Renner Contracting

Jason Fanning (Renner Contracting) was the subcontractor for Rick Farnoush of easyhomerepair.net (now easyhomeremodel.com). Jason was responsible for laborers, carpentry, plumbing, etc. At the end, insteady of hiring craftsman and plumbers, he did almost all the work himself, by himself..... Horrible. I moved out of the house during most of this up to the point of returning from my honeymoon. First - Schedule: Was promised to be done in two months by wedding; 4+ months later still wasnt finished, and they never did finish; walked off the job at about 95% complete. Was gone for over two weeks during honeymoon, and not once did the contractor come by to finish during the time we were gone on honeymoon. Workers: I caught the workers using my tools, using my house vacuum for cleaning, etc. Numerous tools missing/broke, vacuum broke. Supposedly they fired those workers, but this should have been a clue that there was poor oversight. Didn't clean until the end - huge piles of debris sat around for months, ruining lawn, home dirty, etc. Quality: No attention to Detail! 1. Plumbing: Despite my requirement that all plumbing shall be copper and by a licensed plumber, I caught them using PEX. Made them take it all out and redo in copper. Outside valve box was done by Jason Fanning at the end despite my vigorous protests to use a licensed plumber. Took him two days and still leaked. We had moved back into the house, and one night he worked on it till after midnight, with the whole house water off during this time. The work was very poor quality and amateurish looking, I demanded something in writing from a licensed plumber stating it was OK - he got his PEX installing buddy to write a note saying it was OK. 2 years later, the outside valve box was flooded - I had to shut off the house water for a day to let it drain so I could find the leak - which was one of the poorly soldered valves that was leaking from the solder joint.... 2. Travertine Tile - The shower wall tile was so disjointed and non-uniform I made them do it over. Again, no oversight by the lead contractor or Jason on the workers. If I wouldn't have said something they would have left it as -is. Slightly over a year later, the floor travertine was cracking because of inadequate base work. Complained to lead contractor (Rick Farnoush), he told me it was out of warranty (one year). At the time he got the job, told me it was ten years. Look on his website it says ten years. Warranty not worth the pain to have to deal with them again so I fixed it myself. 3. Framing - they reused old wood for the framing on the upstairs new porch enclosure. Then I caught them reusing the old insulation which was haphazardly stuffed in the wall with many gaps. I complained to Rick and Jason - again no oversight. I went back to the house to show them and complain, and they met me there, but the wall was already sheet rocked. They told me that it was all fixed and new insulation was in there; I believed them for a while. The next day, I thought better of it, so I told Rick and Jason to meet me there that night; I was going to take a sheet rock panel down to check. If it was fixed, I would pay them to repair the sheetrock. If it wasn't, they would have to take down all the sheetrock and redo the insulation. Guess what - they lied, the same haphazard insulation was installed, so they redid. 4. Windows: The outside window framing was done different then the existing window framing, so you can tell its an "addition" upstairs. I complained, but I felt the hassle of redoing the windows after the hard- plank was installed and painted, I felt I risked having leaks so I left it alone...Against my better judgement as it turned out. 5. Outside planking on new wall enclosure. The house is part brick, part hardi-plank siding. the new 2nd story porch wall enclosure was hardi-planked down to the brick. Now the same leak is once again in the ceiling of my MBR (right under where the old porch was, now enclosed.) Leak is where the window is, roughly same spot it was in before the remodel (which was the impetus for the remodel in the first place). Turns out, they did not put new flashing in behind the new planking and over the brick wall line below the 2nd story windows. As a result, water is leaking behind the brick, going down the between the wall and brick until it hits the first floor window frame, then leaks into the ceiling and window casement. Now I have to have that all repaired again! 6. Outside porch front door entry way. I used big cedar posts, and when they set them, the wood went below ground level and was in contact with the dirt. I complained and said this would rot and to raise it on concrete footings to above ground level so there would be no dirt contact with the wood (you would think a contractor would know this, right?) Jason built up the concrete footing and trimmed the post, but did such a poor job the roof and beams aren't level and the built up area of the concrete footing is now cracked and coming apart.... 7. Craftsmanship - Jason did (as the subcontractor to Rick) the finish work. The mantle and the new closet doors are stained so poorly the coat is not uniform and looks like and amateur stained it. In the walk-in closets in both bedrooms, new shelves and clothes rods were put in on all walls using angle brackets with built in clothes rod hangers. Two years after they walked off the job, the first shelf and bracket pulled out of the wall. I had to repair all this myself - I found out they put almost none of the cleats and brackets in locations where a wall stud is - basically it was just screwed into drywall. I started looking closer on the rest of them, and I found almost all of them starting to pull out of the wall. Wouldn't a contractor know to screw the weight bearing angle brackets into studs not just drywall? Apparently not these guys. Finishing the job.. After we moved back into the house, with about 10% left to go, 2 months after they said it would be complete, they showed up very infrequently. I held the last $5000 until they finished the job. The kicker was one I went on my honeymoon. Two weeks was plenty time to finish. They asked for me to leave another $2000 check when I left, which I considered giving, but there were so many workmanship and quality issues, I said I would give them the balance only when the job was complete. They didn't do any work while I was gone. I complained like crazy when I came back and they said "we had to go to jobs that paid" them (of course this didn't count the $50,000 of my money they already had). They started coming very infrequently and took forever to do the simplest job at a very low quality level. Eventually, they just walked off the job and essentially forfeited the last $5000. If you are smart, stay away from these guys - No attention to detail, poor craftsmanship, apparently they no little or nothing about simple construction principles (flashing under siding, put load bearing brackets into wall studs not drywall where it will just pull out), don't use licensed plumbers despite my upfront requirements, they don't oversee their laborers. And they are misleading on warranty and financial bids - They originally told me they would give me a 10% discount. As the work went on and the scope creeped from the original $29,000 bid to the final $55,000 bill, they refused to extend the 10% discount.... I have plenty of pictures too.... Update response to Jason Renner's response: Note he doesn't respond about any of the lack of quality issues, doesn't say why my closet shelves which he personally put in pulled out of the walls, why it is acceptable to just use standard screw in drywall only to hold large and long weight bearing shelves and clothes rods and not screw them in cleats over the studs, why the same leak I originally hired him to fix was still there because he never changed out or installed new flashing where the hardiplank met the brick wall, why he was content with reusing old insulation, why he left my family without water past midnight because he wouldn't use e licensed plumber I required, why his laborers were using my stuff, why he was perfectly content with accepting the very shoddy initial travertine install. His response is simply that I would never be satisfied. His management of the subs was apparently only that the did work such as install tile, not that the job was done right and had decent quality since I wasnthe one that found all e issues and insisted the do it correctly. Unfortunately the closet shelves needed a little time with clothes on them to pull out of the sheetrock, and I needed a long hard rainstorm to uncover the fact he never fixed the leak that was the impetus for hiring these unprofessionals in the first place.