Alpha Construction & Repair
About us
More than 17 years of construction experience remodeling and repairing homes around the Portland/Hillsboro area. Specialties range from full additions and remodels to small repairs. We focus strictly on quality, cleanliness, safety, respect, dependability and especially communication. We are very friendly and easy to work with. Look forward to meeting with you to talk shop about your project.
Business highlights
Services we offer
General Construction, Remodeling, and all Home Repairs
Amenities
Free Estimates
Yes
Number of Stars | Image of Distribution | Number of Ratings |
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89% | ||
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11% | ||
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They did an excellent job. Both projects look beautiful and are exactly what I wanted.
Something that really gave me a good impression was how happy the workers were. They obviously like working for Tyson.
Another positive is the way they all treated me...an older woman. They were respectful and very helpful.
Tyson and I adjusted the schedule so that I had time to prime all the lumber for the pergola before construction. He was very supportive of my desire to do the painting.
They cleaned up nicely before they left. In fact, my garden looked neater and tidier than ever.
I first hired Tyson to do some work in my kitchen which included cutting a hole for a new dishwasher and installing shelving in my kitchen closet to serve as a pantry. His estimate was a bit on the high side I thought, but he’d been recommended by my
plumber, and on meeting Tyson, he seemed like a very personable young man, so I went with it.
The first indication of less than stellar business practices occurred with that job. I was coordinating with a plumber and electrician involved in the dishwasher install as well, so it was important that he be there when he said he would. On more than one occasion, he didn’t come when he indicated he would, but he also didn’t call to say he would be late. I realize that this line of work can be unpredictable, but I think a call to the waiting customer is a required courtesy when you’re going to be later than even an hour. In one instance, after waiting 2.5 hours, after contacting him, he attempted to cancel because he “was too far away”, but I reminded him that the plumber was scheduled to be there so I thought it was imperative that he be there. In the long run, everything worked out ok and the workmanship was good, so I hired him, with some reservation, to tear down
an existing fence and install and stain a new cedar fence in my back yard.
Tyson again did not show up when he said he would and didn’t call either to say he’d be late or to explain why he’d been late. Communication is not his strong suit. When we discussed replacing the fence in the back yard, I said I wanted a fence like the one I had. He saw the old fence, so it should have been clear what I wanted. It was about 4 feet high, with four inch rounded
slats spaced ½-3/4 inch apart. I used the term picket fence because that what I’d always called it. When he showed up at my house, he unloaded several pre-built sections that he had bought at Home Depot. They were stacked and I didn’t look at them
closely to see how closely the slats were spaced. They had a nice look to them so I said ok (I realize that this is almost entirely my fault for not pulling one out to look at more closely). He made the comment that “we” saved some money and time by
buying pre-builts. I spent that evening and the next morning looking at the portion of the fence he’d installed and concluded that there was no way I could live with it because it had 3.5 inch slats with 4 inch spacing between. It looked more like a
railing than a fence and I could see into my neighbor’s yard like it was part of my yard. My neighbor also stated she was surprised they’d call that a fence. When he arrived the next morning I stated that I had a few things that I wanted to
discuss with him about the fence, the spacing being chief among them. He recommended putting 2.5 inch slats in the
spacings and I agreed to that. The additional charges came to $357. I agreed to that only because I felt I was in large part responsible for the miscommunication even though what he had installed in no way resembled the original fence and he admitted that he had gone with the pre-builts to save money so it was not his original design plan. A mistake on my part to not confirm what the fence would look like before the project began and I had ok’d the original estimate. So, work began a few days later to finish up the install with the added slats, albeit much later in the day than originally scheduled. Steve Tyson’s assistant) arrived on Friday to stain. When he was finished staining, he asked if I could pay the balance of
the bill. It should be noted that Tyson asks for half payment before the work even begins which I’ve been advised to
never do and to avoid contractors who use this practice. I told Steve initially that I would write a check, but after thinking about it for a while, decided that the best course of action would be to wait until after cleanup which he was not able to do that
day.
Further frustrations with his practices:
1. Didn’t cleanup all the wood debris—there were several small pieces of wood that appeared to have been deliberately thrown behind my cedar tree. I say this because there was a chalk line that had been left back there after the work was
completed and they’d managed to find that and pick it up, so they had to have seen the debris at that time.
2. Overheard Tyson maligning me to one of his workers when he thought I was out of earshot. Basically, I gather from his
sing-song imitation of me in one of our conversations that he thought I was being demanding in asking for the added slats. When I confronted him about it, he denied it, making the issue even worse because he’s either not willing to man up to
anything or sees his actions as justified.
3. My water hose and spray attachment were used in the mixing of concrete but not properly cleaned, so the spray attachment is clogged for most functions and permanently cemented to the hose, making it virtually useless for any other purpose than jet spraying.
4. While cleaning up around the fence a few days after completion, I found a large wet spot on the ground underneath a huge fern plant behind the tool shed in my yard. On closer inspection, it appears to be a spot used to dispose of paint thinner
and/or stain. I sent an e-mail to Tyson to ask if that’s what had been done and he emailed back that Steve had
“accidentally” spilled a pan of stain and wondered if there was still stain that needed to be cleaned up. This just
doesn’t make sense. Why would anyone in their right mind, balance a stain pan on a large fern plant? And there was no attempt to clean it up because the plastic downspout under the fern plant was covered in stain, and none of the earth appeared to have been disturbed as you’d expect to see if there were any digging. I dug down about 8 inches until I hit concrete and removed what soil I could that appeared to have been contaminated.
There’s so much more to the job than putting out a nice product, which he does. Too bad he hasn’t learned all the good practices that go with it.
performed to my high standards. I would use them again and recommend them to everyone if you want a great job done for a good price. Very trustworthy and professional.
Licensing
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