CNW CONSTRUCTION INC.

Michael Blank of CNW Construction was recommended to us by the home inspector of the 1920 NE Portland house we purchased in 2015. The house had a half basement plus crawl space and we were investigating options to have the crawl space dug out to create a full basement, Initially I was impressed by Michael as he made several site visits including meeting with our architect and other contractors to discuss the project. There was one negative. Michael doesn't really listen. He likes to talk - a lot - but we never really got the sense that he listens. My wife found it quite off-putting. This was often confirmed when he had very different recollections of conversations that had transpired. I overlooked it as he seemed knowledgeable and eager to work on the project. He e-mailed us a fairly detailed draft outline of costs, it was very preliminary but it was reasonably well broken down by cost of digging, foundation walls, concrete floor etc so we could make reasonable sense of it. Based on this we went ahead and spent a further $4000 having formal plans drawn up by the architect, plans the architect felt were suitable for contractors to make a formal bid. This is when everything went South. Michael became "busy". Months and months passed during which he failed to respond to the revised plans that had been sent to him. I contacted him repeatedly during this time and every time it was "I'll come this week". He never did. At one point he came up with the excuse that he had been calling my phone but it was out of service! The phone was working fine plus he had made no attempt to contact me via e-mail which is how he had been communicating his "I'll come this week" status updates. I was a very sad dog-eat-my-homework excuse. At this point one of the other contractors suggested we consider if we really wanted to continue to work with Michael as if this was how he conducted himself during the bidding phase we could reasonably expect to encounter similar behavior if problems arose during actual construction. The reason we kept even considering CNW was that during these delays Michael kept stressing he wanted to continue to work with us. So I "kept the faith" as it were. Finally after over 6 months he finally made a very brief site visit, the first since we had sent him the plans, and he e-mailed us a revised "estimate". My quotes here are intentional as it was basically a total and nothing else. We were expecting a cost increase but the new total was a massive increase over the previous. Worse, no attempt was made to break down this new total, or account in any way for the differences from the previous preliminary estimate. We considered this to be totally unacceptable and unprofessional. I talked to him on the phone and he assured me the new total was accurate and that he had "worked it all out". I can only conclude he must have lost the cocktail napkin he did this on. We washed our hands with him, we were at this point, totally sick of him. I can only suggest homeowners considering hiring CNW perform careful due intelligence.

My wife and I hired CNW Construction in November 2013 to complete a series of demolition and construction tasks on the house we had just purchased in Northeast Portland. We initially sought bids from multiple contractors, and Michael Blank seemed eager for the job. He provided examples of similar jobs his company had done in the past, and seemed to be in a bigger league than the other candidates. Although we provided a permit set of plans which covered the entire scope of work that we wanted to do, we were uncertain that Mr. Blank would be the right contractor for all of the work. His strength seemed to lie in concrete, and though his bid was not the lowest we received, he agreed to match our closest competing bid in order to win the contract. We signed an agreement to lift and lower the house, demolish the existing attached garage, excavate the existing basement, pour new footings and basement walls, retaining walls and steps. Being naive about the practices of professional construction companies, we were not aware of just how incomplete the list of items were in the initial contract. Since we began our relationship by discussing the entire scope of our project, it seemed reasonable that Mr. Blank understood what we wanted, and that while the initial contract did not include everything, at some point I believed that a discussion would occur in which we could request a comprehensive estimate on our project. That point never came. As work progressed on the first contract, additional items which were "overlooked" or which matter-of-factly were simply not mentioned came to light, and additional contracts were required. At one month in, I realized that it would not be possible to bring another contractor in to begin working on some other portion of our project, as CNW was running the whole show like a general contractor - but without any explicit authority to do so as they were not hired in that capacity, which Mr. Blank reminded me of at several points. I had a heating contractor come in and install a radiant system during the course of construction, and they had a somewhat difficult time coordinating with Mr. Blank. If he could not manage the subcontractor (and charge me 10% of their fee for that privilege), he did not find it convenient to accommodate them on the job site. When we reached the point where we were nearly out of money, it became obvious to me that the scope of our project was well beyond what we had budgeted. We discussed our budget with Mr. Blank numerous times up to that point, including at the beginning, and he never seemed to be very interested in listening to our limitations. He certainly never offered us any estimate of how much everything we intended to do might cost, or even how far along we could expect to get with the budget we had. Asking would only produce a lot of head scratching and shrugging, with an explanation that there were just "too many variables" to know. It was always a matter of the next phase costing a certain amount, and we would either agree to pay it or we wouldn't. Either way, he didn't seem to care what we could afford. In hindsight, it seems like Mr. Blank's poor communication skills were probably intentional, as I suspect this method of withholding a view of the bigger picture from people who don't quite know what they are getting themselves into is a time-honored tradition of the construction trade. At three months in, we needed to get the house to a point where we could move into it, as we were still living in and paying rent on a house in the same neighborhood, and our mortgage payments had begun. There were weather-related delays, and sometimes even in fair weather it seemed like a week would pass where very little was accomplished. Once our house was back down on its new foundation, we had no way of climbing up into it as the front porch was gone and the internal stairs at the back door of the house had been demolished. We went to our credit union and took out a home equity line of credit so that we could continue writing checks to Mr. Blank, and the piecemeal contracts continued. There really wasn't any other choice. There were the usual list of things that did not go well during CNW's work. Most of the mistakes and field changes were blamed on poorly drawn plans, but sometimes it was due to not asking for approval when an unspecified detail was quickly made up in order for work to continue. For example, the plumbing subcontractor that CNW hired installed the main water line in an arbitrary location, and no discussion about it was made until after the foundation concrete had been poured. I wish I had spoken up earlier and more forcefully when I saw that this mistake was being made, but I incorrectly assumed that Mr. Blank and the plumber knew what they were doing. To correct this, the plumber had to bring the main water line up into the joists and across to the opposite side of the house in order for it to terminate in the utility room where the water heater was located. This required lots of drilling through joists and additional time/expense for the plumber. Poor communication was the order of business with CNW, but it wasn't for lack of trying. Whenever I tried to discuss the project with Mr. Blank, he always ended up doing all of the talking. Points I made about how I wanted something done were sometimes dismissed, and I was often encouraged to do things a different way that Mr. Blank felt I would like better, or which he found easier or more cost effective to do. My wife and I were quite set on having paving stones laid for our small driveway instead of having concrete poured, but Mr. Blank tried his best at least half a dozen times to talk us out of it. He eventually relented and did the work, but it's "like the ocean" as the plumbing contractor described it. Mr. Blank would call me on the phone at least once a day to check in and update me on the work that had been done, but frequently these interruptions got out of hand. I think the record number of phone calls I received from him in a single business day was nine, largely for minor questions that didn't need immediate answers. In the end, we ran out of money a second time and I had to have Mr. Blank complete the scope of his contracts and leave us with an unfinished house. I apologized to him for being unable to afford to hire him to complete our project, and he smiled and told me that I should have asked for a "comprehensive estimate" up front. That's when I knew that he had taken us for a ride. He knew what we wanted from the very beginning and what we should have asked for, but didn't mention it until we'd given him all the money we had and then borrowed $40,000 more. I guess I should have known better, but he seemed trustworthy and professional. I am not angry or upset, but I feel misled and am disappointed. The concrete work CNW did was quite acceptable (though not perfect), and I feel like their pricing for this type of work is fair. However, I feel their framing work was overpriced and their operational overhead is considerable. I believe Mr. Blank is accustomed to working on multi-million dollar commercial projects and keeping a large crew of heavy-smoking middle-aged craftsmen and laborers going full time, so our home remodeling project ended up costing quite a bit more than it would have if we had gone with a smaller contracting firm. This was a small job for CNW to help them keep the cash flow moving during the lean winter months. I do not feel it was the sort of project that they prioritize as a business. It will take us a year or more to finish our house remodel ourselves with the little money we have remaining, and I do not think I would hire CNW again if I had to start over. I am not entirely dissatisfied with the experience, but I would not recommend CNW Construction to anyone with a similar scope of work to mine. If you have a new 30-unit apartment complex to build and a big pile of money, maybe, but not a major remodeling project on a single-family dwelling.

Dear Angie's List: We are writing you this information to express our concerns over a client that you have placed on your advertising list; Michael Blank dba CNW Construction, located at 15140 SE 82nd Ave, Suite#200, Clackamas, Oregon 97015. We had originally met with Mr. Blank in early October of 2012 to discuss building an outbuilding on our property. Our discussion entailed the need for building plans and then to have a bid for the construction of the building. Mr. Blank initially presented himself very professionally to us and confidently told us that he would get back to us with a preliminary bid within a few weeks. When the time was due to meet again, he presented us with a construction bid that was in line with what our expectation were. We accepted the original bid, but he did not give it to us in writing. He said that he would finish writing it up and give us the final bid later, before moving forward with the project. A few months went by. We were still speaking with him about the project and were eager to get the project under way. He asked us for a deposit that would cover the initial ?grading? and other materials that would put us in a good position to start the project and be able to get the building constructed in a more timely fashion, once the county had okayed the project. We paid him the initial amounts that were required but pressed him again for the breakdown of the amounts that he had used to come to the overall initial bid that he had quoted to us. He reassured us that the subcontractors were working on getting him the bids that he needed and that we would get the things that were needed to get the project under way in plenty of time. He reassured us that he did not see any problems with making the building come in on time and on budget. On Christmas Eve day, 2012, my wife and I came home to not a ?graded? area in the back yard, but instead, he had started the digging for the foundation and had put some of the forms and rebar in place to prepare for pouring concrete for the foundation. We were shocked that he was moving forward so fast on the project, when the county had not yet given us word that the project had been approved, so that we could get the needed permits. When we went out back to talk to him about what was going on, he told us that we had the right to do any excavation that we wanted to, without the permits and that everything should be okay. It was then that he handed us the actual write up bid for the projected costs of the construction of our project?.it was more than double what he had quoted to us!!!! On top of our horror of this terrible bid, we now had this great big hole in our back yard and we did not quite know what to do about it next. We were stuck with a mess and he now had our money. We tried to salvage the project by going to a few banks to get a loan to cover the increased costs of the project, since it was now started and we did not want to lose what he had begun. The banks would not loan us the money needed for the project so that we could complete it. To make matters worse, Clackamas County then advised us that there were problems with the original plans and classification of the project and would not issue us permits until they were resolved. This took more time and created even more cost to us. We relied on Mr. Blank?s expertise to run this project smoothly but instead we were unnecessarily thrown into an unneeded host of problems. If we had been given true disclosure we would not have allowed the project to have been started to begin with. We had a budget, his original bid was within the budget, but he deeply breached the faith that we had placed in him and put us in an unneeded position by baiting us along with promises that he did not intend on delivering. He had manipulated us into paying him, based on the original bid and then before giving us the break down on the numbers to help us see how he arrived at this bid amount, he started the project to try and make more money on us before we could back out of the project. We ultimately had to abandon our project with Mr. Blank because the mess was insurmountable with him and his company. We tried to negotiate a fair return of our money that we had in good faith fronted to Mr. Blank, but all that he would originally concede to return to us was the amount of $900.00 out of the nearly $64,000.00 that he had been given to do the first phases of our project. All we had to show for what he had done, were a set of plans and the big unsightly hole he had left in our back yard. He continued to be unreasonable with us, so we finally filed a complaint with the Oregon State Construction Contractors Board. The representative from the Board sided with us to have a portion of our money returned. Not the portion that we felt was due to us, but it was the best we could negotiate through the State Board, without being forced to go to court. Since he claimed that he did not have the money to give back to us up front the Representative from the Construction Contractors Board put him on a payment schedule, and he was late on that as well. We now finally have that part of our money returned but have been put through a lot of unnecessary stress, because of the way in which he conducted his business affairs. As a consumer, we have fears about these types of issues and do all that we can to try an mitigate having these types of experiences and look to trusted venues such as Angie?s list to be sure that the businesses that we seek are trusted ones. We do not feel that someone who conducts their affairs in the manner that Mr. Blank, dba CNW Construction conducted them with us, is the type of business that you would want to be representing through Angie?s List. If you do, then it would give the impression to us and others that know us that you will represent anyone who is willing to simply pay to advertise through you, and damage the integrity of your company. We have since found an honest contractor, who has been able to salvage the project and is doing an honest as well as a great job. If you are looking for someone to represent themselves on Angie?s list, he and his company would be the type of enterprise that you should have noted as being worthy of being on your list.

I signed a contract for the concrete work $5,464. 31/2 inches thick colored concrete. I believe the concrete is functional. The color is gone except foe a small area on the walk way. I had another bid for $2,950 but I was under the impression that Michael Blank had the experience, and I was willing to pay for it. Problem: After I signed the contract and the work started, Mr Blank asked me to do him a favor and order a dumpster from Waste Management of Oregon (my gargage collection Co.) in my name and he would deduct the cost from my final payment. I did not have the final bill from WM at the time the concreete was finished. Michael Blank estimated that it would be about $300. I suggested I would rather wait and send him the actual bill and he could re imburse me in the correct amount. THat IS WHAT WE AGREED ON. I paid the contract amount. I sent the bill for the dumpster in the amount of$480.18 as soon as I got it, I thought thatt was it. Then my calls, messages, e-mails, reminders started, respectfully. to recover my money. Mr Blank called a few times telling me that times were tough etc. On Dec. 13, 2012 I sent my final e-mail before taking action. the check was mailed immediately in the full amount, and I cashed it.. THE 10" FENCE AND GATE WAS A SEPERATE AGREEMENT. . . NO SIGNED CONTRACT. THE PRICE KEPT GOING UP AND I PAID $650. iN WINTER THE GATE IS STUCK AND iT CAN''T BE OPENED,. AT ANY TIME IT IS WARPED. My neighbor requested the name of a concrete contractor so I am reminded that maybe I should write a review.

See above description.