Dunrite Construction

Horrible is an understatement! This Bobby guy was recommended by his friend, he came over to my house and Condo and said he would have everything ready in less than six weeks, and he actually said this with a straight face! Well let’s just say 6 months later it was finally complete. I honestly think it would have taken longer but since he wanted the last payment before the job was complete which is insane, I told him there was no way he is getting another penny till he competes the job. This guy wouldn’t pick up my calls, wouldn’t return my calls OR emails. It came to a point that I had to write him threatening emails. His horrible reception would yell at me on the phone and all she could say was “Bobby can only answer that, Bobby can only answer this” big the problem was Bobby wouldn’t call back or pick up the phone! To speed up the completion of the job I started calling the stone company myself, basically I was doing the job I paid enormous money for. At one point he disappeared and his workers just simply didn’t come for weeks, and when I asked his lovely and talented receptionist, her answer was he is on vacation. Anyway this was literally my worst nightmare ever, don’t ever make the mistake and hire him to even paint your walls!

Working with him started very positive and responsive. As the project went on he became more of the opposite. I wish I read the reviews rather than just going on the feeling that he's a "good" guy with the smooth appealing talk. He told us that he knows the people in town to get permits and get things done quickly, which apparently is one guy he knew and any other would be an issue. So permits took forever which he said he could move along, weeks would go by with no response and no work being done. I would show up and his guys (which the guys by themselves were great) were waiting for material constantly. A 3 month job took over 9 months, if that's the time you have for the 'great" price and he claims to be "making nothing" on this job is a false view he wants you to believe. I waited about a year since completion of the work they did and now know it was a good price at a cost; because the windows that he recommended are all drafty and inefficient, paint on the exterior of the house is already pealing, the kitchen which was redone completely is 10 degrees colder than the rest of the house because he didn't replace the 50 year insulation is the roof area, and the refrigerator line was done incorrectly with the wrong hose and it busted (nearly buckled my wood floors). Really if you want someone to trust to do quality work that you don't need to babysit do yourself the favor and look elsewhere. Oh and the cabinets that sells would be great but he can't keep employees at the store so the designer that we worked with to get what we wanted no longer works there, we worked with someone else to have the same thing happen just a few months later. Not sure what that is about but it’s very difficult to explain what we want to 3 different people because the whole place quits and a new batch of women are there to explain what we want in our kitchen. If you do decide to go with Dunrite Construction be sure to protect yourself with a deadline date and a reduction of cost for every week he goes beyond the date, that’s the hard lesson I learned from dealing with this individual.

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We hired Mr. Ashley to build out a closet in a guest room.  While doing this work my wife discussed that we were interested in renovating the kitchen sometime in the future and wanted to discuss his ideas.  He told us that it would be a simple job and he could do it all for $60K, because he had a connection with a cabinet company and it would only take 4-5 weeks.  We expressed to him that we weren?t sure, but wanted to remove a wall he said wasn?t structural so we could open up the area before planning the cabinets.  He came July 6th to remove the wall and when I came home from work everything was gone.  The wall, cabinets and flooring.  This could not have been a misunderstanding because we expressed to him several times ?just the wall?.  I believe he did this so we would have no choice but to move forward. He said he thought since my wife had met with his kitchen design person we were moving forward.  He then informed me that we had a problem that the wall he just removed was structural and that it would need beams to support the roof and it would be another $10K.  At this point we had few options and felt we had to continue.  On July 11th, he gave us a contract with a cost of $88K and told us it would not be done until October.  The increase, he said, was because the cabinets we were looking at were the most expensive cabinets that Kraftmaid makes and would be $43K.  The cabinets were being done with a lady named Debbi Washburn at Pro Builder in Mahopac, NY.  We received a letter from our town building department telling us to stop any work.  Mr Ashley said to just call and tell them is was a kitchen remodel and assured us that we didn?t need a permit.  He went so far as to get annoyed that we requested that he straighten out.  On July 17th, feeling concerned but backed into a corner with the lack of a kitchen for almost 3 weeks we gave him his starting fee of $20K and $20K for cabinets.  He placed 2 beams to support the roof.  For the next 3 weeks, Mr Ashley would have a single worker at our house for about 3-5 hours.  He was never on site and only met with us 3x during the entire time.  He never completed the demolition, but had a worker snake wires for lights and outlets behind the sheetrock.  When we discussed this with Mr. Ashley he said that the insulation that was installed 30+ years ago would be fine.  There is a skylight that his plan was to just place sheetrock over rather than remove.  Even though we told him that it had been leaking for years.  August 3, we still didn?t have final cabinet plans, so we went to a different cabinet designer and had plans by August 5th.  We also went to Home Depot and built the same kitchen with Kraftmaid cabinets and their estimate was $23K.  So this is when we started to fully understand the scam we had gotten ourselves into.  We told Mr. Ashley that we had to order cabinets and that we wanted the 20K we gave him for cabinets to order them from the other company.  He told us that we had already spent all the money that we had given him including the money for the cabinets and if we wanted him to continue work we owed him another $8K.  We refused and he left.  
We had the kitchen evaluated by a structural engineer and the beams are not connected as one unit and are buckling, but worse he placed the beams on horizontal 2x4s that are bending and cracking.  There is supposed to be a post at each end from the beam to the foundation which he didn?t do.  The joists are simply nailed into the beams with no other supports.  The basic evaluation was that with strong winds or a good snow storm the roof would have collapsed if we had gone forward.  We contacted Mr Ashley and he offered to give us 5K back, but we told him that was ridiculous and that 20K was designated for cabinets and none of the work was done properly.  We received no documentation that the electrician or plumber he had at our house was licensed.  He said he discussed the plans with an architect, but after speaking with his architect, he stated that Mr Ashley never discussed the structural beams.  We have a disaster and will be filling a lawsuit this coming week.  I will keep this post updated as things progress.

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The owner Bobby was very involved with the project and had many good ideas. The team who worked on the project were very
good. Everything came out very good. Along with the kitchen remodel, we also had the entire living/dining area and laundry room painted. I
would recommend him to others. We have 2 bathrooms that will also need to be completely redone. We will make sure to hire him again.