DR DAN'S HOME REPAIR

Dr. Dan's Home Repair has done a master bathroom remodel for us 5 years ago, finished our garage with drywall/storage, fixed a pipe that sprung a leak in our basement on a moments notice, and was just tasked to finish off about 180 square feet of unfinished basement to include a finished laundry room, refrigerator area, bathroom with steam shower, and a small office space to free up a 4th bedroom. The knock on Dr. Dan's Home Repair seems to be time, although the majority of this stems from that he not only works on projects that people hire him for, but K&M Home Center uses him as a contractor to do some of their work for customers seeking bathroom/kitchen/home remodels or small projects. To add substance that Dan seems to over-schedule jobs, in this most recent instance, Dan and his crew left our basement project to work on a kitchen project for another home owner, which we found puzzling. As this review will indicate, Dan was unfortunately way over his estimated time he gave us to complete the job, which delayed our tile installer by a week, which then delayed the overall project by multiple weeks. The delay was due to Dan working on this kitchen project, along with some smaller 0.5-1 day jobs in between our unfinished basement at the time, but the underestimate of hours is simply just a byproduct of poor estimation on his part. Dr. Dan's Home Repair is time and materials, and at least in our instance, did not provide a contract, with everything being a verbal agreement. For our basement project, we received another contractor's quote that was an all encompassing, 4-6 week estimate of $25k. Dr. Dan's Home Repair told us that he could do the project in 2 weeks, 80 hours, at a rate of $90 per hour. Do the math, add in some materials, and we thought we would be way under the other quote, causing us to move our time frame up to do this remodel from the end of 2016 to the beginning of the year. I guess I should have been skeptical, but we have used Dan in the past and he does really great work, so we trusted that his 25+ years of experience would lend itself to an accurate estimate. As the project moved forward, we went from the original estimated 80 hours, returning from vacation to find out 90+ hours had been accumulated with an estimated 40 hours still remaining, to yet a 3rd verbal agreement when a bill was presented with 160+ hours accumulated that the money had run out and either work had to stop or the work needed to be completed with the clock stopped. One of the kickers was that a 3rd person was added to the team, which we were told was under the pricing umbrella of Dr. Dan's Home Repair, only to find out that this slower-paced contractor was an additional $30/hour, something that was only revealed at the end of the project. We did receive a final bill, which was supposed to be equal to a bill about $1500 more than the 3rd/final verbal agreement, but yet it was $3500 higher, being charged for additional time that was agreed upon that would not be charged I understand, you pay for work that was being done, and Dr. Dan's Home Repair did not short change us with the quality of work, but at some point an agreement needs to be upheld. We are not the type of people to not want to pay our bill, and at no point did we try to skip out on the final bill, but I did call and discuss the verbal agreements that we had and suggested that at some point, as a business owner, Dan needed to share in the responsibility of a project that went from an estimated 80 hours to a 9 week, 200 hour job (plus materials). Dan is a very amicable person, and he did agree to share some of the responsibility, and we came to an agreement. No matter what, Dr. Dan's Home Repair's work should never be questioned. Dan has taken the otherwise dull basement space and transformed it into a fully functional, beautiful space. We had a vision/plan in mind, and Dan has exceeded those plans by redesigning the area to fit even more into the space than we had envisioned. Dr. Dan's Home Repair did everything from re-routing piping under the concrete floor, to building walls with pocket doors to save valuable space, to connecting a Mr. Steam iDream Steam Shower package that included audio, chromatherapy, and aromatherapy. The work, and the final product were never in question. A quick explanation of the Ratings: Price - D: Three was a consideration of possibly an F here, to highlight the inability/failure to estimate the job's full scope for time (and materials). Add in the multiple verbal agreements on continual hours to complete the job, and a final bill that did not reflect that, this is an area that can likely be easily rectified with a written contract. Quality - A: This is self-explanatory, the work is magnificent, and I would have given it A+ as we are exuberant with the final product. Responsiveness - B: At times during the project, to include when Dr. Dan's Home Repair was at another job site, we had questions of when he would be returning (partial or full team) to continue work on the basement project. This could be rectified by not having too many projects ongoing at the same time, and by going to a more "first in, first out" type of model, while fitting in smaller jobs as time permits, but not sacrificing the overall time frame of the current job at hand. Punctuality - B: There were days, but not many, where we were told that Dr. Dan's Home Repair would be working at our job site, only to find out that they did not show up, or if they did, they only came for an abbreviated time period, which ultimately pushed our basement project into the beginning of April, instead of the beginning of March for completion. Professionalism - B: Dr. Dan's Home Repair is very professional, but there had to be a knock on the overall business for poor estimation of project scope. Overall - B: Overall, the work is stellar, the execution and continual estimation of hours was arguably frustrating and angering, but the end result exceeded our expectations. We will hire Dr. Dan's Home Repair again in the future, but likely we will have to have a more formal/binding contract.

Dr. Dan's Home Repair has done a master bathroom remodel for us 5 years ago, finished our garage with drywall/storage, fixed a pipe that sprung a leak in our basement on a moments notice, and was just tasked to finish off about 180 square feet of unfinished basement to include a finished laundry room, refrigerator area, bathroom with steam shower, and a small office space to free up a 4th bedroom. The knock on Dr. Dan's Home Repair seems to be time, although the majority of this stems from that he not only works on projects that people hire him for, but K&M Home Center uses him as a contractor to do some of their work for customers seeking bathroom/kitchen/home remodels or small projects. To add substance that Dan seems to over-schedule jobs, in this most recent instance, Dan and his crew left our basement project to work on a kitchen project for another home owner, which we found puzzling. As this review will indicate, Dan was unfortunately way over his estimated time he gave us to complete the job, which delayed our tile installer by a week, which then delayed the overall project by multiple weeks. The delay was due to Dan working on this kitchen project, along with some smaller 0.5-1 day jobs in between our unfinished basement at the time, but the underestimate of hours is simply just a byproduct of poor estimation on his part. Dr. Dan's Home Repair is time and materials, and at least in our instance, did not provide a contract, with everything being a verbal agreement. For our basement project, we received another contractor's quote that was an all encompassing, 4-6 week estimate of $25k. Dr. Dan's Home Repair told us that he could do the project in 2 weeks, 80 hours, at a rate of $90 per hour. Do the math, add in some materials, and we thought we would be way under the other quote, causing us to move our time frame up to do this remodel from the end of 2016 to the beginning of the year. I guess I should have been skeptical, but we have used Dan in the past and he does really great work, so we trusted that his 25+ years of experience would lend itself to an accurate estimate. As the project moved forward, we went from the original estimated 80 hours, returning from vacation to find out 90+ hours had been accumulated with an estimated 40 hours still remaining, to yet a 3rd verbal agreement when a bill was presented with 160+ hours accumulated that the money had run out and either work had to stop or the work needed to be completed with the clock stopped. One of the kickers was that a 3rd person was added to the team, which we were told was under the pricing umbrella of Dr. Dan's Home Repair, only to find out that this slower-paced contractor was an additional $30/hour, something that was only revealed at the end of the project. We did receive a final bill, which was supposed to be equal to a bill about $1500 more than the 3rd/final verbal agreement, but yet it was $3500 higher, being charged for additional time that was agreed upon that would not be charged I understand, you pay for work that was being done, and Dr. Dan's Home Repair did not short change us with the quality of work, but at some point an agreement needs to be upheld. We are not the type of people to not want to pay our bill, and at no point did we try to skip out on the final bill, but I did call and discuss the verbal agreements that we had and suggested that at some point, as a business owner, Dan needed to share in the responsibility of a project that went from an estimated 80 hours to a 9 week, 200 hour job (plus materials). Dan is a very amicable person, and he did agree to share some of the responsibility, and we came to an agreement. No matter what, Dr. Dan's Home Repair's work should never be questioned. Dan has taken the otherwise dull basement space and transformed it into a fully functional, beautiful space. We had a vision/plan in mind, and Dan has exceeded those plans by redesigning the area to fit even more into the space than we had envisioned. Dr. Dan's Home Repair did everything from re-routing piping under the concrete floor, to building walls with pocket doors to save valuable space, to connecting a Mr. Steam iDream Steam Shower package that included audio, chromatherapy, and aromatherapy. The work, and the final product were never in question. A quick explanation of the Ratings: Price - D: Three was a consideration of possibly an F here, to highlight the inability/failure to estimate the job's full scope for time (and materials). Add in the multiple verbal agreements on continual hours to complete the job, and a final bill that did not reflect that, this is an area that can likely be easily rectified with a written contract. Quality - A: This is self-explanatory, the work is magnificent, and I would have given it A+ as we are exuberant with the final product. Responsiveness - B: At times during the project, to include when Dr. Dan's Home Repair was at another job site, we had questions of when he would be returning (partial or full team) to continue work on the basement project. This could be rectified by not having too many projects ongoing at the same time, and by going to a more "first in, first out" type of model, while fitting in smaller jobs as time permits, but not sacrificing the overall time frame of the current job at hand. Punctuality - B: There were days, but not many, where we were told that Dr. Dan's Home Repair would be working at our job site, only to find out that they did not show up, or if they did, they only came for an abbreviated time period, which ultimately pushed our basement project into the beginning of April, instead of the beginning of March for completion. Professionalism - B: Dr. Dan's Home Repair is very professional, but there had to be a knock on the overall business for poor estimation of project scope. Overall - B: Overall, the work is stellar, the execution and continual estimation of hours was arguably frustrating and angering, but the end result exceeded our expectations. We will hire Dr. Dan's Home Repair again in the future, but likely we will have to have a more formal/binding contract.

He did a good job. He fixed the siding of my house. He did it very timely. He is hard to get hold of.

I wanted so much for this experience to be a good one.  I was referred to Dr Dan from a mutual friend - and I was looking for a quality company to do on-going regular handyman jobs around our home.  I reached out to Dr Dan March 2010 and made an appointment for him to come to the home and look over all my immediate projects. He didn't show up for the appointment!  I called him and he was 60 miles away shopping for a truck.  He had forgotten the appointment - but was extremely apologetic...  So we rescheduled in April 2010. He then came out personally and I was very impressed with his knowledge, recommendations and professionalism.  I hired him and authorized him to order new doors, window and trim to get it going...  He was very busy with other jobs, but indicated as soon as the door deliveries where confirmed he would schedule a few days to bring his crew in get it all done. He assured me that HE would be always on site and do much of the work himself.  He did emphasize how excellent his helpers were as well.  His on site presence was very important to me. He assured not to worry - I would be very happy.  Although I wanted the job to be done asap I'll settled for late May 2010 as a completion date due to schedules issues with a busy Dr Dan and the lead times for custom doors / windows. Then bad things started to happen - with no word from Dan by June 2010 I started to expedite - we were told that there was some problem with the factory order - delayed or wrong things ordered - don't remember?  He asked us to purchase a specific high end primer and color paint which we did and finally they team came out to start working.  Here's a summary of the bad things - sorry Dan: Dan came out the first day but quickly left the job site and delegated all work to his "excellent" helpers (remember - I had asked if he was gonna do the work directly when we first met and he assured me that he would)  His workers proceeded to replace the garage wood trim but when wrapping the vinyl covering created visible buckles around all the nails - and left very visible and messy caulking around the trim - they had to redo it after we pointed it out to Dan later Dan's delegated crewman mangled the wood cut outs for the latch and lock holes in all of the new wood door frames. The front door was so bad that we discovered we couldn't lock it overnight until they came back to repair (another rework) The doors had repeated problems with smoothly closing / locking / sealing without light shinning through  They ruined 3 out of 4 sensor contacts for the security alarm in the door frames even when they were cautioned / briefed at the beginning of the job. They rushed and painted over the primer without letting it dry / cure properly so even after several repaintings the paint continues to chip This job ran all the way out to August with scheduling issues, delays and multiple reworks And when this job started to go down hill over this very long period - Dan and his crew got into shouting matches with by then my very emotional wife who was trying to manage the day to day issues with the crew while I was away at work.  This was unacceptable - and Dan did apologize multiple times for this lack of professionalism. I repeatedly pointed out to Dan that his direct work was done very well.  And I urged him to do the work himself and stay on-site - and stop delegating.  He repeatedly defended his helpers.  My wife would turn around and Dan would be gone - again - for lunch, pick up supplies, etc... Finally we all had had enough - in early August after Dan and crew had come out for the 3rd or 4th rework on these darn doors, I paid him.  I pulled him aside and said that I appreciated his desire to make it right. However, this wasn't the right way to run the railroad...  And it was time for it to be done - I know he was relieved.  He apologized again to me and my wife, took the check and left.  He did follow up and mail me the necessary receipts for us to use in filing our energy tax credits for the doors and window.   In summary - I think Dan is an excellent handyman - with a great eye for detail and construction solutions.  He is also an extremely nice man when all is going right.  However, at least on our projects, Dan was not a good manager / delegator - of people,  the job site, material ordering & deliveries, scheduling & personally showing up when he says he will (at the job and the preset appointments) and then professionally handling his customers when something on the job goes south.  He should have sent his helpers home and made the time to finish these projects himself.  His people repeatedly mangled  the projects they worked on and this couldn't have been the first time - just on our projects?  Job reworks can't ever be profitable, cost effective nor good for customer relations / referrals?  Then to be defensive and argue with the customer - regardless of how emotional they might get is an absolute no-no.  We have since, at our additional expense because we just didn't believe that another rework by Dan's crew would get it right, plus my wife refuses to ever use Dan again, had to reinstall all new alarm contacts on the doors frames through our security firm - not cheap, hired another contractor to come out and repair / reseal / re-shim all three of the brand new doors, and now repeatedly repaint the doors as well to deal with the chipping.  These projects cost me a lot more than any home owner should have to pay... I would suggest if you want to hire Dr Dan make it on the condition that he and only he does the actual work himself.   And that he really has the time to do the work within your time frame.  Then I would be confident that the job would be done right.  Sorry Dan - but these were the facts as we saw them.  Maybe you might consider staying very small as a one man show or hire a manager that better manages helpers, schedules, materials and customers?  I couldn't afford to give you another chance...

Please see above, this was a simple job, that he helped keep simple. I appreciated that.

He was so-so. He had really good ratings but I had him come back twice. He acted like he gave me a bargain but he didn?t. I don?t know that I overpaid him but he wasn?t any cheaper although he represented himself that way. I had to call him back twice to complete the installation. He?s just average.

I found Dan on Angie's list. I contacted him through email and got a quick response and made appt. for him to see job and give estimate. He seemed very professional and we made appt. He said to call ahead if there were any problems before the scheduled appt. That was very comforting. He did job in a very professional way, explaining the process. He changed some of the plumbing to upgrade the system, and it did not cost more because of that. He cleaned up very well as he went along and even removed the toilet's sticker from when it was new that I never got around to. I would use his service again and would recommend him to anyone.

Dr. Dan, the Home Repair Man, was wonderful to work with from start to finish and I would gladly recommend him to anyone. We are very pleased with all the work Dan and his talented assistant, Josh, did for us. The bathroom looks great thanks to the excellent finishing touches that make all the difference. When I asked him to add the small storage cupboards at the end of the shower since there was about 10" to spare, he gladly took on that time-consuming little job and the extra charge was very reasonable. Those little storage cupboards are a huge benefit, providing great storage for extra toilet paper, kleenex, soaps, moisturizers, cleaning products, etc. We had a couple of hallway doors that would swing closed on their own so when we decided to replace all the hallway doors, we mentioned that problem and Josh was able to install them so they stay open. We didn't think he would be able to do that without redoing the door frames, but he did. We have a cathedral ceiling in an addition to our master bedroom that posed some challenges to installing a ceiling fan. Dan came up with the excellent idea of running a large wooden beam along the top to conceal the electrical wiring. We stained it to match the rest of the wooden trim in the room and it looks great. Dan was willing to let us paint the doors and trim and stain the beam to help keep costs down. Due to the extra little cupboards, the job dragged out a little longer than originally planned. Dr. Dan had to juggle finishing our job with his working on his next job and he also had to coordinate with the woman that was hanging our wallpaper. He is a pro and he managed everything with professionalism. His final price was a little higher than the original estimate because of the added storage cupboards that were not a part of the original estimate, but his additional charge for those was reasonable. A great job for a good price and a willingness to listen and work with us. Dan and Josh are both nice guys with lots of talent, experience and knowhow. Truly a class act. WONDERFUL!

He was on time and did an excellent job WELL WORTH THE MONEY. Will use him again.