Hockenberry Contracting, LLC

I met will Bill in the spring of 2011 to discuss a covered patio project. He did an outstanding job laying out the project based on my requirements. He provided detailed computer renderings to show what the finished product would look like. I decided to move forward with Bill to act as the General Contractor on the project. Bill drafted the contract and stated that the project would come in at a certain cost and take 3-4 weeks to complete. I was extremely disappointed in the project. The 3-4 week project took over a year to complete. Bill was not capable of finishing the project after 1 year and I had to find other sub-contractors to finish the work. The project came in about $10,000 over what Bill had originally quoted. It was a complete disaster and one of the most stressful situations I've had to deal with. Bill regularly made commitments (tied to payment) and was unable to deliver to the commitments. Communication, schedule, budget and quality were all issues. The contract I signed with Bill had specific milestones related to payment. These milestones were not managed per the contract and caused a lot of confusion. There were never any change orders that were agreed upon/signed. Bill stopped work whenever he felt that he should be given a payment which led to delays, confusion and frustration. Quality was an issue throughout the project and continues to be an issue over a year later. There were major quality issues throughout the project that Bill did not catch (I did) which led to demo/re-do and additional delays/frustration. Even to this day I have quality issues that I'm dealing with or have had to resolve on my own. Communication was also a huge issue throughout the project. I could not get ahold of Bill after 5pm or on weekends (even though he had subs working at this time). I would send him emails with my concerns and he would address the portions of my emails that he felt like responding to. Communication was always a problem. This project was a complete disaster. Bill was not capable of finishing the project in a timely manner. The project was way over budget / schedule and Bill was extremely difficult to communicate with. He didn't hold to his contract in terms of payments and, at one point, threatened to de-construct my project because I had "his" materials. Overall, I would give Bill kudos for his design skills, but he proved that he is not capable of managing a project or delivering to his commitments. Although I see that Bill is now focusing on basement remodeling, I would still be wary to work with him due to his inability to communicate effectively, hold to a contract and manage timeline or budget.

We chose this contractor based on recommendations by others. Bill was familiar with the basic construction of our home. Bill was the only contractor who agreed to allow the materials that were to be stored in the storage areas to remain during construction. This saved us a lot of work. These storage areas were walled off first and plastic sheeting was used to keep most of the construction dust out of those areas. After we described what we wanted, Bill provided computer-generated visuals that showed us how it would look when finished. We wanted to job done before a particular date with about a three-week window. Bill assured us that the job would be done in the estimated time of 2 months. The job was finished several days before the two month period. All the workers were exceptional craftsmen and very professional. They took pride in their work and often performed modifications that resulted in higher quality of construction. We were very satisfied with the results and would not hesitate to recommend this contractor to others.