Caliber Pole Buildings

I hired Caliber Pole Buildings in May to build a pole building. The contract says it would be finished by June 30, weather permitting. June was rainy, to be fair, but July and August were so dry that we were in a drought. Caliber Pole Buildings works with an excavator, Mark Hallman. They are next door neighbors. Every delay that Caliber had was blamed on Mark Hallman not having his work finished. When I called Hallman, he said that CPB told him they didn't need him to do anything at that point. Neither wants to return phone calls and e-mails to CPB may be answered after a week or not at all. Communication is next to impossible with them. They will return calls and e-mails when you start the contract and when they are about to get your money. Once they have your money this changes. They did not require money up front, but wanted me to pay each material supplier as they made a delivery. I work out of state and could not be there for multiple deliveries. So I paid $15,000 up front to cover most of this. I paid a second payment up front of $4325 on 7/7/2015 to finish the work. This second payment consisted mostly of pouring concrete outside the building and finishing up. From this point on I couldn't get the work finished. I contacted them by phone and e-mail without any results. I was told that they needed the excavator to do work before they could do anything. He said they told him they didn't need him. I offered to rent a backhoe and do the work myself. I didn't get a response. I e-mailed that I wanted to meet with them at the site to know what needed done so that I could do the excavation work, and that I would take a week off work to do this. No response. I tracked both down to their houses and tried to talk to each of them. When I went to Greg Domanick's house (Caliber Pole Building), he came out with his fists clenched, jaw clenched, face red and looking like he was ready to fight. He told me that nobody had ever come to his house before and that he didn't appreciate me going to where his wife works. I had gone to the Smithmill post office to find out where they lived and by chance his wife works there. I had no idea. We talked and I thought that we had things worked out. They did a little bit of work the following week and Hallman did more excavating. I then realized that the building permit did not show that 2 inspections were done. I called the inspector to see if this needed done and was informed that the first 2 inspections were not done and needed to be. I called Caliber on September 2, 2015 and left a message that the inspections had not been done and that I wanted to meet with them that evening or the following evening to get this worked out. I received a return call that afternoon from Greg and it was full of "F-you's" and ended with "I'll finish your building when h*** freezes over!" I called the inspector to come out the next day so we could see what needed to be done to pass inspection. At this point I didn't intend to wait until "h*** freezes over" to have my project finished and knew I needed to hire a second contractor. The first inspection required the inspector to see that the posts were set to the correct depth and that concrete was poured properly around them. This was to be done before any other work was done. At this point the building was mostly built and a concrete floor was over the posts. To pass this required digging up the posts. Fortunately, I saw the holes dug and the concrete, so I was able to sign an affidavit for that. The second missed inspection required the inspector to see the headers attached to the posts and the trusses attached to the headers. No other work was to be done until this inspection was done. These were missing bolts and straps to connect everything. We were also missing bracing in the corners of the walls and bracing of the trusses. Metal siding had already been put over the headers from the outside, so putting the bolts in these trusses would mean removing the metal siding or going through the siding. The second inspection was failed. I contacted a second contractor and he came right out to finish the work. Without me telling him what failed he walked around and pointed out everything that was missing. To finish the concrete work that had not been finished, and to do the work to bring the building up to code, the cost was $4852.48.

He began the job on a Thursday. The first problem was when they set the garage in front of the kitchen window and when placing the roof it positioned right into the window. Their solution was to cut a chunk of the roof overhang. Then it rained. The water that ran off of the roof dumped over the top of my kitchen window. I was upset and called them about it. After the rain stopped we were cleaning up outside and Greg appeared unexpectedly in a rage. He approached me swearing and threatening me with complaints about my phone call to them. After a battle he walked of the job. I was faced with a frame, walls, roof and tar paper. Everything was a mess. For the next two days I was unable to communicate with him or resolve any conflict. After 3 weeks he finally agreed to come back. He'd already been paid $2600 for those first two days. After 3 or 4 more days of work I paid another $2300 and then he walked off the job again. Communication problems began again. I could not get a return call to any of my messages. Nothing was completed and water damage was beginning show signs of destruction to what was in place. It's a year later now and I have been spending the past several months with legal processing, attorney general complaints and we are still faced with an incomplete garage. We are fighting for the return of our last payment to him so we can hire a reputable company to finish the job. We've already had to pay others to take care of some of the stages of the work. It has become a costly experience and now he has appealed the law suit. I decided to report this to Angie's List as well.