Sturlee Construction

Contractors screaming at each other outside the building, horrible paint job, sprayed my entire back deck and everything on it with overspray. Blamed it on my ac unit turning on, you know, like they do in the heat! Said they would fix it and won't even respond to emails. STAY AWAY!

The workmen were all Hispanic and spoke next to no English. The contractor claimed to be "training" them; example: we had old blown-in insulation in the attic that he made the workers remove with shovels rather than hiring a company that sucks the stuff out mechanically - so the workers were exposed to terrible dust. The workers grew more and more disgruntled as the job progressed. They seemed to argue among themselves and some even went on strike at one point. When they finished, we had thousands of dollars of re-dos but did  NOTwant the Sturlee company involved. The heat pump had to be moved from too near a bedroom window. The kitchen cabinets are flush against the ceiling, which makes them inconveniently high; we were not consulted about this. The whole house fan was installed with a huge duct over it that rendered it useless. The return opening for the furnace/ac was out of square so it whistled when the unit was working. The front door was badly hung and periodically slumped and wouldn't lock. They installed the wrong cabinet handles in the kitchen. There are unnecessary duplicate switches in many places. We told them we wanted to install a fan in the roof over the deck, but Wayne Lee had the workers construct the supports such that there is no way to mount a fan there. And that's not all.
We soon learned not to complain as every time we did order something fixed we got stuck with a "change order" which meant extra charges. A pole lamp for the steps in front of the house was never installed as the electrical wiring for it was covered with cement and the contractor chose to ignore it. We did not feel comfortable confronting this contractor over work or money. He was openly rude on occasion. The accounting was basically secret. We received periodic statements of money owed, but the list of materials presented at the end of the project was a mass of confusing lists and had no costs listed. Overall, it was a nightmare, and this was not the first house we had remodeled - it was our third. But always before, we worked with people we could rely on.

Take care in working with this contractor. He evidently has lots of local experience, apparently mainly with tract homes. Be sure you get accurate estimates, clearly presented. Keep track on your own of change orders or extras and keep a running total. Be sure you know and approve the brand and quality of ALL equipment and goods procured for your job by this contractor. Double check. Check on subcontractors if you can. Demand clear explanations and records of expenditures. Try to get him to show you receipts and to be specific and aboveboard about his mark-up.
Keep a lookout for trouble on the job site. Most of the workers spoke only Spanish so we couldn't deal with more than one or two on a face-to-face basis. The  workers performed risky jobs without proper protections - example: digging out old insulation without masks. We offered to pay for a mechanical suction method, but were ignored by the builder.  During our project, some workers went on strike for a short time and argued among themselves much of the time. Oversight was minimal. The atmosphere on the site degraded to a very unpleasant state and we were very glad to get this company off our property. At the end, the contractor threw a big party for people in the construction business in our house! In the aftermath, we had to pay thousands to repair or redo work but didn't want to go back to this contractor for satisfaction. We would never hire him again.