Master Maintenance

One specific project is an example of their hard and honest work: we had a wet basement problem that several other contractors had never solved.  Over a period of time the workers from Master Maintenance were able to solve our problem by eliminating the SOURCE of the water coming into the basement (they diverted downspouts and re-did french-drains to actually work!).  I think highly of them and the work they did on these projects.

Things started out okay, with John Hartman presenting himself as a calm, responsible, self-assured and experienced contractor with the skillset and dedication to get each section of the work done by the appropriate professional. The bid amount was higher than we would have been comfortable with, but we love this home and thought we would spend the extra $ to get the job done "right." Unfortunately, we learned that this team is no different than any other that you might roll the dice on. The team started with the bulkhead and front porch carpentry. The carpentry team seemed very good. They were pleasant, knowledgable, and barring a number of small nails in the grass that I did not want my small children to step on, respectful of our home and our space. Time will tell what the quality of their work is, but for now, we are happy with the carpentry. The guy who worked on the flashing, gutters and downspouts, another "John, was a nice guy and very knowledgeable in his trade. He left cigarette butts around the property, which, with small children, was not appropriate. His work on the gutters and downspout replacement began toward the end of March/beginning of April 2010, but he left all of the details/finishing touches, (painting behind downspouts, caulking to seal the porch, repairs to problems with the front porch paint which occurred due to wind and tree pollen) until November, 2010 (6 months later). He installed the new downspouts and gutter, installed the flashing, painted the front porch, and left. He left several small steel/aluminum strips of metal around the front yard so we had to keep our children out of the front yard for some time while we did follow-up. (It was warm/hot and they were barefoot - metal is not a good thing). Also, when we agreed to have Master Maintenance/John Hartman do the work on our home, John Hartman told us that he would have a Mason come it to do the work on the front brick. As it turned out, one day, the other John, the guy who does the gutters, etc., started the work on the brick. When I said I though a Mason was coming in to do the work he said with a smile "Looks like I am your Mason!" At the end of the day, as long as the brick work holds up, I don't care. I just seems a bit slimy and shady to represent that a professional Mason was coming in to do the work - but that lie came from John Hartman, not the man who did the work. We went through the entire summer of 2010 without closure and completion of the work that we had already paid for. Coincidentally, or maybe not so much, we had paid John Hartman for the entirety of the work (barring $250 that we naiively believed would cause him to finish the work) by April 22 of 2010. From that point, it was litterally like pulling teeth to get John Hartman to answer his phone. When he did answer, he would 1) make promises that he would "talk to John (the gutter guy) and get back with (me) tomorrow with a time to come over." Then John Hartman would not follow through with the promised phone call, or 2) would commit to coming by tomorrow or the next day, and then not show up as promised, or 3) litterally yell at me, saying "do you KNOW what sorts of things I AM WORKING on?!" - as if to say that he were so involved in things ever so much more important than our petty-little home, or - 4) you get the drift. In short, from the end of April, through the summer and fall of 2010, I made countless phone calls to John Hartman requesting that the work at our home, which was already paid for, be finished. Over those several months he put me off, lied to me, yelled at me, and did not follow through with the work. In November, after I requested the direct number for the "John" who did the work on the gutters, and who was responsible for finishing the work at our home, from John Hartman, one day he called our house directly (without his boss/John Hartman) and scheduled with me to come and finish the work. It was clear that this guy (the gutter guy) felt bad for leaving us hanging for so long. What I gather from the situation is that John Hartman, as the "boss," pulled John, the gutter guy, off our job for a more lucrative endeavor and simply did not give him the time to get back to our home to finish what was started and paid for. To add injury to insult - (the insults came first in this case) - now it is January, 2011. The work is "done." But, that is not the problem. We have snow in Pittsburgh, and our house has all the same leaking issues at the downspouts and gutters that we had last year. My husband just went out on the roof to take photos and to try to remove some of the ice so that we don't have futher damage. The work that Master Maintenance did has made, semmingly, no difference - $9000 later - in keeping our gutter and downspout system running properly. We still do not have the paint numbers/information needed for purchase of touch up paint for the porch. As with other things, John Hartman promised, he simply does not have time for follow up now that we have paid him for his work. We regret, on a daily basis, that we hired Master Maintenance/John Hartman to work on our home.