Catalyst Construction & Remodeling 503-914-9146

Service Provider Response

Thanks for the great review. BTW, you were a great client

Service Provider Response

Thanks for the great review, and like to again point out that we meet your timeline needs and created and successful project.

Service Provider Response

I have to admit that the install of your door was not what I would have hoped for either. So let me explain. Unfortunately for us, as this can happen, we bid our job early in the year when we had a slow down and bid the job for a bit less that we would have normally. You called back awhile later to schedule the project, which we accepted for the price that was originally quoted. Remember, we performed other services which you failed to mention such as framing the new door opening prior to your sheetrock being installed. We were able to provide this service to you on your timeline with your sheetrock contractor which I feel was very helpful. We also provided and installed a new quality wood window I also want to note that Catalyst provided the window. We also provided and installed all new wood trim work around the new doors and window. I am assuming the window and trim were installed properly since there was no negative mention of this. All this was provided at a very fair price. I want to make this clear, we did not provide the French Door. We negotiated this out of my contract because you were able to get a better deal on a door from the same supplier. But it wasn't the same door that i was going to provide, And this is where Catalyst got into trouble. The door you purchased was of a significantly lesser quality than the one I would have provided. I had had quoted a higher quality door with a wood jamb. This is very important to the time I had figured to install the door. In other words, the wood jamb would have made the job much easier and faster especially with a door of its size and weigh. The door you provided had a composite jamb which is basically sawdust glued together so the jamb wasn't straight and rigid like a wood jamb, the jamb on the door you provided was out of shape, crooked and warped. Obviously, the door you provided was more in your budget. We should have refused to allow you to provide the door. We should have refused to install the door. We should have requested more money to install the door, but we didn't. We all live and we learn from every job we do, especially the ones were we make mistakes. We now make sure we supply all the windows and doors we install so we have confidence in their install and warranty. We also should have fully inspected the door before we installed it. We verified the size and cut the opening before we realized the door had the inferior jamb. So we proceeded with he install. The composite jamb proceed to be very difficult to install and to be honest, I had never seen a fully composite jamb before. I have always installed doors with wood jambs. They are just better, more reliable and quicker to install but they are more expensive. I thought we had the door very secure when we left and you seemed happy with the service and you paid in full. I only found out about the problems when you contacted the CCB and filed a complaint. I would have been happy to return and correct any issues but you chose a less friendly route. I settled the dispute with you via arbitration and feel this negative review only spotlighting the door install and not the window or the finish trim work is small, petty and vengeful.

Service Provider Response

I am sorry that Angie's List did not pull this offer down when I requested. I was just being honest. The review really wasn't necessary. This was an issue with Angie's List, not Catalyst Construction & Remodeling

Service Provider Response

This in an odd review, I remember the project, gave you tons of great information and it was a good job.

Service Provider Response

It was an incredibly busy year. Thanks to Angie's List members and others, we performed several successful projects and expect some new, more positive reviews to be posted soon. So, I finally have a chance to respond to Mr. and Mrs. [Member Name Removed]'s review. Being on Angies List and having former clients post reviews about you is a numbers game. Eventually you will get someone who will be fussy and post a negative review. Now, I'm not going to say that we are perfect and we didn't make some mistakes, but I believe that this review is excessive is just an effort to hurt our business. In my opinion, the client seemed happy when we left the job. We had discussed their concerns and they paid in full, so I was surprised to see this review posted some 5 months after completion. To anyone reading this response, I hope you will read farther down our list of stellar reviews and see that we have satisfied many Angie's list members and that this review is extraordinary in its negativity. I'd like to mention this again, if they were so unhappy with the work, why did they pay in full, why didn't they go over all the issues mentioned in this review before we left. As it happens many times, these misunderstandings come down to poor communication. And if you read my review posted earlier from Lisa Hovey, I am excellent at communication. It is one of my strengths as a contractor. Anyways, it is what it is and so I will respond. She said the work took too long. Ok, this was on outside job in the winter, and I clearly told them that if it's pouring down rain, we wouldn't work. I guess they forgot that it rained almost every day last December and in fact, set a record for most rainfall. I guess they forgot that during the winter, it can be very dark and cold in the mornings so we may need to start a little later and let it warm up a bit. I guess they forgot that during the course of re building the back deck, the client decided to change the decking material and we had to wait for it to arrive. I guess they forgot that while we were working so "unprofessionally", that they actually added more work to the scope and had me order 2 new windows for the front of their home. The contract was to rebuild the back porch stairs and install new decking on back porch, build a small overhang over the basement door and finish trim work on the front porch including new decking, siding, wrapping 2 porch columns, rebuild corbels and install a new trellis. The job ended up being broken into 2 parts so the client would have the use of one entry while the other was being worked on. We rebuilt the back porch and awning first, before the heavy December rains hit, and then did the front porch later while we waited for the windows and the owner supplied front door so it seemed to work out fine. The materials were all primed cedar and it comes with a smooth side and a rough sawn side so not sure what the complaint was there, it was nice stuff. Now, the exterior of the home was not in the best of condition and the porches and siding showed signs of deferred maintenance. The client told me they were having the house painted so I excluded caulking and prepping our trim work from my contract. We agreed the painter would take care of that scope of work. We try very hard to make every joint in the trim material come together as close as possible, but working on old houses, which we pretty much do exclusively, things are not always square, level or plumb and it can be challenging to close all the gaps. But again, the painter was showing up after our work was finished and would have taken care of any gaps, sanded rough cuts, fill and prep all nails holes. Yes, there was a small saw nick in the back porch handrail, but this was an easy fix with some wood filler and could blend perfectly on 2x4 primed cedar. As I mentioned before, we did make some mistakes. The client expressed to us, upon our return for the second phase, that the back yard clean up was not what they had expected. While their back yard was certainly not pristine before we got there, I thanked her for letting me know and made sure this was not an issue on the front porch second phase and paid extra attention to the final clean up. There was also a mistake made on the trellis portion of the work. During its installation, I noticed there was a problem with the client's original design. After consulting with the client, a decision was made to move the 2 cross beams, unfortunately one of the ends of the beam failed to get fastened the second time. We normally cut things a bit longer so they can be wedged into place and will stay while they are being fastened but the final fastening was over looked. As it was wedged for several weeks, eventually the crossbeam slipped and the trellis sagged. It did not fall. While it had only one nail in each cross piece, the cross pieces were glued to the cross beam and the structure was secure enough that it did not fall and hurt anyone. Now, the client informed me of the problem and sent me a picture. I responded quickly and told them we would be there the next day to address the issue and re-secure the trellis but they declined. Again, the house was not in the best of shape including the interior plaster around the windows and door that they asked us to install. The repair of the plaster was clearly excluded from my contract. Once we started to install the windows upstairs, the plaster was literally peeling off the lathed walls around the sides and below the window due to previous water damage from leaky windows. There was nothing we could do about this, yet the client said nothing about the condition of the walls until they decided to write this review. Despite excluding any repair from my contract I even put sheetrock mud into an area of plaster that fell from the wall. Unfortunately, this review has resulted from the client's inability to properly communicate to the contractor their wishes upon mutual completion of the project. Clearly some of the items they complained were not in our scope of work. If they were unhappy with some of the work, all they had to do was let us know and would either made repairs or facilitated them at additional costs.

Service Provider Response

thanks for the kind words and kind of surprised since this job was bid quite along time ago, maybe a year, I thought about the job a few times after it was let to someone else. I was a really good project and would have liked to have built it for you. Next time, try and negotiate, fairly, with the contractor you would most like to use, I probably would have matched their price. Talk to you on the next one. Ryan