Shore Remodeling

We were content to try and put our terrible experience with Rob and his company, Shore Remodeler, behind us until we reached out to the electrician (see Gooley) that was subcontracted to work on our home. We tried to contact the electrician on multiple occasions to do some new work, but did not receive a reply. We felt things went well with the electrician while the remodel work was done (even paying him directly for extra electrical work not in the builder's contract), so we were surprised when we finally got a message from him stating he spoke with Rob and did not want to work with us again. We went into this project with a strict budget and were sure to include an additional amount for those things that come up unexpectedly. We even made sure to factor in the cost of rent for the time we would not be able to occupy our home. We hired Rob over another company with a similar quote because he was local and always showed up for appointments during the pre-build phase. The beginning stages of our remodel went well. Shore Remodeling was always punctual and paid close attention to the details of the work they were doing. Rob is a craftsman with a great deal of experience in construction and he regularly used two workers that seemed to be skilled as well. Along the way we kept a close watch on the numbers and asked Rob to provide documentation of items outside the scope of our original contract. In fact, the documentation of additional charges was a stipulation in our contract. After a lot of prompting, we did receive a number for some of the extras done early on and were sure to factor them into the budget and paid him in full for the work at that time. The payment schedule outlined in the contract was determined by Rob, and based upon certain milestones. As the project progressed, he began reqesting payment ahead of these milestones. He also said he needed a certain amount of money for more extras. We provided some of the contracted money ahead of schedule, but held some of it until the job was completed. We requested an itemized list of the "extras" that he was requesting money for, but he did not provide it. We did not receive any written indication of additional charges despite multiple requests over a two month period. By this time, we were living off-site and checked on the progress regularly and were pleased with how things were moving along. Tension grew as the job was winding down however. We did not have the information we were looking for and Rob's reasoning was he needed to work on the project to meet the schedule and move on to the next job instead of taking the time to write down the additional expenses. He also began requesting our final payment, which we were not comfortable paying yet because there were several contracted items still not completed. Our relationship with Rob began to decline and by the end, we did not trust him and were anxious to be done dealing with him. Prior to the last couple of days in the project, Rob finally got around to presenting the pricing for the work he believed to be outside the scope of the contract. We were blown away by the price tag, which was three times more than he verbally said it would be, and it took a great deal of restraint not to throw him out. He also indicated that the money he allocated in his quote to rebuild the ground level deck was used up and that it would cost an additional $2,500. At the inception of the project, we made certain to include the deck in the contract. We planned to reuse the vinyl decking, which was only a few years old, and replace the wooden structure that supported it. The contractor was aware of this plan and Rob's crew removed the decking carefully and stored it to be used again later. So that's $2,500 to rebuild a ground level deck with the majority of the materials already paid for and on site. My wife and I discussed the latest itemized pricing list and felt it would be fair to offer to pay for about half of this "extras" bill. He had not presented the pricing during the project as was established in our contract and now we felt he was trying to gouge us at the end of the project. The compromise we proposed was met by his usual response, anger and resulted in a verbal altercation. After cooling down, he finally agreed to the offer. We paid the balance due on our contract, and money for the extras. Rob signed all of the paperwork indicating the job was complete and paid in full. Thankfully he left the property without any further incident. In the end, we never had the chance to present items for a punchlist (of which there were many), had a pile of decking and debris from the unfinished portion of the job and changed the locks on the front door out of concern for our family. To summarize, Rob has qualities that make him a good worker - attention to detail, punctuality, experience, skills in many facets of construction. He also has qualities that make him a poor contractor - a short temper, out dated methods for paperwork (everything was written out by hand), lack of resources/time to focus on business managment (i.e. paperwork), endless complaining when changes or unexpected situations arise, poor communication skills and general difficulty dealing with people. After Sandy hit this area, we felt it was even more important to get our story out there to others considering using Rob's services. Please know that in Rob you get a craftsman but you just don't know how much his services will cost you. Some recommendations: - If you get a simple, hand written contract, you should have him sign a contract of your own...which spells out that he must provided wrtten documentation of changes/extras and a cost for each. It should also specifiy that he is responsible for paying the subcontractors...legal stuff like that which is wordy, but better protects you as a consumer. - If the contract refernces model numbers for things like doors and windows, go online and make sure they are exactly the ones you want. Put it in writing if you make any changes. - If he proposes a payment schedule with three payment dates, it may be wise to break it down into more frequent payment dates to avoid his demands for payment ahead of schedule. - Require a written inventory of "changes/extras" regularly to avoid surprises. - Expect complaining, and then verify if there is a price that will go along with that thing he is complaining about. - Clarify that final payment "upon completion" means just that. As a consumer, you should not pay that final amount until all items are done. - Keep accurate records and documentation of all your interactions...when you provided payments, when he requested payments, discussions that you had about various parts of the project, etc. Your accurate record keeping will counter the lack of that detail on the contractor's end.