Master Remodelers Inc/Regis Mcquaide CGR

Master Remodelers is absolutely the worst company my wife and I have ever dealt with. We could not be any more upset and disappointed and we feel completely taken advantage of. After doing lots of research into local design-build firms, we had Regis McQuaide from Master Remodelers come into our house to examine the work that we wanted to be accomplished. After not hearing back from Regis for a while, we eventually contacted him again and he sent us a proposal 3 weeks after our initial site visit. After the site visit and sending many detailed emails and pictures to Regis, we finally got to the point where he was ready for us to come to his office to look at initial designs and contracts. At this meeting, the designs did include everything that we had told him that we wanted, although the written proposal was still very vague and didn't reflect a few changes that we had told him to make numerous times in the previous weeks. Regis informed us that these changes would just be a "small change order later, not a big deal". 6 days after this meeting where the contract was signed, we received a "change order" from Regis explaining that if we wanted everything that was included in the designs we had talked over the previous week it would cost us an extra $8,000, which was over 25% of the original estimate! Had we known that was going to be the actual cost of the project from the beginning, we would have NEVER chosen Master Remodelers. It is extremely unprofessional and ridiculous that he did not tell us at this meeting that things were not included and that he would be adding $8,000 to the cost estimate only 6 days later. Not only are we upset at how unprofessional Regis's operation is run, we also feel taken advantage of. It feels like he just gave us a quote out of thin air that matched the budget we gave him on Day 1 even though that was not reflective of what he knew he would charge for the project all along. Then once we signed an agreement to get the work done, Regis increased the price to an astronomical amount for a small (5' x 7') powder room. It feels to us like Regis took us hostage as soon as we signed that final contract. After more than 3 months into the process with Master Remodelers, we finally convinced Regis that it was best for us to split ways. Luckily we escaped with only 3 months of our lives lost and a few hundred dollars gone from the initial deposit. In closing, we want to reiterate how unprofessional we think Regis McQuaide from Master Remodelers is. Regis is one of the most arrogant and incompetent people we have ever dealt with and is very proud of how he runs his business even though it appears to an outsider that no one is running the business at all. Regardless of this issue with the change order, throughout the whole process we were very frustrated. There was inconsistent communication, lost emails, emails sent to wrong email addresses, meeting times scheduled and then forgotten about...etc. Please do not send Regis any of your business and if you do, remember to get everything that he says in writing and make sure that you question everything he tells you.

first spoke to a lady to request an appointment for an estimate. explained the job to her and before I could even finish she interrupts and explain how they usually do bigger jobs and that she'll tell Regis about it and see what he wants to do. Regis calls me a few days later and asks me what my budget is. I tell him 10 grand which is a pretty accurate amount for the work that needed done. he asks me to send him pics of the wall and he'll get back to me. I sent the pics in that evening and never heard back. It seems that if they're not making a certain amount of money then they wont bother with you. would of been nice to at least receive a response. He was nice of enough though to start sending me spam emails.

We are remodeling a 1930 Tudor home -- combining 2 rooms to create a new Master Suite; creating a powder room out of a coat closet; and repainting the entire home. We found the Master Remodelers website (which is beautiful), but they have very few reviews on Angie's List (always a red flag). However, we decided to give them a shot. When I called to make the appointment, his assistant was very friendly and cautiously made sure I understood that they would charge a consulting fee. I explained that we had done major remodeling in California and that I would expect nothing less... After all, there is work involved in consulting and no one works for free. Mr. McQuaide called a couple of days later to verbally discuss what we wanted done before meeting in person. Again, he made sure we understand there would be a consulting fee -- and again we explained the normalcy of such a fee. [Since we anticipate spending around $50,000, we were perplexed by his fixation on the consulting fee -- which, again, we had agreed to pay without even asking for an amount.] THE DAY OF THE MEETING: At 45 minutes past the scheduled meeting time, my husband called Mr. McQuaide to make sure he hadn't forgotten the meeting. He eventually showed up 15 minutes later and was, quite simply, unprofessional. When my husband began to explain everything we wanted done (which is the first step of consulting), McQuaide was defensive about "not working for free" and that there would be a consulting fee. We might be slow in finding the key to the Clue Closet, but at that point we realized that we needed a much more professional designer/contractor.

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Timeline and the Loss of Trust
10/19/2012 ? I hired McQuaide. After pocketing the check for $2,500 he informed us that he will be away for two weeks.
Tuesday, 10/30/2012 ? this was supposed to be our first meeting but McQuaide and his designer Junko didn?t show up. Eventually they?ve rescheduled for 11/1/12.
Thursday, 11/1/2012 ? first meeting
Friday, 11/16/2012 ? second (and final) meeting. McQuaide and Junko showed us the floor plan. It included two options. Option 2 is to knock down the outside wall to make our bathrooms 2 feet wider.
Friday, 11/30/2012 ? McQuaide promises to show us the estimate ?next week?. However, nothing happens next week.
Monday, 12/10/2012 ? McQuaide finally submitted the two proposals (late again). Proposals provide heavily inflated budget.  Yet, McQuaide is not able to tell us how he has arrived at those figures.
Thursday, 12/13/2012 ? I rejected the proposals. Here is what I wrote: ?With great reluctance I must reject the two proposals you
submitted last Monday, December 10. Your proposals are substantially inconsistent with our requirements as it was communicated to you verbally and in writing. Just to give you the most glaring irrelevancies, we don?t need and never asked for windows replacement, we never asked for the exhaust fan replacement (in fact we specifically asked you to keep the one we have), we never asked for replacing our louver doors and we clearly explained to you which of the existing fixtures we would like to keep. These are just a few most significant irrelevancies of your two proposals.
I am enclosing our requirements letter to you with a few very minor updates. Those few updates are consistent with what
was agreed to at the November 1 and November 16 meetings. I hope that this document would help you to resubmit your proposal in accordance with what we actually hired you to do.?
Tuesday, 12/18/2012 ? McQuaide submited the revised proposal. The proposal does not have any of the information
we asked for. It is very generic in nature and is almost like not about our bathrooms.

• - We asked him from the start to replace the electronic bidet in the Master Bath, but he just ignored this. His revised proposal did not address this at all. 

- He proposed to install PEX tubing instead of copper pipes although he has never discussed this with us. Such arrogance!
- McQuaide proposed only 4 lights in the master bath. No provision to sufficiently light the room for cleaning. No reading light by the toilet as we requested. No design for the light in the shower area. Apparently McQuaide doesn?t know much about lighting.
- Suddenly, without any apparent reason, in the spot where towel warmer was supposed to be installed, McQuaide proposes to build a cabinet. He has never discussed this with us. If he would, we would have told him that this bathroom has sufficient storage space.
- Anybody who would propose replacing only two windows in the entire house demonstrates serious lack of design ability. Could you imagine how this house would look from the outside with two windows being different from the others? Besides, the house has new, energy efficient windows.
- In the room where infrared heater already exists McQuaide?s attempted to replace powerful fan with less powerful one, only because it comes with a heater. He obviously has very little pragmatic sense.
- I asked for a mirror in the shower area. McQuaide ignored this completely.
Three months and $2,500 later we realized that we cannot continue with McQuaide and his Master Remodelers and we
dismissed him.
Gregory Zaretsky
200 W. Chapel Ridge Rd.
Pittsburgh, PA 15238
Tel. 412-963-7911
[email protected]

unknown

I spoke with the owner of the company, Mr. McQuaide. He was upfront about not doing free estimates, but was fairly arrogant as he explained why they didn't. He said that his company was just beyond that way of doing business; that they could be more selective about which jobs they took. A friend knew I was looking for a contractor and told me she heard MR did good work. So I was open to paying for the estimate...and was even willing to look past the arrogance, but then I told Mr. McQuaide where I lived. He immediately told me his company was probably not for me. He told me the homes in my neighborhood weren't very nice or built very well (not that this should matter, but my house is just a few streets away from his office). Maybe he thought I couldn't afford him and was saving me time/money, but that was a big assumption on his part...and he made me feel pretty small. I was offended by the experience.

Very professional, great design solution and craftsmanship

We hired Master Remodelers and its owner Regis McQuaide to renovate two bathrooms and
dismissed him three months later because of his incompetence, greed and
appallingly bad taste.
McQuaide began by demanding $2,500 deposit. Once he gets the money he considers you his
hostage. He began by missing our first appointment and things went downhill
from there. Even though we gave him our requirements in writing he basically
ignored them and kept proposing ridiculous ideas such as breaking the outside
walls of the building in order to make the bathroom bigger. He also suggested
replacing bathroom windows. The house has new, energy efficient windows. Even
if replacing bathroom windows would make sense (which it didn’t), could you
imagine how a house with only two different windows would look? Would you trust
a designer like that?
After two months of struggling with this guy we finally received the so called proposal. It
was substantially substandard, irrelevant and uninformed. One doesn’t even have
to see our bathrooms to submit such nonsense. Other companies provide more
detailed proposals free of charge as an initial bid for the job. McQuaide’s proposal
listed the estimate of the project, but he was not able to tell us how he
arrived at it.
He likes to talk in terms of “what’s legal and what’s illegal”. In his mind he is
legal and you are illegal. After firing him I called District Attorney’s office
and spoke with one of the assistants there. It turns out that McQuaide’s
understanding of Pennsylvania Home Improvement Consumer Protection Act is a
narrow, self-serving misinterpretation of the facts. 
After we fired him we received quotes from other contractors and it became evident
that McQuaide’s estimate was over twice as high as those provided by others. All
in all it is an arrogant and mostly inept man with little respect for his customers.

This was an excellent experience. Regis McQuaid came to our house and helped us figure out what should be done and what could be done.  We have solid walls which would take special skills to attach the crown molding. Dennis and Ryan who did the actual installation are two true craftsmen and achieved remarkable results.  We live in a 80 year old house which has plaster walls and ceilings.  To look at the walls and ceilings it is not noticeable that there are no straight lines.  When a straight piece of lumber is put up the peaks and valleys appear.  In spite of this difficulty the work that was done was wonderful.  Each piece of the molding had to be individually fit and the fit is so good that the seams between the boards are invisible.  We are extremely happy with the work and would not only have them come back but we will be sure to recommend Master Remodelers to our friends.  

His two man crew performed the spray insulation work very efficiently and with no disruption to my home or work schedule. And they were very personable and knowledgable about Home Performance (this crew also does the energy audits for the company).
I saw and felt the results immediately.  My home was more comfortable and temperatures more even throughout, especially in winter. My gas heating bill dropped to 1/3 of my former budget amount; the electric bill for summer AC, to about 50% of previous.  Great news and great advice from Rege!  I would recommend Master Remodelers to anyone... and hope someday to bring them back for the kind of work they are best known for—major remodeling projects of premium quality.

I set up an appt with Regis for 7/14 in the morning and he never showed up or called.  I left a voicemail and did not get a response.  I scheduled my day around him doing an estimate.

They were efficient, clean, and did quality work.

Mr McQuaide came to our home for a free consultation regarding the expansion of an existing dormer to include a new bathroom and closet off one bedroom and the expansion of those in another.  A new roof line would also need to be designed to fit the architecture.  We were impressed with all that Mr. McQuaide's company had to offer, but did not necessarily wish to avail ourselves of all of it. 

His ballpark for the job was 100K - a third of what the house is worth.  I understand that he was including everything from design to completion here including the roof and a retrofit AC, but I've had estimates of half this from contractors rated higher that he on Angie's List. 

What my husband and I decided we really wanted, and were led to believe we could contract, were the design plans and computer renderings for the job.  Mr. McQuaide had told us at our first meeting that this was a "stand-alone" phase at which point we might continue with his company or not.  When I called him to schedule the start of this phase, he wasn't interested in providing this service if I wasn't sure that we would use MR for the complete job, at this point, he was also pushing an energy audit at an additional cost. 

He also seemed insulted that I should mention that I wanted flexibility to compare bids, and that I cited the initial 100K ballpark as the reason that I wanted to shop for a more budget friendly construction phase.  Mr. McQuaide told me,  "I wasn't his customer."  He advised me to hire an architect so that someone else could read the design... saying that others would not be able to work from his (as we were told was possible earlier), and that they would comprimise the quality. The call ended very abruptly.  I felt a bit belittled.

I'm not his customer if his customer is someone who asks no questions and is unconcerned with budgets and add-ons.  I didn't like feeling limited by someone I was considering hiring, and I didn't like the implication that I was not affluent enough to be "his customer."  The implication was insulting as was the statement that he didn't want someone else ruining his design. I'm the daughter of a successful, old-school, homebuilder, and while I respect his honestly, I was put off (enough to write this) by his demeanor and, for lack of a better word, arrogance. Remember, there is no architect or engineer involved with this design.  There will be on mine.

The meeting went very well. The owner came across as an honest person, someone you could trust.

Master Remodelers wanted to charge me to give a bid which I did not want. I already had the design and the kitchen gutted. We agreed on a time and material project which I thought would work out well since I was doing so much of the work myself. I was happy that they got two guys started right away. Problems started wen they installed the two windows. I told the company that I wanted the windows taken down to the studs (not just inserts); what was installed were inserts. The framing around the inserts remains drafty. When I pointed this out to the owner of the company, he only claimed that he did not know how that happened and agreed that what he thought we were getting were new windows but made no offer to correct the problem. Further, the gap around the recessed lights bled cold air from the outside. When I pointed this out to the owner, he made no attempt to correct the problem but offered to fix it at my expense. Further, I got billed for time that was not performed. My wife works from home and so was always there when the carpenters were working. I was billed for time when no worker was there. When I brought this to the owners attention, he claimed he drove by and say one of the employee's truck. My wife insists that the employee was not there working on the occasion. The company left before the job was completed and there was no follow-up ever made about how I felt about the work or if they would be brought in to finish the job. I had to get another company to complete the work. Master Remodelers was $5,000 more than the next highest bidder and they did half of the work that the other company proposed.

I would rate all of the employees of Master Remodelers-- from Regis McQuaide to energy guru Brady, to Sean, who actually did most of the installation-- as 11 out of a possible 10. They exceeded my expectations in all areas. Regis contacted me about once a week to check on how things were going, and dropped in from time to time, so I always had the feeling that The Boss had his eye on things. They are nice, nice, nice. Very gentlemanly and refined and pleasant to have in your house. (No vulgar language, etc.) Sean is exactly like the workman featured in one of the Angie's List ads who walks a lady's dog. He put our garbage out for us on the morning we forgot when he saw the garbage truck on the street. After Sean had finished working in a room he cleaned up meticulously.He was very considerate of our schedule and always found ways to work quietly in the early morning. He removed the woodwork and replaced it so skillfully that we had to search for any tell-tale evidence that the work was completed in a given area. (Sometimes when my husband came home from work he even argued with me about whether something had been done when I had actually seen the the work in process in the course of the day!) This work involved moving furniture, taking down elaborate window treatments, blinds, plantation shutters, etc., and everything was always left in pristine condition. Because the work was completed just as the weather warmed up, we have not had much of a chance to assess the impact on our heating or cooling. But based on project post-test results, we expect to save more than $800 a year in heating costs.

Excellent. The owner met with me the same day I called him. He gave me a good hourly price. They started the job in less than a week. The foreman and worker were here at 6:45 AM every day and stayed until after 5:00 PM in order to complete the job in just a few days. The guys were courteous and kept the rest of the house clean. The whole experience was wonderful. I would highly recommend them and would use them again myself.

Overall the project went well. Regis hires really nice, decent people to do the work. They started the work promptly on the day they said they would, they arrived promptly each day, they were consistently pleasant, considerate, and polite, even when they might reasonably expect that no homeowner was listening to their conversations, and they were incredibly good about cleaning up afterwards. The work they did naturally and unavoidably made dust and debris, but they always did what they could to minimize dust getting into our living areas, and they always cleaned up where they worked at the end of each day. The outdoor temperatures are too similar to the indoor temperatures to use the infrared camera to see how well the insulating behind the plaster worked, but the blower test did show a major reduction in the amount of air entering the house. Part of the 29% reduction is due to replacement of 13 of 26 leaky windows not included in the price quoted above, but it is clear that the house is a whole lot more air tight than it was. It will be interested to compare our energy use this year with that last year.

This summer I met Regis McQuaide and was fascinated by his commitment to home energy efficiency, which some call "Green" remodeling. He gave me several excellent tips about about insulating and sealing my home and I set about doing many things myself, getting very dirty in the process: sealing the basement door, sealing off the attic, calking and insulating ductwork, etc. It was all about getting my HVAC to work more efficiently and do less work to keep my home cozy in the winter and cool in the summer. Plus, reducing my gas and electric bills. And since Rege passed some serious course work during the summer to become Energy Star certified, I knew he was the man to listen to, even if this is a small (and new) part of his fine major remodeling work. I began wishing that the contractor who had rehabbed my home 11 years ago was as energy conscious as Mr. McQuaide. I found so many things that could have been done much more thoughtfully. And I wished that I knew then what I know now so that I could have guided the rehab process more for energy efficiency. Finally I had to turn to Master Remodelers to do a critical piece that Rege had pointed out was a major problem: sealing the perimeter of the basement where drafts could be felt in many places. Rege himself came to survey the job, complimented me on my work and then came back quickly with a reasonable cost. His crew showed up exactly on time one morning in November and went immediately to work in the basement. Within a couple of hours the work was complete. They had done it all with no disruption to me, my home or my pets. Throughout they were gracious and very professional. While they left a bit dirty from first vacuuming out old coal dust and dirt from nooks and crannies, my basement was actually cleaner than before they arrived. And Rege himself came by to inspect the job and to find out how his crew performed. And the end result was excellent. The temperature in the rooms on the first floor was much more even, the basement was much warmer, the furnace was working less and I no longer felt drafts in the basement. Thanks to Rege for suggesting this and thanks to his professional crew for doing a great job in a very professional and courteous manner. Even though this was a very small job in the big picture of his business, it was performed as if I was one of his upscale clients.

Not well. I was charged $1,000.00 for the first plan and when I rejected it, the owner offered to do another plan and then sent me a bill for $3,000.00. Grand total: $4,000.00.

The designs were nice, but overall the services were very expensive. We told the owner about our budget several times, but he kept presenting plans to us that were over our budget. After many revisions, we eventually dropped this company in favor of several others and got a much better deal. Though this company has very talented builders and designers, expect to pay 2-3 times what other area contractors might charge. In the end, we had to eat the $1000 deposit as we could not afford to have the work done.

I feel it was a difficult job because they had to match new cabinetry to existing cabinetry. I felt that their workmanship and design capabilities were of high quality.

Maybe we could have found a better price. I don't know, but we could never have found a company better at what they do than Regis's. When all was done and you see how they do things, you realize it's worth every penny. Every worker takes pride in their own individual skill which shows up in the completed project. Plus, it's a pleasure to have them around. They come to work on time everyday and you won't find them standing around doing nothing. We have had a lot of work done on this and other houses and this is the first time it was smooth from start to finish. I truly recommend not calling anyone else if you're in the market for any kind of construction they are the best.