CRC Improvements

This has been the worst experience of my life (and I am 64). Due to health issues, in August 2014, my daughter had to move home with me with her then 13 year old daughter. That was when I decided to finish the basement into a livable space for them so they could have their own ?place?. I hired Chad Conklin as he could start work immediately and did come recommended by a realtor in town. I went to the bank to refinance my mortgage and to take out a construction loan. I wrote up the contract for Mr. Conklin to sign (as partially seen in question 7). In November 2014 work began. For the most part, at the start, he showed up and worked almost a full day. But the problems began to arise quite quickly. He installed the furnace but neglected to call the gas company to turn on the gas and we went ~2 days without heat. He could not get the furnace to work even after the gas was turned on and he had to call in a ?friend?. It continued to be a problem for the rest of the winter. Then this fall, 2015, when I turned on the furnace I had a funny electrical smell. I went down to change the filler (which I did not have to do the year previous as the contractor would do that). When I looked at the filter I was shocked to see he had brought the piping right to the top of where the filter was to be removed, so that I could not remove the filter. I decide to gently tap the pipe to see if I could nudge it to the side to pull the filter out around it. When I touched the pipe it moved quite a bit. I knew then it was loose somewhere. I squished myself behind the furnace and that is when I discovered the exhaust pipe was not exhausting. I had to call in a heating contractor to fix the problem. There were so many problems with the furnace installation that is took three times to figure out all that Chad had done wrong from installing a furnace that was 2X too big for my little home, to the incorrect slope of the exhaust piping so condensation started collecting in the pipes and the furnace would stop working. I have been advised because of the size and the poor installation I should have the furnace replaced. From there he started on the basement. There was a raised pad that needed to be jack hammered out. That was when he brought a gas generator into a closed up house to power the jack hammer. Besides the smell being atrocious?. Things continued to decline. 1. Come to find out he was paying his worker under the table in violation of the contract. 2. He would work only part of the day. One day I sent him a note when I got home ?what did you do today?? as I could not see that any work had been done. He replied back, ?installed the knobs on the cabinets, what did you do today?? 3. He would do things and then have to rip them out and do them over. He tried putting up corner bead only to rip it all out and use corner molding on all the corners in the basement. 4. He took out the wall for the sliding glass door before the door was delivered ? then covered the hole with a tarp for the night ? in the middle of the coldest winter on record in our area. 5. When he did install the sliding glass door he used too much spray foam filler and the door frame warped making it difficult to slide open the door. And he said the screen door would be extra. 6. He improperly installed French drains and there are now areas in the basement that are wetter than before 7. He had to take off the back porch to install the drains along the back of the house. It was 4 months before he added a set small back steps so we could use the back door. Then a month later, as I was walking up the steps, they collapsed and I fell into the house. 8. I am glad I was home when he poured the cement pad for the carport. He did hire someone else to do this. When the guy was measuring out where the carport should be, he realized that the ground was not properly level. Chad got the backhoe and dug up part of the back yard to get dirt to dump into the area. This dirt was never compacted correctly. When they finally started pouring the cement I asked why there was no rebar. I was informed the cement had fiber in it and did not need rebar. That was fine until they ran out of cement after about ? of the pad was poured; and (as the cement place was closed for the day) they had to run to Home Depot to buy more cement which they then mixed on site. There is a terrible dip where the 2 part meet. Additionally the pad slopes toward the knee wall ? not to the open end at the back of the carport, so now whenever it rains, water collects along the side the boards are starting to mold and mildew (future rot). 9. The plumbing ? a. Let?s start with bath tub faucet that would shoot off across the tub when the water was turned on b. The pipes are too small as pointed out by the person that replaced my water pump. c. The pipes under the sinks keep coming apart 10. Poorly installed basement windows allowed rain to come in between the foundation and the new dry wall causing the dry wall to get mold and mildew growth 11. Ordered ?new construction? windows for an existing residence. Held the windows hostage when he walked off the job even though I had paid for them?and he had already started to remove the existing windows. 12. Removed old gutter just before walking off job ? leaving the house with no gutters during a very rainy spring. 13. He let construction debris pile up in the side yard for 6 months. When spring came I asked that he get a dumpster and pick up all the trash. He stated he could not stop working to spend time to pick up trash (???). He finally had a dumpster delivered, and informed me if I wanted the trash out of the yard, I could put it in the dumpster ? which I started to do. 14. Put in a 2-way light switch on the basement stairs ? that has never worked properly as a 2-way. The person I got to fix these problems could not figure out what Chad had done so the light still stays as a ?can you figure out which switch will turn on the light?. Why would I keep this man on??? I was never even with the money I had paid him. He had been paid a little more than what had been done. He kept promising the basement would be done by January 2015, them by February 2015. I was going in for elective day surgery in February and I wanted the basement done, my daughter moved in, and him working outside the house before I went into the hospital. Did not happen! I was so stressed by all of this that when I went into the hospital, even before I was brought into surgery, my heart stopped and I came home with a brand new pacemaker instead. The basement was at least livable ? but not finished ? by April of 2015.) His skills and his business practices are so bad that in May 2015 (*he realized he could not finish the job for the dollar amount he had quoted so) Chad Conklin packed up his stuff and walked off the job, leaving my home in a state of disaster. It was the end of summer before I was able to find contractors with the time to finish up the work. When I went to the bank to get the last draw on my loan, I was informed I could not access my money as he had put a mechanics lien on the loan for $10,000. He did that in May and I was never notified. Now a year later, after much legal back and forth, we had a deposition hearing scheduled; only to have it canceled as Chad Conklin filed bankruptcy the week before. I guess he knew?.. When I did some checking I discovered (too late for me) that he has done this in the past. *My Opinion