Built Strong Renovations

First of all, he was not the "Cheap" contractor. I went with him because he was very nice and professional on his initial consultations, he went out of the way to bring me samples of everything for me to select from. He came a few times to cover over materials. He never criticized competitors. Actually had that with one large company that gave me a quote. The other company was cheaper but was trying to talk me out of some of the changes, did not want that so was afraid I would not get the result so I went with Built Strong Renovations (Lucas Dalton). I had several quotes ranging from $25K to $53. Lucas was actually more expensive but I thought he would be best one for the job. Contractor took on job and estimated 2 months, job is still not completely finished. We did add the deck but I had told him up front if the quote was right, I would want that done as well. He never told us that it failed inspection. He replaced windows, roof, siding, trim, hand rails for entry way stairs and deck. While I am a bit hard to please, admit that upfront, I wanted the work done perfectly. There were many issues, he corrected most, some are still unfinished. Example caulking my windows. Told me it took special caulking but never told me what kind so I have windows inside that need additional caulk so I have to hire someone else to finish. Other issues below: He put trim on the house around electrical outlets, dryer vents, etc, one outlet never had the trim put on, I tried but can't find anything that fits so that was probably the issue, not cut out correctly so no prefab works for it. His electrician put really large outlets that would not open without something to pry open on 3, ended up replacing all but the one without the trim. This one opens easily but it protrudes about 5 or more inches from the side of the house and looks unfinished due to the trim issue Main electric box is not attached to the house or sealed so that failed inspections and he knew that never fixed. I received a letter in December 14, 2015 saying my house maybe marked uninhabitable if I can't get that corrected so now I get to hire another contractor. I also have a few weeks to get this done or I need new permit. Lucas was copied on this letter and never called me to say, oh I forgot, or apologize to say he would come back and fix the issues. Deck and hardie trim must have 1 inch separation, City will not pass inspection because, the siding is less than 1 inch from deck floor. I have to hire another contractor to fix that, not something I can do, afraid I will damage my new siding. Lucas has not returned calls since job finished so leaves me in a bad situation. My hand rails were not painted, top and bottom at stairs. In May/June right after project completed, I had carpenter bees that damaged the wood in multiple places. Once I painted, not another drill hole by the bees. Basic 101 wood work, you seal, paint and caulk all openings or raw wood, they did not. Wood he selected had splits for hand rails too, and some of the deck boards. The deck rails boards have all lifted and look terrible. One floor board was damaged, he fixed said it would last longer than the deck, the "fix" has already washed out so that board will rot. His team bent my gas meter and tried to bend it back. I had a gas leak for several months. You could only smell occasionally, gas company came out and fixed, said it did not break by itself so something had to have bent it and then bent back, never reported so my house could have exploded. Thankfully that did not happen. They also left so many nails and junk in our yard, we can't go out in thin sole shoes, still picking up roofing and siding nails of various types. The house is beautiful, his works looks good if you stay on stop of the issues you find but he also gets annoyed with it. Unfortunately, he left me in a bad bind with unfinished work and inspections. While most of the time he was very cordial and professional, he had some bad days. I just wanted my home to look nice and have quality work but like I said, he was cranky about it several times. It also took a lot longer to complete the big items and it is not really complete as 12/17/2015 so that is a 1 year and 2.5 month project. If you want to use him be very careful unless you willing to deal with a lot of aggravation.

The square footage of my home exceeded the measurements listed on the deal. The price doubled.

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I had contacted several companies at a recent Home Show to come give estimates. We needed all new siding, windows (53 windows!), painting, etc. Lucas Dalton was one of the last that came to give an estimate. He sat down with us first and asked what we wanted to do and what we thought it should look like at completion. We talked for an hour before he actually walked around the house to see what the project would entail. He asked tons of questions and brought up many points about the project that would need to be considered. The other companies that had given estimates had not brought up any of these points but they would obviously need to be addressed at some point. Lucas is extremely detail oriented and it shows. He had hundreds of pictures on his laptop of different ways that we could do the trim work, etc. While he was not the lowest price he could do the whole job and seemed to know exactly what would need to be done. The job took longer than expected but we had so much rain during that time that I don't think it could have been done any sooner. The siding/window "crew" was a father and his sons. They were very polite and cleaned up every day. Lucas would come by and check progress and bring anything they needed. The paint crew did a wonderful job as well. Lucas and the siding crew did the inside work. We had added a sun porch and the siding was still on an interior wall and the double door was still there. He removed the siding and door, replaced with sheetrock and reframed the door opening and then repainted the whole room. He had to do a lot of extra trim work on and in the sun porch as we had added that ourselves and only had basic storm windows. You could hardly go in that room in the summer because of the heat. Now, even tho I don't have blinds yet it is perfectly cool.