C. A. B. Contractors

Chuck was a nice man, but a terrible carpenter. He had to give up his business and now works for a business, as his lack of professional abilities caught up with him.  It is not my wish to disparage him, but to protect others, should he go back into business for himself.  The man that worked for him confirmed that there were things Chuck did and knew were wrong, but didn't fix, until I caught the problem.

First let me say that I would not recommend this company to anyone for structural construction.  The initial contract was for the base structure (framing and footings) for a 16ft. x 16ft. attached pressure treated deck.  The initial visit from Chuck (the proprietor) was very good and I thought that we were on the same page.  The contract price was for the footings, framing, stair risers and a concrete landing pad for the stairs.
I was initially impressed with Chuck's willingness to procure the proper building permit, but was then told that the permitting fees were not included in the purchase price.  Ultimately, I obtained the permit and paid for the fees to the tune of another 160 dollars.  Once the permit was obtained, Chuck was quite eager to begin construction as he was to be going on vacation the following week.  The footings for the main deck were dug and concrete poured.  Those footings looked proper and were inspected and approved prior to construction.  At this point I was pretty pleased with the progress, then came the rain.  The rain prevented Chuck from continuing with the framing in a timely fashion.  I was told that he had another contract that was to begin the next week. 
Chuck proceeded with the framing and the main support structure looked great, much stronger than required by code.  Chuck then proceeded with the final framing of the deck.  I could not verify the quality as it was raining and I would need an extension ladder to get a close look.  The final portion of the project was the stair risers and concrete pad.  When the job was done I noticed that the dirt had not been removed from any of the excavation.  I questioned why it was not and was told that it was not included in the original contract price.  Chuck then proceeded to tell me that he could do it for 100 dollars.  I turned that down.
From 10 feet everything looked great.  I was planning for a nice 4th of July weekend with my Father-in-law to finish off the deck ourselves by laying the decking.  When the 4th of July came and we began looking at the deck we finally got a good look at the "quality".  Here is a list of things we found wrong and had to correct.

• 1.  The deck joints were not attached to the front board at all.  I had to spend my own time and additional money to properly connect these parts.
• 2.  Additionally, the deck joints were not leveled so my father-in-law and myself had to spend a day redoing the leveling of the deck.
• 3.  The deck was not square and out by at least 4 inches.

Those are the problems with the deck.  The stairs were a complete waste of material.
1.  The footings were not dug deep enough.
2.  The cement was only 2inches thick, I was able to pull each support post out with one arm.
3.  The concrete pad was not level and drains back into the house.
4.  Stair risers were cut hap-hazardly with a circular saw and no two risers were the same.
5.  The stair risers were embedded into the concrete pad rather than properly set.
6.  The support structure for the stairs was terrible.  The stairs were cracked complete through on several places with screws placed in to hold the areas together.  Parts of the stairs had around 1 1/2inches at the bird-mouth cutouts with cracks.
I ended up ripping the entire stair structure out. 
I did not have much choice in bidding on my job as most contractors would not do the structure only.  There was one good review on Angies list for C.A.B. and I went with it.  I regret that decision.  Be wary of this contractor.

P.S. our deck did turn out nice with the help of my father-in-law, wife, and a lot of hard re-working.

They are very flexible. He gave me a free estimate for the floor plan. It had been nice to work with them. They do everything from construction to electric to ceilings. They are very knowledgeable.