A & B HOME DESIGN

I used this company three years ago and was initially pleased. 6 months ago we started to notice discoloration on the upstairs ceiling. It was wet. I called the owner Al, who promptly came to inspect. He identified the problem and said his crew would come the following week to make the necessary repair. A month passed with absolutely no contact from Al at A&B. I texted him and he told me it was too cold and they would be there “when it warmed up” I have called, texted and written this company and have never received any reply. At this point it is clear that Al Bouchard of A&B Home Design has no intention of honoring his ten year warranty. I have a leaking roof thanks to this fraud. Don’t end up like me. DO NOT USE A&B Home Design LLC. I will be hiring a reputable roofer to complete the necessary repairs and gave already hired an attorney to deal with this fraudulent company. I will also be filing a complaint with the Department of Consumer Affairs.

I don't think I would use them again.

Al did a flat roof on a home extension for me about 14 years ago, good price and workmanship. When I recently needed an entire new roof on my house I was pleased to find Al was still in business. Al took the time to actually walk the roof with me, addressing my particular issues and concerns…as I do have the flat roof and roof mounted solar panels to heat my in ground pool. Each issue was addressed, the flat roof was still in good shape so it would be cleaned and primed and new flat roofing would be adhered to the old one. The solar panels I removed for the reroofing and Al suggested that he place continuous water/ice shield under where the solar panels would go back for additional protection when they were reinstalled. The electric attic vent fan and all kitchen and bathroom roof vents would be replaced, new roof – old vent, I agreed they should be replaced. Lastly the house did not have any ridge venting and Al suggested ridge venting throughout the roof. I agreed as more attic ventilation was really needed. My insurance company was going to pay for a portion of the roof repair (Sandy damage) so Al provided me with two different quotes (partial and full roof) in a timely manner. I got other quotes, everyone else checked out the house when I wasn’t there and just left a canned “checkbox” estimate in the mailbox. Some were higher, some were lower. I went with Al because his previous flat roof workmanship on my home was good, he really explained the job to me and HE would be putting down the shingles and running the job…not a crew of a dozen with questionable experience who just rip and reroof as fast as humanly possible. Quality is remembered long after price is forgotten. It took Al 2 days to do my roof. They ripped what they could reroof in a day so I was covered just in case of rain. They stared at 7:30am and knocked off at 5:00pm. Crew was professional; the place was cleaned up at the end of each day. Each day I climbed the roof checked out the work, Al was always happy to explain what they did. A significant amount of decking needed replacement, but that got that done still in the 2 day time estimate. Additionally the roof over my garage always had a bump in it. Al pulled the plywood and found a high beam due to some previous remodeling. He shaved the beam and re-plywooded it, putting seams in other places effectively eliminating the bump. I wasn’t home when the job was finished; Al came back for final payment at my convenience. Prior to that I walked the roof and checked all the workmanship…happy with it all. I checked the property and it was totally cleaned up and the dumpster was neatly filled waiting for pickup. No errant nails left on the driveway, everything that was moved was back in place. I’m very happy with the work, the timeframe, the cost and quality of the services provided, I would certainly recommend Al to anyone looking for a roof replacement.

Al (Bouchard) had given us a price on all work to be done several months ago, but we weren't ready to and quot;pull the triggerand quot; until late summer. All materials, as well as a dumpster, were delivered a day before the crew showed up. The first day (and every day) the crew arrived at 8am. All delivered material was taken off the driveway. Some was moved to the side, some was moved to the back of the house (there was an INCREDIBLE amount of material). The crew (4) started removing the old siding/trim from my home. All the work took approximately 3 weeks to complete. Everyday, the crew arrived at 8am and left at 6pm (with a daily clean up of the work area). The quality of A and B's work is simply outstanding. Everything is absolutely precision quality. When it came time to complete my kitchen bay window, Al had to customize the installation of the materials. We brought him into the house and showed him the cherry woodwork in our living room. We wanted the work around the (exterior) kitchen window to mimic the intricate woodwork inside. The result is simply amazing. It looks EXACTLY the way we wanted it to look. The whole house came out just as beautiful. To say that we are pleased is an enormous understatement. Other architectural details worth mentioning: a new, much larger, hexagonal gable vent; new corbels to front bay window and rear kitchen bay window. One of my favorite components of the installation? All window/door trim was done with a and quot;borer/plugand quot; system. I'm not sure what it's called. But all screws were countersunk, a plug was placed, then sanded in…becoming virtually invisible. All fascia boards had to be trimmed down (at my husbands requests) as to make the fascia and soffits more appealing to the eye. I have to admit, at first, I thought and quot;will it make that much difference?and quot;. To put is simply…YES! Everything is in proportion.

Overall, the job went well. I love how my house looks and the quality of the material used. Al was very responsive and went out of his way to make suggestions and explain details to be sure I was going to like the final outcome. There were two aspects of the project for which I had to pay other workers separately even though Al included everything on one contract: the gutters/leaders and the painting of the columns. The columns were definitely going to be painted white but I wanted the leaders to be the same color of the siding (green). The gutters/leaders were installed as scheduled and I paid that company separately. Al was then finishing the siding and the shutters. He kept pressing me for payment even though the job wasn't fully completed. After he installed the shutters (August), he indicated that he called the painter and even bought the green paint and a sample for the leaders. I was holding back the last $520 to Al until the job was completely finished. In the beginning of September, Al called me for the final payment saying that the job was done. When I told him that the painting wasn't done and I would pay him when the painting was finished, he became verbally abusive, screaming that he did me favors, the painting was entirely separate, and it was my fault that I couldn't connect with the painter. After an angry exchange, he ultimately hung up on me. The painter had then told me he would be around in the final week of September. Of course, I never heard from him and I waited until the end of October. I wound up painting the columns myself. The leaders are still white, which doesn't look terrible, but it's not what I initially asked for. It's disappointing that a job is started and parts of it don't get finished. There was another incident of unprofessionalism when the siding work was being done. Al was on his cell phone with his wife while he was standing in front of my house. They were having a disagreement and Al was cursing and screaming into the phone. My husband and my neighbor both commented to me that he was totally inappropriate to be yelling and cursing. There are a lot of young children in my neighborhood and I know my neighbor is sensitive to that kind of behavior in front of her son. Like I said, I really like the way my house looks. It's too bad that I had to put the finishing touches on the job and was left with such a terrible impression in the end.