C&S Construction and Development LLC

The first day Cedric Cambray was on the job in my home, he said several things that concerned me but I foolishly decided to let go. He told me he had “guys all over town” working on jobs for him, which worried me because it meant he likely wouldn’t be doing the work himself (turns out I was right). He also told me he got all of his work through his girlfriend, a realtor, who is also his business partner. I’ve gotten plenty of good contractor recommendations through my own realtor, but my hesitation stems from the fact that business driven through real estate transactions means very little follow up. A seller wants repairs done cheap and fast, a buyer wants the seller to do the work, and poor repairs or installations then have no means of resolution. If your tile floor fails in two years, shame on the seller for picking a bad contractor. It’s not like we can ask them to fix it now. Like I said, I foolishly didn’t listen to my gut. We hired Cedric Cambray and his business partner Suzann Clark to level our former porch floor and tile it, as well as tile our kitchen walls and floor. There were several problems on the porch. I am attaching a photo of Cedric’s idea of framing (it’s the photo with 104 lineal feet of 2x4 and a bunch of pink insulation, in case you couldn’t tell what that is – two contractors who reviewed his work asked me what they were looking at). In a traditional (correct) floor, there are joists and a subfloor, with your flooring on top. On a tile floor, this means joists, subfloor, thin set, cement board, thin set, and tile with grout. Cedric installed the cement board without a subfloor, which manufacturers of cement board and fiber cement board clearly say is not okay. Cement board exists to level a floor, not support it. In addition to that issue, cement board, according to the manufacturers, must be installed with thin set. When you don’t have a subfloor, there’s nothing to smear thin set on to to glue down the cement board. These issues aside, the porch wasn’t level. It was actually THREE FULL INCHES out of level, which is a lot in a small room (and I would argue is a lot in a big room). When I brought these issues up with Cedric, he told me he had “never heard of or even seen” cement board set in thin set to a subfloor. This means Cedric Chambray has never correctly installed a tile floor in his life, and the “hundreds” of tile floors he has installed are all wrong. Buyers, call your sellers. Sellers, call your agents. Agents, don’t hire Cedric Chambray. He then told me there was no way we could ever level the floor, despite assuring me he could and would when he bid the project (and two other carpenters telling me it’s entirely possible). Cedric’s favorite phrase in the world is “that’s not in the contract.” Rather than saying, wow, I really messed up. I had no idea that I should have read the directions from Hardie to install Hardiebacker correctly and I’m sorry for this inconvenience, let’s fix your house! Cedric says, “that wasn’t in the contract.” Ah, the contract. Let’s discuss. Cedric’s contract is vague enough that everything could be in it, or nothing could be in it. When I told him we needed to follow manufacturer requirements for installation of the cement backer board, he told me “that’s not in the contract.” What is in the contract? “Tile Kitchen Floor” – that’s it. Being as I am not a tile professional, I assumed that meant every step of tiling. Cement board isn’t mentioned once in the contract. If we’re going by that standard, he could’ve set the tile on the subfloor to dry fit it, and called it done. Other miscommunications? All about things that weren’t in the contract. “Clear/Cover” appliances doesn’t mean move them out of the way for demo and cover them, it means cover them with clear plastic. “Level the floor” doesn’t mean level the floor, it means leave 3” of slope in it. “Demo” doesn’t mean demo and remove debris, the debris will be stacked in your garage when you get home (to be fair, Cedric did finally decide the removal of debris should be included – but why do we even need to have the conversation?). Cedric thinks he can lean on his extremely vague “contract” to get out of pieces of the job that don’t look easy or fun. The contract will become your enemy, not a clear reflection of understanding you can both look back and reference. If Cedric doesn’t want to do it, it isn’t in there. If he does, it wasn’t in there but he’ll do you a favor and do it anyway. It’s incredible. And frustrating. And it’s a new joke around the house. I’m not doing the dishes after dinner, that’s not in the contract. There were a myriad of other problems in the kitchen, most of which had to do with the cement board installation. I’ll attach the ONE page of directions Hardie supplies on installation here. Cedric has done most of this wrong, but here’s what stands out. “Never allow all four corners of boards to meet at one point” check. Leave “1/8” gap between board edges” nope. “Keep sheet edges 1/8” back from walls and cabinet bases” haha, no, try again. “Fasten with specified nails or screws” nope, let’s just choose our own hardware adventure here. “Score and snap boards to required sizes” – wow, no. And not only did Cedric Cambray let his crew use a saw to cut hardiebacker, which is extremely dangerous as is releases silica into the air ruining lungs and lives, he let them do it INSIDE my home. So if I develop black lung, I have Cedric to thank. I hope his crew has good insurance. Cedric Cambray has a really hard time admitting he’s done something wrong. It takes a lot of humility to admit you need help, to admit you need to learn, to admit something needs to be fixed. Cedric is a very proud individual and I’m not sure he’ll ever get to that point. You can test it and see if he has changed, but you are sacrificing your home in doing so. This is speculation, but I think Cedric and Suzann’s business is Cedric’s talk. He says he will do something, he’ll type it up, and then he’ll find two guys on craigslist to do it for you. He doesn’t actually do the work himself, and he doesn’t actually KNOW how to do the work himself. We reached an agreement for a partial reimbursement of the bad work in our house. It won’t cover what it will cost to fix it, and it won’t cover the cost in lost materials that can’t be reused, but we are so thankful he won’t be working on our home again. We had two other contractors look at his work to tell us if it was salvageable, and they told us to never let him in our house again and to not let him try to fix it. One said, he just doesn’t know what he’s doing and he needs training. He told me if Cedric was humble enough to accept help, he’d be willing to let Cedric oversee him installing the floor correctly so that he can learn. I know Cedric doesn’t want to learn, though. He just wants to do work for people who won’t catch his shortcuts and errors. The work will look nice but it will be all wrong. Lipstick on a crumbling subfloor. I can’t recommend Cedric Cambray or Suzann Clark for your flooring projects, and given how Cedric handles errors I wouldn’t recommend him for anything, really.