Siegrist Construction

We got three bids for our project, George Siegrist's was the lowest, and our neighbor had used him, so we went with him.  Our last contact with him was over a year ago.  After he received 95% of his fee he never came back, including to obtain the certificate of occupancy.  There was a list of a dozen items that needed to be completed, apparently not worth his time, so we completed them ourselves to get the C.O..  Since he "finished" the job, we have spent thousands of dollars correcting his mistakes.  1.The first and most expensive problem was the basement part of the addition.  When the foundation was being poured my husband asked him several times about putting drains in, and he said we didn't need them.  Needless to say, after the first heavy rain the two basement rooms were under water.  The rugs and furniture were ruined, and he blamed it on a sump pump failure.  He replaced the sump pump.  The second time it happened, there was again four inches of standing water, and the sump pump was working just fine.  He blamed it on the landscapers who put a patio in, saying they disrupted the grade of our property.  At that time he admitted that drains would be necessary, and that we "could pay him or pay someone else" to do them.  At that point we decided we didn't want him doing any more work for us.  We paid someone else, and we haven't had any water in the basement since.  Unfortunately, the hardwood flooring needed to be completely replaced, as did much of the drywall, which was wet and growing mold. We estimate costs and damages to be over $20,000.  2. He planted our lawn with seed and hay after Thanksgiving.  We told him it was too late, and he went ahead anyway.  He charged us $6000 for about half an acre of property.  By the spring, 90% of the topsoil and grass seed had washed away with the melting snow and spring rain.  We had clumps of grass here and there, and needed to pay someone else $6000 to rake all the rocks out of the soil, put down new topsoil, and plant a new lawn.  3. The permit application for the new propane boiler he installed was dated 2009 and had long expired without any inspection, so we had to hire another plumbing & heating company to get the permit.  When they looked at the work they were in disbelief at the poor quality of the work.  It had to be completely re-piped.  The condensate tank and expansion tank weren't installed properly and needed to be replaced.  There was air in the lines which explained why our heating bill was so high but our house was never warm.  This cost us over $2000.  4. We have had leakage of water in two places through the 2 faulty chimneys/flashing that he installed.  There is mold within the walls, the hardwood floor is warped, the subfloor is rotting, the ceiling is stained and buckling, and all this needs to be replaced; that is, after we replace the chimney and flashing.  The roofing company said they had never seen such shoddy work.  Estimated cost to repair it all: $9000.  5. We have no heat in the foyer, where the front door is constantly opened and closed.  He installed a baseboard heater there but never attached it to anything!  It is useless.  6. He cut away huge areas of ceiling drywall in the garage and removed the insulation, apparently for the electrical inspection, and never repaired it, just left it like that!  We have to pay someone to repair it.
We could go on and on... Now we hear that this is typical of him, he has a reputation for leaving things undone and doing poor quality work.  Bottom line: you get what you pay for.  Our friends and family keep encouraging us to sue him, but we aren't that kind of people.  Do yourself a huge favor, pay a little more and get quality work by someone who stands by their work.  We wish that we had...

This company had "a great reputation" from businesses in the area.. or so we thought. As soon as he was hired it was a different story. It took way too long to work on their house (basically rebuilding it). We bought the supplies...he claimed he did. He didnt listen to half the requests...so things were done incorrectly. The job was never finished.Then we find out his real reputation in the area.... there were many of the same stories and how there was major lack of professionalism.