Jared Mack Construction

Jared was very professional and did a great job. I would highly recommend him.

Jared Mack is a really nice guy and the price was right, but......
Jared himself was very nice and quite competent, but the guys he hired to do the actual work for me were not very skilled, played loud heavy metal on the site (my back yard!) and would tend to leave fast food trash on the site until he periodically reminded them to clean it up.
  Left to their own devices, his workers didn't seem able to make good judgements. One day I walked through the framed building  and noticed one of the floor joists they had installed was so rotten I could stick my finger through it. Hello, guys, do we have a problem here? Jared was very quick to have the joist replaced, but if I hadn't been vigilant it would have stayed. Also, many of the joists where poorly cut such that they didn't even contact the wood they were supposed to butt up against (almost an inch gap at times!) and Jared said "don't worry, the simpson ties are what really holds it together".  They installed a piece of cedar trim for the exterior front doorway that was so chewed up it really should have been just thrown out. Jared had them replace it when I complained.
You get the picture? I got to wondering if Jared is used to building suburban tract 'homes' that are meant to be torn down in 15 years? Is this modern standard? . I'm used to remodeling old houses that were well built with good wood, so this experience was somewhat of a shock.
Jared also recommended a floor installer that turned out to be so terrible I had to fire him after one day.....he got the tile spacing all wrong (claimed he didn't need to use spacers!) and I later discovered he hadn't even put mortar down under all the tiles).
In the end, just to top things off, after removing the big obvious excavation dirt, they spread and left  excavation dirt (which on the bid was supposed to be hauled away) over the entire back yard up to 3 inches thick. I payed $400 for dumpster and paid a guy to hand-shovel the dirt away which was covering the back lawn. By the time the lawn was exposed again, this huge 14 foot dropbox was overflowing.  I also had to take a shovel and dig out the crawlspace air vents that had been left buried under the dirt. Not the best way to end the job. I had already paid Jared in full, and I called him to tell him I'd had to haul a dropbox full of dirt off the lawn, and he never called me back to offer to compensate me.
 
On his own, doing straightforward stuff, Jared seemed competent, and did a good job of interpreting a complex roof plan. The house ended up straight and square and hasn't fallen down yet, but if my experience is the norm for modern construction, I'm sticking with old houses thank you.

A word of advice for first-time owners having someone build from you. Specify intact/non rotten wood to be used; all connecting pieces to actually connect without gaps;  undamaged, crack-free trim; don't commit to a bid until the city has approved your final plan.

Next time I won't go for lowest bid!