First on Sight

My first impression of the American Builders (AB) team leader, A, sent to assess the damage at our house was that his goal was to bill the insurance company as much as possible. I expressed that concern to him and was belittled and insulted. I should have told him to leave right then, but was distraught with the water damage to our home and not thinking clearly. Our refrigerator was improperly installed and slowly leaked for a month before we discovered it. By then, it had wicked into the dry wall and baseboard around the refrigerator and leaked under a small section of our kitchen flooring. It also leaked into the basement causing damage to a wall, baseboard, and two chests and left minor rust stains on the carpet. AB built a plastic wall around the wet spots in our kitchen and stressed HOW IMPORTANT this was to prevent the spread of mildew as fans were being used to circulate air and dry the wood. Important that is until it was time to go home and they realized they didn’t have adequate equipment to build an airtight wall. Then the gapping areas would be OK until they could return the next morning. Next, I was told parts of the kitchen subflooring might need removed as well as our beautiful, custom cupboards. Why? Our vinyl flooring needed replaced, it went under our cupboards therefore the cupboards needed removed to replace our vinyl flooring. This made NO sense so we called a construction expert whose professional opinion we trust – our son. He has a BS in Construction Management, a second BS in Architectural Engineering, oversees the construction of large, multi-million dollar projects and has dealt with water main breaks that caused damage to huge sections of buildings. He said it would be very, very rare to require subflooring replacement from a slow refrigerator leak. He then explained builders don’t like to replace subflooring because of the potential damage to the structure as a whole. Instead, the subflooring is allowed to dry then painted with a mildew-killing product for added protection. ABSOULUTELY NOT was his response to removing our custom cupboards so our flooring could be replaced. He suggested we call our original homebuilder to finish all repairs. Our original builder carefully looked at all areas damage with water. He said there was no reason to even consider replacing the subflooring. It was thoroughly dry and mildew free but he would cover it with a mildew killing paint for added protection. (We did not tell him that was our son’s suggestion.) He was appalled at the suggestion of tearing out our kitchen cupboards and suggested the company realized the job was an insurance claim, thought they saw a “dumb woman” and hoped to increase their billable hours. AB declined assisting us with repairing the two chests. Instead, they encouraged us to replace over 600 square feet of carpet in our basement, although only parts of 5 square feet had light rust stains. The team leader, A, stated numerous times the company who installed our refrigerator incorrectly “Owed it to us and we had it coming.” After much discussion, we finally convinced A to try and clean the rust stains. IF that didn’t work, we would re-discuss replacing the carpet. A few days later AB showed up at our house with a huge carpet, cleaning machine, so big we didn’t think it would go down the stairs without damaging the walls. I showed the AB people the stained areas and THEY suggested using spot cleaners instead of the large machine. That sounded reasonable to me. A few minutes later, A the arrogant team leader, called me on the phone and starting yelling. He said he was “pulling his team off the job because I acted like I was the professional but I wasn’t, he was. I didn’t know what needed done because I wasn’t trained but he was so he knew what needed done”. Then A said, “If he was trying to rip off the insurance company he would be upstairs tearing out the kitchen cupboards before new flooring was installed.” I pointed out that was exactly what an employee he supervised told me needed done, which was why AB was not repairing our house but our original builder was. He cursed, yelled at me some more and then hung up. (Very professional!) We removed some of the carpet rust stains with a damp cloth. The remaining stains are barely noticeable. Unfortunately, the dirty, oily spots created by an AB employee’s feet are very, noticeable. Several weeks later, we received a bill from a company we did not contract with, located in Texas. The bill had no explanation of what the charges were for and did not even have a date of service. Let me say that again. We received a bill telling us to send X dollars to a company we never heard of, to an address in Texas, with no explanation of why, when, or what services were rendered. We returned the bill with a note saying we didn’t contract with them. Later, AB called us stating it was a payable bill to a company now in charge of their billing department. We reminded them the bill should be sent to the insurance of the company who installed our refrigerator, not us. Please note: While contracting with another company to do billing is not unusual, it is very, unusual for unknown companies to send nonspecific bills, especially to people who are not responsible for them. All information above is accurate, although condensed, and based on our personal experiences with American Builders. Our personal opinion is you should hire a different company.

My first impression of the American Builders (AB) team leader, A, sent to assess the damage at our house was that his goal was to bill the insurance company as much as possible. I expressed that concern to him and was belittled and insulted. I should have told him to leave right then, but was distraught with the water damage to our home and not thinking clearly. Our refrigerator was improperly installed and slowly leaked for a month before we discovered it. By then, it had wicked into the dry wall and baseboard around the refrigerator and leaked under a small section of our kitchen flooring. It also leaked into the basement causing damage to a wall, baseboard, and two chests and left minor rust stains on the carpet. AB built a plastic wall around the wet spots in our kitchen and stressed HOW IMPORTANT this was to prevent the spread of mildew as fans were being used to circulate air and dry the wood. Important that is until it was time to go home and they realized they didn’t have adequate equipment to build an airtight wall. Then the gapping areas would be OK until they could return the next morning. Next, I was told parts of the kitchen subflooring might need removed as well as our beautiful, custom cupboards. Why? Our vinyl flooring needed replaced, it went under our cupboards therefore the cupboards needed removed to replace our vinyl flooring. This made NO sense so we called a construction expert whose professional opinion we trust – our son. He has a BS in Construction Management, a second BS in Architectural Engineering, oversees the construction of large, multi-million dollar projects and has dealt with water main breaks that caused damage to huge sections of buildings. He said it would be very, very rare to require subflooring replacement from a slow refrigerator leak. He then explained builders don’t like to replace subflooring because of the potential damage to the structure as a whole. Instead, the subflooring is allowed to dry then painted with a mildew-killing product for added protection. ABSOULUTELY NOT was his response to removing our custom cupboards so our flooring could be replaced. He suggested we call our original homebuilder to finish all repairs. Our original builder carefully looked at all areas damage with water. He said there was no reason to even consider replacing the subflooring. It was thoroughly dry and mildew free but he would cover it with a mildew killing paint for added protection. (We did not tell him that was our son’s suggestion.) He was appalled at the suggestion of tearing out our kitchen cupboards and suggested the company realized the job was an insurance claim, thought they saw a “dumb woman” and hoped to increase their billable hours. AB declined assisting us with repairing the two chests. Instead, they encouraged us to replace over 600 square feet of carpet in our basement, although only parts of 5 square feet had light rust stains. The team leader, A, stated numerous times the company who installed our refrigerator incorrectly “Owed it to us and we had it coming.” After much discussion, we finally convinced A to try and clean the rust stains. IF that didn’t work, we would re-discuss replacing the carpet. A few days later AB showed up at our house with a huge carpet, cleaning machine, so big we didn’t think it would go down the stairs without damaging the walls. I showed the AB people the stained areas and THEY suggested using spot cleaners instead of the large machine. That sounded reasonable to me. A few minutes later, A the arrogant team leader, called me on the phone and starting yelling. He said he was “pulling his team off the job because I acted like I was the professional but I wasn’t, he was. I didn’t know what needed done because I wasn’t trained but he was so he knew what needed done”. Then A said, “If he was trying to rip off the insurance company he would be upstairs tearing out the kitchen cupboards before new flooring was installed.” I pointed out that was exactly what an employee he supervised told me needed done, which was why AB was not repairing our house but our original builder was. He cursed, yelled at me some more and then hung up. (Very professional!) We removed some of the carpet rust stains with a damp cloth. The remaining stains are barely noticeable. Unfortunately, the dirty, oily spots created by an AB employee’s feet are very, noticeable. Several weeks later, we received a bill from a company we did not contract with, located in Texas. The bill had no explanation of what the charges were for and did not even have a date of service. Let me say that again. We received a bill telling us to send X dollars to a company we never heard of, to an address in Texas, with no explanation of why, when, or what services were rendered. We returned the bill with a note saying we didn’t contract with them. Later, AB called us stating it was a payable bill to a company now in charge of their billing department. We reminded them the bill should be sent to the insurance of the company who installed our refrigerator, not us. Please note: While contracting with another company to do billing is not unusual, it is very, unusual for unknown companies to send nonspecific bills, especially to people who are not responsible for them. All information above is accurate, although condensed, and based on our personal experiences with American Builders. Our personal opinion is you should hire a different company.

unknown

they did a very good job! Even though there were many damages in town from storms they were promptly here to seal it up and a few days later finished the repair inside and out.

AMERICAN BUILDERS SUPPLY INC. have not finished the work yet, but the work they have done deserves an A. They deserve an A in every category so far.