2 bedrooms at the back of my house. After looking at it he told me the beam supporting the floor was heavily damaged by termites. While I was aware that termite damage had been done to portions of the house before I bought it I didn't think I currently had termites. The pest control company informed me the specified beam and joists were damaged by dry rot. John appeared unaware that dry rot really existed ("how can the wood rot if it's dry?" he asked). I arranged for him to replace the beam and joists (don't ask why; I was panicking by this point). By this time I was out of cash and had him charge a credit card, which he said he could do. It turned out the credit card company was auditing him and refused to release the funds which had been applied to my account. He told me since he hadn't received the funds, he wasn't being paid and refused to work. I informed him that I was incurring interest charges on the amount and the fact that the company was auditing him was not my responsibility. He kept insisting that he hadn't been paid. I then started having others look at the damage. The joists had dry rot, the beam was fine. There were other sills and joists with termite damage, but he never mentioned those. He had greatly overcharged me for fixing the sagging floor and I feel he never intended to replace the beam. I finally had the situation under the house repaired by another company (this involved several concrete piers that he had no intention of using); the other company also replaced the drywall screws in the attic with proper anchors. This company charged me less for that, in addition to replacing the other damaged sills and joists, for less than John had quoted me for fixing the sagging floor to begin with. I believe that John started this job intending to overcharge me. While I cannot prove that he was responsible, there were items stolen and an attempt made to damage the hardwoods after they had been completed. That I believe was done because I showed that I was angry when I found out what a scam artist he is. I ended the contract.

John and his crew were amazing. I was up against a deadline for a last minute large backyard event with only a couple of weeks notice. I explained my dilemma to John over the phone. He met me the next afternoon to review my needs, made some great suggestions and we finalized the contract right there and then. John and his crew jumped in and stripped my old deck boards, added the new sections to my old deck, replaced all the old decking with fantastic results! The new lower section was added over the next couple of days. John made sure all the clean up was completed to my satisfaction after the decks were finished. I love my new outdoor "rooms" and have had nothing but compliments from everyone who has seen it. John and his crew are my new "go to" guys for all my home repair and remodel needs!