IWM Builders LLC

Work began in January 2012.  Workers were showing up promptly for the first month.  Foundation was laid down timely, although he had cut rhough my sprinkler lines when first digging up the yard.  After the foundation, the framing started to go up slowly.  By end of February, when framing was half way done, I noticed that it appeared the new foundation and walls might be "off about 5 or 10 degrees in that they were not following the exact line of the existing house.   I told this to Ira Blaine (the contractor who uses the name IWM Builders LLC to shield himself from personal liability) and he said I was imagining this and that it would alll look perfectly square when the walls and roofing were complete.

I noticed the workers were not showing up regularly by late Feb, early march as the job dragged on.  When the outside framing was complete, but before Windows were installed, they knocked down the interior dining room wall that joins the new addition.  This caused several issues: (1)  They did not cover the outside of the house to protect me form the cold wind of the winter, so the whole house was cold for weeks before they put the windows in (I taped up "Hefty Bags to protect myself form the wind), (2) They created a mess of dirt that completel;y covered brand new furniture and caused some permanent stains, as they did not hang any curtains or cover anything.

Also, they continued to leave a large dumpster in my driveway for months without allowing me to move my second car out of the driveway

As they progressed with the roofing and framing, I started to notice things slowing down a great deal, and some confusion as to how to handle certain issues of putting up support beams.  As we got into April, I complained about workers not showing up for three straight days. Ira Blaine then said the work would be completed no later than April 27th, and that he would be working on the deck and flooring dooring the last week of April.  On April 20th, he handed me an invoice for completed sheetrocking and siding, but the sheet rocker had not even arrived yet...he was coing the night of April 20th...and when I went outside that night, I saw the not only was the siding not completed...it looked horrible with several pieces of siding not properly snapped into place, badly cut pieces, and trim work that was badly done, with a wooden beam sticking out fromunder the point where the roof peaks.  When the sheet rocker arrived along with an a HVAC guy to check the new AC lines, the sheet rocker looked around and said no way this place could be sheet rocked properly, there are framing issues all over the place that need to be discussed with Ira, and they, along with myself, could easily see that the foundation was not properly done (It was clearly not done at 90 degree angles) and bolts were sticking out of places on wooden beams inside along with uneven placement of beams and supports, making it impossible to properly put up sheet rock.  They wanted IRA to discuss what needed to be done with them before they would do any work.  They tried to call Ira but he would not answer Friday night, and I also left a message Friday night with Ira along with e-mails explaining all of the issues.

I spoke with Ira on Saturday morning April 21 briefly to tell him he needed to come up ASAP on the weekend to go through all of the issues with me and the sheet rocker before any more work was to be done.  He ignored me, and instead, waited until Monday, April 23rd to have his usual "helpers" come up to my house while I was at work without my knowledge and just put up as much sheet rock as possible.  When I got home Monday night, I was in shock when I looked up at the entire "mess" of sheetrock that was slapped up on the walls with gaping spaces.  It was hard to look at it.  I had called the sheet rocker that had come by my place Friday night to see what happened, and he said ..."I have no idea, I was not there and Ira never called me, so no way I was going to put up sheet rock with all of those framing issues."

I immediately called Ira and left him a message that he was fired and that he should pick up his tools immediatley and leave the premises for good.   A week later I had qualified builders come to my home, and they have found significant issues and problems with the foundation, framing, siding, and HVAC (Apparently, Ira had "snapped" the lines of the AC units to move them, which is a major violation as he apparently let the freon just spray out into the air, and he may have also destroyed the ac units by doing this).  The siding needs t be redone, the foundation is not level or square, and the builders will have to do some reframing just to get the walls to properly be put up to complete the room.  I will also be suing IRA Blaine for a totally botched up job which has devalued by home.  I have already paid him 52k, and I hope to get it all back and more for damages he has caused.

The demo and initial work went fairly well.  The finishing went lousy.  Neither he nor his two helpers had experience with this product in spite of the fact he said he did.   He was more concerned about finishing up and getting his final payment than fixing what was poor workmanship.  I paid him in full but in two checks and told him he should return the final check since it would cost me over $300 to repair his mistakes and finishing the painting.

I would not recommend him for anything more than a straight forward construction job where fine detail was not required.