Daniel E. Hoag Construction

Updated 7/24/17 My first encounter with Dan Hoag was when Paul, my friend and property maintenance man, recommended him to me for work on the roof of a rental house I own. Paul had employed him for roofing work and had been satisfied. My first discomfort, on meeting Dan, was when he went out of his way to profess his Christian faith, and next, when he brought his two young children so that I could meet them—both instances of unprofessional behavior that I decided to overlook. Dan inspected the roof on the rental house and told me it needed replacing—not surprising, since it was some time since that had been done. That Cape Cod house has 2190 square feet and an attached double garage. His charge for removing the old roof, repairing rot, and putting on the new composition roof came to $12,010.81, which I paid. I don’t know if that’s a reasonable charge or not. That work was done in April and May, 2016. He said he wasn’t able to give me an advance estimate since he didn’t know what he would find, so I had no basis for comparison. In this same time period, it appeared that the wood balcony outside my bedroom in my own house was rotting and needed to be rebuilt. An acquaintance who’s an excellent carpenter and has done very good work for me before, said he could build the new balcony but it would be more efficient if I could get someone with the proper equipment to reproduce the nine intricately shaped balasters for him to install while building the rest, including shaping the railings and finials by hand. I asked Dan if he were equipped to make the balasters, with the best quality wood available, and he assured me he could do it with no problem—that he and his brother had a woodworking shop with all the equipment, and that he could have it done by late June. Either he was lying or he didn’t have a clue about what he was getting into, neither of which is a good way to run a business. As time went on, he kept reporting problems with obtaining wood and finding a way to reproduce the balasters. (Apparently the shop was a figment of his imagination.) In July I gave him a deadline for delivery, saying the deal was off if he couldn’t deliver by a late August date. I got more complaints from him about what a hard job it was, but he did deliver at the last minute. The balasters were fine, and there was enough wood for my carpenter to build the rest—which he did with a lot of hand-caring to match the original design, and installed and painted it, for a total charge of $6464.42. Dan charged me $9856.89 for his work and the wood, and then in September presented me with an additional bill for $1129 for rent he’d paid for the use of someone else’s woodworking shop—making his total $10, 985.89! And now he seems to think that I should forgive him having to reimburse me for his bad work on an entirely different and unrelated job, because he didn’t charge more for the balcony work! Meanwhile, I had not yet learned my lesson well enough and allowed one thing to flow into another. My own roof was due for cleaning and inspection, and Dan offered to do it. I agreed because it took less effort than finding someone else. And then I discovered a leak in the breezeway between the house and garage, where the breezeway attaches to the house. And Dan said he could easily fix that. I have already reported to you on his roof cleaning and repairs, which cost an overpriced $6470.76. And I have reported on his botched job of repairing the leak, for which I paid him $1598, and for which I expect him to reimburse me $1389. He is resisting, and has no basis for doing so, as you’ll see by reading the emails between us on this: he thinks that because he elected not to bill me for a couple of items related to the balcony job, I should not expect him to repay what I gave him for the breezeway job! (After my carpenter removed the old copper, which Dan should have done, and found and repaired the source of the leak for about $800, TT&L Sheet Metal put on new copper at a cost of $4848.) It’s too bad that it’s past the time limit for Angie’s List to pursue this, but I think you should know about Dan Hoag and his company.

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