Quaker State Construction Co

This was a project that I was told (I have in writting) would take 4-5 wks to complete. The project started 9/2012 and was completed one wk ago and todays date is 8/27/2012. They NEVER showed up when they said they would. Never called to say that they would not be coming! There was always an excuse. They sub-contract all their work. Always a new crew and they were not aware what the other crew did. Something I was so excieted to begin turned into a nightmare, I requested the company to start the project only when they could show up everyday to do the work with the same crew.--Never Happened.
Weather was not a factor. Not for 10 months. In the begining they did not start the project in the wk that we were told they would. Had the supplies delivered through my yd which they did make an effort to repair, but if will never look like it did before they started.
The workers could not have been nicer. They all were very helpful and professional.
It is the owner and our salesman (never heard from him after we signed the contract) who I hold responsible for this project. It was clear to us that they just didn't care.

This summer I found that even more boards were terribly cracked and warped and that a piece of the railing had broken off near the building, leaving it wobbly. I found someone to repair it at a considerably lower price. When the contractor removed the decking he found that numberous supports were either too short or weren't even nailed into the structure. I phoned the company to tell them about the shoddy workmanship. Nobody was available so I left a message to please return my call. I received no return call. Two weeks later I went to the office to speak to Dave and nobody but the receptionist was available. I left pictures of the problems and asked for Dave to return my call to discuss it. It's almost a week later and still no call. I don't want any restitution from them, just a chance to tell them how much their poor quality cost me in having to rebuild the structure that was supposed to have been done correctly the first time. I WOULD BE HAPPY TO EMAIL PICTURES SHOWING THE POOR QUALITY TO ANYONE WHO WANTS THEM.

I urge people to avoid this company at all costs!!!

UPDATE--While the response below may or may not be accurate, (Whether the deck was built for a previous homeowner or not is irrelevant, it is still their shoddy workmanship/construction. The warranty has nothing to do with that.) all I wanted was the common courtesy of a return phone call. I gave them a number of weeks to do just that and gave them all of my numbers. I received no response. I understand that this is a busy season for decks but a phone call can take only 5 minutes. I don't think that's too much to ask. Unfortunately, by not calling me, the only resort they left me was to write this review. BTW...If the work was done that poorly in the first place, why would anyone trust thatt the warranty work would be done well???

They did very good work. They weren't very responsive or punctual. I would use the again in the future.

The estimator came to the house, drew up somepreliminary designs and they started work withiun a week.All work for both projects was completed within a week with no "kiting".Thw work areas were cleaned every night so our home didn't look like an artillery practice range.When I had a question the owner showed up within minutes (literally) to discuss my concerns and the discrepancy was resolved to my satisfaction by the time I returnd home from work the next day.

Addition wasn't started until late September. Laid block and waterproofing in November and backfilled foundation. Foundation was taking in water. Ceiling had to be replaced because of mold. QS periodically tried for 4 years to remediate so they wouldn't have to re-dig to find the problem. Finally we contracted a waterproofing co. to detect the problem which were multiple: 1) failure of QS to properly install the waterproofing barrier - they did not cover the last 18" of the foundation before they backfilled. 2) placed the french drain 2' above the ground line. 3) Backfilling caused a rock to break the french drain causing a large hole in the drain. QS agreed to reimburse us for our financial outlay to the remediating company; however, to date we have only received half of the payment promised. This has been one year since the remediation. The front porch materials are lifing and bowing. It is composite decking; however, it is thin and not the proper density for the use of the project. Sides are separating from the porch. The roof of the porch that was put on wasn't flashed properly and water was getting in behind the cedar siding.

The over all job, for lack of a better word SUCKS!!! It took the first crew over one month to finish the job. When I went over the house, there were so many places that were done just to finish the job, I couldn't believe these were professionals. since january, 2011, I have had someone , Mr. Dickson, out to my house looking at the so called finished job. Everytime he's here, I find something that wasn't done. For example, I have 14 windows in my house. One window is on the screened in porch. The window wasn't caulked. When the crew member came out to caulk the window, I asked him why it wasn't caulked. His answer was that since the window was on the porch and not out in weather, he didn't think it needed to be caulked. Really? Since when has that been a reason for not to caulk? Or how about how on one side of my house the siding bowed inward. The same crew member told me it bowed inward because that was where all of my plumbing was for the kitchen and sometimes the siding will go inward because of the plumbing. I made them remove about 4 feet of the siding. It was hammered too tight and over 8 inched of siding was overlapped. It was put up incorrectly. Plumbing had nothing to do with the bowing. Even now, there are four screws missing in the shutters which were to have been corrected two weeks ago. My mistake then was that I didn't follow the crew around to make sure they were doing the job. In short, this is NOT the company to hire unless you enjoy throwing your money away. In Mr. Dickson's defence, he has come out everytime I call and has been willing to make all of the corrections. But, for the price I paid and for the size of the job, this should not be dragging into the Fall (almost one year) just to finish this job. His crews have no professionalism, no pride in what they do. Quaker State does not deserve an "A" rating from the BBB. Mr. Dickson needs to rethink who he hires to represent his company.

They work was fine but they were slow. They were suppose to do it he end of August and didn't end up doing it until thanksgiving .They said the reason they were backed up because of rain, but there was no rain in August. It was a very dry month. They use sub contractors and they were fine and did good work. There was never any foreman on the job site at all though.

For a construction company they are great! They are friendly people, are punctual with appointments and always treat me with a professional manner. Very willing to accomodate my needs.

They were wonderful. I love them. We didn't use their services since we went with a local guy. The guy who came out from Quaker State Construction Co was terrific. He owns the company. He is very helpful. He gave us all kinds of suggestions about things that we could do and how we could do them. His estimate was fair and in line with everybody else. He quoted us $10500. He was very good. He is one of those people that we would have used. His punctuality was great. In fact, he was 15 minutes early. He was very professional and knowledgeable.

Saw this company at home show. Talk to the salesman there, he set up an appointment at the home show to come out. Salesman came out the day and time he said he would and gave us an estimate at that time. He orginally quoted us $31,000.00 and reduced to $23,000. We still felt that $23,000 is too expensive for a 12 x 16 deck. We will not be using this company due to cost.

I had an excellent experience with Quaker State. They were not the lowest priced, they were in the middle of three quotes I obtained (the 4th contractor never responded) but I had a higher level of confidence in them (Martin). I found them to be attentive and accommodating as well as knowledgeable. Our installation was a bit tricky because several different roofs had to be tied together with a cohesive appearance. Martin is the only person that completely understood the issues and had some suggestions to address them. We also needed waivers for our building permit. The owner (Dave) attended our meetings with the zoning board and represented us. He did a great job and helped us be prepared as well so everything went very smoothly. The waiver was granted and construction began the following week. Our construction crew was a two-man team (Audie and Brian) and they worked for about 7 weeks with a few lost days due to weather and material availability. The builders were friendly, knowledgeable, and quickly addressed any issues as they came up. I enjoyed chatting with them over lunch and on their breaks. The quality of their work was impeccable and surprisingly (at least to me), these were gentlemen who were not just doing a job but who actually took pride in their work product. I would absolutely use Quaker State again for any future projects I may have.

Workers did a wonderful job. The porch roof and enclosure turned out very professionally. I wouldn't hesitate to use Quaker State Construction again.

I knew very little about the deck attached to our house, and it needed some attention. I called this company because they built the deck not knowing what to expect. Someone came out quickly to look at it. Turns out, my deck is over 20 years old! And it's in terrific shape. If that's not a testament to quality, I don't know what is. Several boards are shifting, and the whole thing needs to be cleaned and resealed. The employee spent a lot of time talking to my husband about how to clean it himself. He pointed out a few boards that need to be replaced, and we will have this company back out to do the work once we do the cleaning ourselves. I was very impressed that this company stands by its work...even so long after the work was done, and we aren't the original customers. Our deck is beautiful, we enjoy it all summer long, and though we're lucky we won't need another deck anytime soon, when we do I know exactly who to call.

N/A

Quaker State uses subcontractors and does not have its own crew. The front porch they built is falling apart 3 years later. The product they used for the flooring of the decking is the composite decking that doesn't need stained or treated. The side board of the deck are pulling away from the deck itself. The composite decking is slippery and is staining with black spots all over. I believe this was the wrong product - it looks more like it should be siding on a house rather than flooring on a deck. It is thin and is bowing out. The connection of the porch roof to the house is still leaking and we are getting water behind the cedar siding. The addition upstairs is fine. However, the foundation/basement/storage area has leaked since the addition was built. The entire outside wall is wet when it rains or snows. It was so bad it caused black mold on the drywall ceiling of the addition. When this was built the subcontractor who did the block work did it in November (we live in Pittsburgh). It was cold and he left all his tar buckets, spilled puddles of tar, brushes, etc. outside the addition. It stayed that way until Spring when we were able to clean it up ourselves - he never came back and Quaker State never came to clean it up. The addition project took almost one year - I was diagnosed with breast cancer, had surgery, had treatment, and recovered and the addition still wasn't completed. For 2 years Quaker State and Dave would come out and look at the wet basement and make cursory attempts at finding the cause, i.e. unhooked all our downspouts and attached large black tubes to them that went out into our yard - this was there 4 months. Then the put a deck on top of the area that was getting wet - that took 2 months. They replaced the ceiling, but never finished the drywall coat, they sealed with silicon around the addition. None of this worked. We called and called and finally after 2.5 years were exhausted with them not resolving the problem of the water, which I think was because of the block work being done in November when it was freezing and the tar and barrier construction failed. Quaker State should have come back and re-dug down to the foundation to find the source of this. The addition is still leaking and we have called another company to resolve this problem because our house is a cedar house and black mold is a real concern because of the continually damp basement and poor construction, follow-up, and quality of Quaker State Construction Co. work and that they just kept stringing us along until we gave up. Extremely upsetting situation. Many people have asked us about our experience with Quaker State because they advertise on TV a lot and in fact, our house is used in one of their ads - of course without our consent. So when our friends and neighbors see that, they ask about our experience. Unfortunately, I can't tell them anything good.

Orginal estimate was $8500 -- when I balked: it was reduced to $7700. I thought that was crazy high. I had an roof replaced (including removing the old) for less.... I did not go with this company I had the deck built by an independent contractor for less than $3200 including all decking materials in 5 days/

The owner came out to give me a bid on a deck makeover with a wood-alternative decking material. Since my deck is made of steel 12" wide flange beams for support and pressure-treated joists with an unorthodox type of railing system, he wasn't sure how best to go about doing the project. He took a few pictures with his cell phone and said he'd get back to me after he consulted with his engineering dept. the next day. That is the last I heard from Quaker State Construction. I signed a contract with a different company on 4/8/2010 and as of this writing the deck is in the process of being completed NOT by Quaker State Construction.

I talked to the gentleman and I just decided to do the work myself.

I have used Quaker State in the past to replace my windows and to build the addition on the back of my home. I have frequently called to have other minor repairs done to my home over the years including cement work, and have always experienced professionalism from Dave Dickson as well as the people who perform work for him. I would highly recommend Quaker State Construction to anyone as I have always had positive experiences with them.

The one guy working for them (the owner's son-in-law) told us he was an architect, then we find out he has taken a few architecture courses. He did not even have any college degree but felt it was okay to lie to clients. The sub-contractors working for them were very unprofessional and as stated previously the columns are obviously crooked, the gutter doesn't drain properly, the roof is leaking at one area against the house, parts of the aluminum are bent and the measurements are all off. Need I say more.

Quaker State came to my home at the appointed time that was scheduled. The designer was ver knowledgable and could answer all our questions. It turned out the estimate he provided was the exact cost we paid there were no hidden fees like some companies. We had weather delay and we notified as to what was happening and why. The work men arrived went to work each day and cleaned up when they left. The mess was kept to a mininum. When the job was completed the clean up guy came took away all the left over and extra debris. We are now ready to enjoy the new space provide for us by Quaker State.

They allowed us to use our own design which was unusual and they did a great job. They were very professional and we would highly recommend them.

I was extremely hesitant to call Quaker State Construction because of a few of the comments on Angie's List. I am so glad I did not pay attention to these reports, and ended up hiring this outstanding company. From day one, I felt comfortable with the individuals I was working with - from the salesman, to the owner of the company, to the carpenters that completed the job. They were all extremely knowledgeable and professional in every way, and I enjoyed having them here to work on my deck. The carpenters were meticulous in their work and friendly. They cleaned up each day above and beyond my expectations. The job was completed on time, despite several complications that surfaced, and weather related delays. I can honestly say that I miss having them here! As I reread these negative reviews, I wonder if we are talking about the same Quaker State that I hired. I would recommend them for any project, big or small, and would certainly hire them again if need be. Keep up the superb work Quaker State! Rich, Patrick, and Dave (the best carpenters in the city, if you ask me!) and Dave Dixon are true assets to your company!

They gave us the estimate, showed up when they said they would and completed the work in a timely fashion. Afterwards, our sunporch leaked and ruined the indoor/outdoor carpet. After a phone call, they came out right away and replaced the carpet. It took a couple of visits to fix the gutter problem that caused the leak, but it was finally resolved to our satisfaction.

They took a long time to finish the work. The people didn't work together very well. They were very hard to get a hold of. Some off the windows were an inch higher than others.