D'Amico Construction

Description of Work: We hired D'Amico Construction LLC (DC) in 2004 on a $78,255 contract which involved an addition and some remodeling. He was to enlarge the master bedroom, convert an existing 2 car garage into a family room and add on a laundry room and 2 car garage. He was paid $60,250 on a $78,255 contract. Construction began in the summer 2004 and by November 2004, DC had deviated from the architecture plan, and abandoned our home under failed inspection. Our home was exposed to the elements of the winter of 2004-2005. Large amounts of "new construction" completed by DC required demolition and then reconstruction by a new contractor in 2005.

Description of Work: We hired D'Amico Construction in the beginning of Feb 2012 to demo and re-do our upstairs master bathroom, and also to demo and re-do our kitchen. Along with the kitchen project, our downstairs was getting "opened up" by taking portions out of 2 walls to creat a more "open" floor plan, and the downstairs half-bath was getting re-done as well. There was no "addition" involved, and the footprint of the house did not change in any way. D'Amico Construction began work on our upstairs bathroom around the first of May, 2012. This was the "initial" part of the project....the agreement was he was going to do the upstairs bath, then go on a vacation...then come to start the demo of the downstairs around mid/end of May. The bathroom took about 10 days or so to complete, and I was happy with the results. I had purchased and selected all of the materials myself....I felt Tony D'Amico's workers were fairly neat and they did a decent job of installing everything. Aside from some touch ups and some minor issues (light installed crooked, etc), there were no major problems. When Tony returned from vacation, he began the demo on the downstairs and the kitchen project. "Rough" electric and plumbing was done fairly quickly. When the "re-build" started, was the point at which my husband and I began to be very unsatisfied. From this point on, work began to get sloppy. FLOOR: When our new terra cotta floor went in, I had to practically beg them on several occasstions to keep the floor covered, not to "drag" things across it, etc. Despite my efforts, the floor has several scratches. CABINETS: When my cabinets arrived, they did a VERY POOR job of installing them. They left me with numerous marks, dings, and scratches in my new creme cabinets (marks that were NOT there when I inspected the cabinets upon arrival). During installation, they drilled many extra "holes" so that now when i open the doors, you can see area that they made mistakes. PAINT: I was constantly asking them to use dropclothes, etc and to cover things. I spent a lot of time cleaning paint drips off of my new floor, new cabinets, and new granite. APPLIANCES: When my appliances arrived, they were in perfect shape upon inspection. While installing the microwave, his workers messed up the brackets/hanging device...and we had to get this part replaced. My new gas stove was sitting in the middle of the room while they were working on this project....and something was dropped on it, which caused a DENT right on top of it. I had to get this top of the range replaced as well. He denied both instances and said that my children must have damaged the new stove (they had not been in the room at all since it was under construction). **BACKSPLASH: I purchased clear glass (tinted light blue) tiles for my backsplash. VERY clear written directions were given to D'Amico regarding the installation of this tile. The directions were from the manufacturer, and included that each individual tile needed to be "back buttered" with white thin set. The tiles are clear glass...so if they were not applied properly and pressed firmly in...they would "bubble". Despite my efforts to prevent this from happening, the backsplash was installed without following these directions, and was then grouted into my wall. The tiles all "bubbled" and looked horrible. We argued with Tony D'Amico about this, and told me we were unhappy and wanted it ripped out, re-done. I also found out from the tile store, that likely all of the glass tiles would break when we took them out, so we would need to re-order (and we told him he should pay for this). This argument with D'Amico occured on August 15th. **NEW SLIDING DOOR: Our new sliding door was put into the kitchen (heading out to patio). Upon the first heavy rain..rain water pooled inside the house (as if it was raining inside!)...the door apparently had never been sealed. Wpurchased this door OURSELVES (but D'Amico picked it up)...upon installation the screen to the door was "mia". D'Amico said he had it but it must have gotten mixed up with another job, and that he would bring it/install in, no problem. This screen door has never been returned to us...and we did pay for it. After the backsplash incident, Tony D'Amico basically disappeared from our job. We had unfinished plumbing, unfinished electric, no appliances installed, a backsplash that needed to be re-done, lights that needed to be installed, and a lot of touch up work (trim, paint touch ups, hardware to be put on cabinets, etc). We had a few heated arguments over phone and email where Tony told us our job was taking too long, he had other commitments/vacation, etc and he "did not know when he would be able to get back over to finish our job". Around Aug 20th one of his workers arrived to clear out all of thier tools, and I pretty much knew at that moment we would not be seeing him do any more work. After some more calls/emails asking him WHEN he would be sending the electricians/plumbers over...we got more run-around and was told "maybe in 4-6 weeks". We have 4 children and at this point had been without a kitchen from end of May all the way through mid August. We had enough and started bringing in our own people to finish the job. In conclusion, the project Tony did for us was done VERY POORLY. The word "poorly" does not even do it justice. He was sloppy, damaged several things (my cabinets, my stovetop, scratched the floor, and ruined our tile backsplash). I would NEVER recommend anyone to utilize his services.