All American Garage Builders LLC

Complete train wreck. Would not hire them to build a dog house.

unknown

The builder owns 3 businesses:

Elite Builds
All American Garage Builders
One Stop Kitchen and Bath

The builder appears to take building homes very seriously. He checks in on the homes once every day or two. He uses good subcontractors on the houses. 

But garages are a different story. Profit margins are smaller. The builder can't be bothered with garages when his heart is in houses. So, the builder hands over the garage construction to a "project manager", who is not a builder.  And the project manager knows little about real construction--he is a salesman who tries to run the project. 

On the garage side of the business, they used inexperienced or poor quality crews who do sub-standard work. Then we would complain. They would fix it or try to. The crews they would send to make repairs didn't speak English and I often had to tell them what to do. Even then, they would "rig" it instead of making proper repairs. If I hadn't complained, they wouldn't have fixed it. You might as well be your in builder and babysit your own sub-contractors, because you will have to babysit their subs.

The problem with our workshop was the "project manager" who oversaw it was rarely on site. Rarely knew what was going on. 
I understand they do *not* do this on houses. But, on garages they feel it's ok. The combination of poor quality crews and a project manager who doesn't manage the job like a builder = dozens of significant problems.

We had problems with the foundation, warped framing, warped walls, warped windows, and windows in the wrong location. None of this was a problem--until I complained. Then the project manager acts like I'm picky. 

What made me angry early on was when the project manager showed up on site after I repeatedly complained. He swore that the foundation was correct (even though a simple Google query showed it was not), and then to pacify me, he called a structural engineer. The structural engineer failed the foundation for exactly the reasons I complained about. No offense to anyone, but if you can't tell a foundation footer is wrong, why are you in the building business? Better question: Why is someone managing a construction project who can't tell the difference?

This is how the whole project went. 

I finally bypassed the project manager and went to the builder. After some insistence, he took over. And he made the final repairs to the framing and sheetrock using the same repair crews as what he uses on his houses. 

One of their other customers contacted me for similar reasons as I wrote above. All American Garages own subcontractors (more than one) told me the garage side of the business is a mess--that every job site they come to, someone like me is upset. 

Even in my final meeting with the builder, I don't think the builder agreed with me that garages need about the same supervision as a house. I was disappointed. I've made millions of dollars running several businesses. I know what I'm talking about. I am TELLING you what your problem is AND the solution: that your garage business model is flawed and you MUST supervise a garage the same as you would a house. Either get out of the garage/workshop building business OR supervise it like a house. It's that simple.

I would recommend Terry on the home building side. But I would not recommend using them for a garage or workshop.

Summary.

Houses: Terry is a good builder.

Garages: Delegated responsibility to a salesman. Lack of supervision. Inferior crews. You cannot run a project from the phone. The person you put in charge must have more knowledge about construction.

All American/Elite Properties  - hard to sum this one up.

revising my review

quoted roof differed from contracted roof..not sure why

While I am at fault for some of this, the poor decision on their part
left me in a very bad position.  How the company handled this entire
thing is unacceptable.

All American/Elite Properties  - hard to sum this one up.
revising my review
quoted roof differed from contracted roof..not sure why
While I am at fault for some of this, the poor decision on their part left me in a very bad position.  How the company handled this entire thing is unacceptable.

Contracted draw of $43,314.00 on October 17, 2012. Building permit issued November 5, 2013. Contracted terminated April 29, 2013
Let me first clearly state I failed to do adequate research on this firm. Terry Frazier, President of Elite Properties, LLC is an excellent salesman and will tell you what you want to hear as he misrepresents the truth to your face. He will claim to be a Christian and a man of his word. We were told our project should be no more than 3-weeks to completion. With a contract signing on October 17, 2012 the work was to begin the first week of November. After 6-months he said his company and men would not return to complete the contracted project at our home and that he personally, in a few weeks would start coming over to my home to finish the work by himself. What in my mind I read in his text message was that he was walking off and it may be even more months with no completion. To add insult to injury-- he walked off leaving the frame of a staircase with NO STEPS leading to our patio. I paid him off to never return to my property. Doing so, he voided and canceled our warranty on any of his work over the past 6-months!
I travel 5-states for my business. Terry told me to travel and know when I return our dream will be moving to completion smoothly. Instead, I had to suspend my travel to monitor what little work his firm did at my home. Everyday a worker was there, a major problem occurred. With no supervision or project manager, every element of the project was a failure. I'm saying the framing, roof, floor, patio, column posts, painting, siding, rails, steps and on and on.
Terry would laugh and call these issues anomalies unique to my home. I called it little or no planning or supervision on his behalf. The framing took over 3-weeks and it was the norm for the worker to place 6x6 posts in the wrong locations, 2x12 bolted to our brick in error, the roof line a foot and half too low and so often there was only one worker and I would have to be his assistant late into the night standing on a ladder holding 2x12's with a flashlight.
The one roofer that came to my home several times never had a ladder and had to use mine. He also had to redo his work. The siding guy made a total wreck and everything he did had to be torn down and replaced by a different company. My outdoor living deck was to have zero maintenance. Meaning every surface was to be covered with stone, siding or composite. The workers had no experience with the composite flooring, railing and posts. Again, everything had to be done over and over. As noted earlier, a simple staircase was constructed several times because they could not get the steps the same height and level. The stairs never were completed.
Our patio was poorly constructed. Poor drainage, jagged edges and even a 2x4 embedded and sticking out the side. The stamped concrete was a mess. 4-times they resealed. It continued to bubble and the entire surfaced looked like bubble wrap and sounded like it when you walked on it. The color was nothing like we were promised. I told Frazier to stop working on it as they were making it worst. His reply was, "I've just never seen this before."
The simplest job included in the contract was another train wreck. We asked him to install 2-pull out drawers for our kitchen cabinets. How difficult can this be? It was to be done immediately after contract signing-- or that is what we were promised. Pleading with him for what ended up being 5-months-- he again promised to send a man out for installation. In preparation, we removed all the pots, pans and lids and had them on the floor and counter tops. As you would expect, again for weeks we waited with me daily calling, texting and emailing Frazier. He just ignored me. Finally someone shows up many weeks later and the drawers are the wrong size. Everything is torn out and we can't get the new pull out drawers. Again, weeks go by and then they make another attempt to repair and it is a failure. They could not install simple pull out drawers in our kitchen!
The delays and lack of worker instruction and supervision was the worst. Terry would text me saying he or his crew will be there on a certain date and it would come and pass with weeks before I would see anyone. I can't remember how many times he would look me in the eye and say we will have this all buttoned up by Friday or some other day he would pull out of the air. Again, it was the norm for a worker  to come to my house to do one task and then leave. None of the workers had any plans to work with. This was the primary reason for all the problems. Every worker-- I mean every worker to a man, said all of Terry Frazier's customers suffer the same type of delays we suffered. He gets your money and a contract and strings you out.
I encourage anyone doing business with Frazier or any contractor to include a time frame for completion in the contract. The workers and even Terry's own father say most plans provided by Terry to the workers are either verbal or sketched on paper and even napkins. The painter said Terry has no concern about causing delays to his customers and it is the norm. He also said he (the painter) always gets stuck with the (expletive deleted) jobs. Continually I heard him complain as to what type of (expletive deleted) low life job my project was to him and the other workers. Frazier claimed he had 35-jobs going on while he was doing ours and most of them were much higher cost jobs in the 6 and 7 figures. Of course he never mentioned this when soliciting our business.
The best money I spent on this entire project was paying Terry Frazier & Elite Properties off to terminate our contract so that I will never have to listen to his lies or see him again. You should avoid this man and firm.