Gary Allen Industries

It was great. We absolutely love him. He's honest and reliable. He goes above and beyond. He's honest and his staff leaves the house clean.

Note: The reason that I did not post a review much sooner is that Gary told me that if I posted a negative review he would sue me for defamation of character, and that he has very powerful lawyers. This could have possibly prevented other negative review from being posted as well.
Note #2: My ratings were based on the total work done.  Some of the work was excellent, but some of it was terrible and overall I was extremely dissatisfied.
On May 12, 2014 I
contacted Gary Allen Industries regarding work that I wanted done the
kitchen and bathroom/laundry room in time to rent our apartment to
summer guests by June 13. Gary told me that they were able to
complete the work by that time. On May 19, he gave me a quote for
remodeling the kitchen, and on May 21 he emailed me a quote for the
bathroom/laundry room. Both quotes stated: Work will begin next
week and will take about a week.
Work on the kitchen
began on June 3 with two workers. On June 4th Gary told
me that he needed the paint that day, so I ran right out and bought
it, but the room was NEVER painted. There was a window partially
behind the sink cabinet that was to be replaced, so I asked Gary
about painting the room after the old cabinet was removed and before
the ones were installed. He told me that's not how it's done and I
should not try to be the general contractor. (So why had he asked me
to run out and buy paint?) However, after the cabinet was installed,
it was impossible to properly sand down the old trim around the
windows and very difficult to even paint it.
Although I decided
not to replace the upper cabinets that were in the quote, it took
until June 13 for the job to be mostly completed, and it never was
totally completed. Gary required that I pay for the kitchen, less
$200 for painting yet to be done, before moving forward with the next
job. I did so, thinking that Gary wanted to paint both rooms at the
same time. I was very unhappy that in the end he didn't prep or
paint that window trim at all. It was eventually done by other
workers I found at the last minute before our summer guests arrived.
But the window trim was in very bad condition, and because it could
not be properly prepped with the cabinet installed, it looks pretty
bad.
On June 5th,
Gary's emailed me a quote for the plumber's cost for the
bathroom/laundry job of $4300, which came to $5061.10 with Gary's
markups ? more than 5 times the original $895 for the
plumber in his May 21st quote! (The low cost for plumbing was the
reason that I had chosen Gary Allen Industries over other contractors
in the first place. There had been no indication in that quote that
the plumber's fee was subject to change. In fact, I had specifically
requested that the proposal be a firm quote and not just an estimate.
Gary held me to paying the cost of materials in his ?estimate?
plus his markups, even when I used less expensive ones and even when
I used what I already had on hand instead. ) This would have
basically doubled the cost of the entire job, and was unaffordable
for me. I immediately asked Gary to find a plumber who could do the
work at a much better price. He said that you would, but a better
quote was never provided.
Therefore, work on
the bathroom did not proceed as planned and we missed out on summer
rent for the last three weeks of June. But I had contracted with
someone to rent July 4-18, so the work had to be done in time
for that.
Eventually, on June
24, having realized that the only way this job was going to get done
was if I found a plumber myself, I presented Gary with a plumber's
quote and asked if him if it covered what needed to be done. His
response was, ?I can not do the work for you.? His reason was
that I was asking him to be the general contractor but was unwilling
to pay him for that job. I never wanted to be general contractor.
All I had wanted was for him to do the work at the price he quoted.
But since he never came up with a plumber who would charge anything
close to what he'd originally quoted, I had to find one myself. And
then he wanted to mark up my plumber's fees more than 20%
(something he had not done in his original quote) or he would not
even let me know if the plumber's proposal covered what needed to be
done. I had to practically beg him not to walk out on me at the 11th
hour, since at that point there was no one else available to do the
work in time for summer guests scheduled for July 4.
Then, on June 25, he
emailed me that my plumber told him that he was not going to do the
job ? no explanation given to me ? and that he Gary) was going to
be away until June 30!
Yet, he was prepared
to have his workers proceed with the job, even though completion by
my mandatory deadline was not realistic. This became clear when, at
MY request, we determined day by day how long everything would take.
So I proposed that we scale down the job significantly, leaving the
replacing of the tub and floors and installation of the washer dryer
and re-sheetrocking of that room to a later date. He emailed on June
27th, ?I can have two people start Monday and should be able to
easily make your deadline.?
I replied the same
day requesting a contract, but he did not provide it until June 30.
His fee for labor for the dramatically scaled down job was $2200,
only $325 less than your quote for the original job! But I signed
it, under duress, as at that point, it was the only way the job was
going to get done for our guests arriving July 4. Unfortunately, he
still did not complete the job in a timely manner to meet my
deadline, some of the work was very badly done, and some of the work
was not done at all.
Because of what Gary
Allen Industries did, the way they did it, and what they didn't do, I
experienced tremendous stress and considerable expense to get this
apartment ready for the summer guests who were arriving July 4th.
These guests also posted a very detrimental review on my rental
website because of problems with the apartment that were a result of
your not completing your work properly or in a timely manner.
As though that were not bad enough, since I had to pay other workers to complete what was
left undone, I ended up paying more for the scaled-down job than
Gary's quote for the complete job.
With the scaled-down proposal, Gary had promised me a beautiful, like-new bathroom (except
for the floor and tub) and assured me it would be done in plenty of
time for our first guest. Instead, the floor was full of glue and
spackle that is still there, the tub surround was bulging out from
all the debris that had fallen behind it when you sheet-rocked the
wall above and had to be hastily replaced before the guests'
arrival, the bathroom walls were unpainted, the walls by the
toilet, tub, and over the sink looked horrible, garbage (including
the shower doors) was left behind, etc, when he left the night
before our guest's arrival! I had purchased a vanity and sink
basin according to the dimensions that Gary had given me. However it
didn't fit at all and the ill-fitted basin propped on top of the
vanity looked totally ridiculous. Finally, when Gary's workers left,
there was only a hole in the floor where the toilet and been. There
was no pipe with the shutoff valve that provided water for toilet was

Gary and his staff were prompt, incredibly hard-working, skilled at all aspects of building and remodeling, very fair in pricing, and very honest. We can give the the highest recommendation possible.

Gary is wonderful: repairs were completed in 2 months: we were the first to move back in after the superstorm thanks to his quick work: he is meticulous and the trim work is much better than the original builder's work: when we build our new house we will ask Gary to be the GC.  If you are lucky enough to get Gary to do work for you, you should be quite pleased: his work is excellent!

If you have a need for a builder/contractor, you can not do better than Gary Allen Industries.  It has been a pleasure to work with him.

All through the process he acted in a professional manner addressing our concerns and making all the requisite recommendations during the construction of our home. He was instrumental in getting us into our home in as short a time as possible and in my opinion went above and beyond what I would expect in a GC.

From the moment we met with him to provide an estimate and review of our property he was sensitive to all our needs as we were replacing a home we had lost due to fire and needed to be in as soon as possible and as close to budget as possible.

No project of this scale goes off without a hitch and the true value of your GC is how he deals with those issues. Any time we had pointed out an issue or were disappointed with the results  of one of the sub-contractors, Gary did everything to fix the issue in a timely fashion beyond our expectations.

I would absolutely recommend Gary Allen to work on a project such as this.