JD & Son General Contracting

.

LThis was a horrible experience. We hired this company to do a remodel of a rental property, and we feel completely taken advantage of since we live out of town.  The one time I flew in for the day to meet with Michael Donahue to review the work and go over the punch list, he did not show up for the meeting and did not answer his phone. I left him a detailed list of things that were not done or were done incorrectly and was assured they were taken care of. When my tenants moved in, the house was not finished and the utilities were not turned on even though the contractor was supposed to have taken care of that.  Over the past year, there have been multiple problems due to shoddy work--gaps behind cabinets, leaky kitchen pipes due to poor installation, no hot water in shower due to incorrect installation of faucet-to name a few. I have had to pay a plumber to go and correct these mistakes. The last straw was his failure to return equipment to a security company even though he assured me he did-resulting in ME being sent to a collection agency and me having to pay a settlement of $1800. This has been a nightmare--do NOT do business with this company.

Michael is the owner, Coral is who I think of as next in charge, and lots of other fantastic men and women who worked to restore and in many cases improve our home.
Our work had to have be done in two phases because originally our home insurance, Farmers, only ok'd redoing a small part of the home. Originally, we were approved to replace walls/trim/ceiling where the leak came through the ceiling in the entry way, the closest affected bedroom, closets and bathroom.  After that work was done we had to be very assertive about getting the rest of the house that had been flooded replaced as well, which included two other bedrooms, our living room, family room, and the kitchen floor and pantry.  If it has been under water and/or absorbing water for any length of time, it is probably moldy and/or ruined and needs to be replaced.

TRUSTWORTHY

Our home is important to us.  We were basically living "with" the workers, at least from 8-5, M-F for many months.  The people from this company are just wonderful.  We trusted them in our homes.  No valuables ever went missing, which is what many people may think about when they let "strangers" into their home.  However, soon, the workers weren't strangers and many were friends.  We felt comfortable with them in our home and around our children, which is about the best recommendation I can give.

MOLD/SHEETROCK/STUDS

When we were trying to find a contractor and having several different people come and see and evaluate what needed to be done on our house, Michael was the only one out of about 6 different companies who talked about mold and the need to kill it/eradicate it.  My family members all have allergies, and our youngest son (7) has allergy asthma.  Michael wanted to tear out all of the sheetrock and baseboards that got wet or absorbed water, treat the studs for mold, and then replace all the baseboards and sheetrock.  Most other people said, hey, it's dried out, you are safe.  But we could smell the mold, even though supposedly it was all dried out after Blackmon Mooring came and charged $6000 to "dry it out."  Michael explained that temporarily drying out the mold doesn't fix the problem because if it gets humid or wet again, the mold becomes active, and anyway, it was still there.  He was proved correct again and again when sheetrock and baseboards were pulled back and we found mold again and again, even though according to most other contractors it was dried out and fine.  Michael has had a flood in his own home because of a plumbing break, and so he had firsthand knowledge of how this works.  He also had a very good "nose" for mold.  When our insurance said after phase 1, "hey, things are good now, your home is fixed,"   Michael went through our house and helped us identify several spots that still smelled strongly of mold. We could smell it, but we couldn't narrow it down to specific places.  He had been saying all along that in addition to getting new carpeting, which the insurance company agreed with, we needed to get a new wood floor where the floor was under water for several hours.  He had also said that anywhere water was sitting, the baseboards and sheetrock had soaked up that water and were holding mold too.  We pulled back a few more basedboards, and found more mold. We met with the insurance adjuster again, pressed our case and got the rest of the area that held water for a long time replaced as well.  Everytime Mike told us there was still mold and damage, he was right.  Every. single. time.  When the baseboards and sheet rock was pulled you could see it.

FLOORING

Michael kept saying that as the wood floor continued to dry out, the layers of compressed wood would start to shift and we would start to see gaps in between the boards.  He was right about that too. We had hoped it wouldn't have to be replaced because the wood flooring was only a few years old and we really liked it.  However, after 2 or 3 months after the "professional drying" was done, we started to notice large gaps in the flooring that were appearing.  So, we marked and showed all of those to the adjuster, and we got money to replace it too.

SUPPORT WHEN MEETING WITH ADJUSTER

Michael and Coral were also always supportive and volunteered to meet with the adjuster when he came over and we were asking for additional claim money.  They did that at least twice, which helped reinforce our claim a lot!  It also worked.  Our home is fixed and no longer smells of mold.  Anwhere.  Period.

QUALITY WORKMANSHIP

JD & Son has many different teams of workers to do different jobs.  Quality work was almost always performed, but if we noticed anything amiss, or Coral would often come and check over work and she noticed anything, she always had someone come and fix it to everyone's satisfaction.  A few times, Coral noticed a few things we hadn't, and she got it fixed.  They were small things, but details matter.  JD & Son wanted us to be completely satisfied, and we are.
PRICING and SUGGESTIONS WITHIN OUR BUDGET
Mike and Coral worked really hard to keep their work within or very close to the amount we received from our insurance.  They did an excellent job of that!   The biggest single cost was probably the wood flooring.   We were replacing the wood that had to be demolished, and we decided to put wood in our family room where there had been carpet before.  Coral looked for several different wood samples, and we were having a hard time finding a color/style we liked.  After looking and setting aside many samples she brought over, she took the initiative to call the company they worked with and find out if they had anything not on their website that they would recommend in our price range in the color we wanted.  She found something that we loved!
Also, we wanted to do a few upgrades that would make our house look more modern in a few areas where it just looked outdated or awkward.  They suggested a range of options that would work for our budget.  We felt like they were looking out for the customer.

TIMEFRAME

 Once we found JD & Son and signed a contract for the work, they worked hard to get the work done quickly.  There are inevitable delays when doing as much work as well did.  Often, the delays were because new damage was discovered or we had to make some decisions and it took a little while for us to decide.  Also, JD & Son has to shift crews around.  Almost always, though, they got things done very quickly.  For phase 2 of our house, almost all of the sheetrock in the house had to be taken out from the floor to about 4 feet up.  Their team got in and did the demolition of the sheetrock, baseboards, and insulation and got the new in and installed very quickly.   I was very happy with how quickly things got done.  If there was a delay on their part, it was because the wood took a while to be delivered (it was this last winter when many parts of the US were having blizzards and shipping got slowed down because of the weather).  Also, wood has to acclimate to your house for a while before it is laid.  That was their big delay, which was not their fault.

PAINTING/TEXTURING

They have a great texture guy, Danny, and fantastic paint manager, Martin, who came in and got the top "old" half of the walls and the new bottom half to look fantastic!   The job was done in a top-notch manner.

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FUTURE CUSTO

unknown

It went really well and our floors look great.  The guys arrived as planned and advised me of their planned schedule for the whole job. They were very friendly and courteous while they were here.  They answered all my questions and showed me what they were doing through out the job.  When they had a small problem, they were honest and explained my options. I would recommend this company and use them again for other projects

Had a great experience. The guys were friendly, polite and made sure the jobs were done correctly. An safety issue was found with the ceiling & bracing in the garage while installing attic ladder. Michael made sure it was fixed and no longer presented a hazzard.  Everything looks great. Custom vanities & storage cabinet in bathroom are spectacular!!! Already have them working on a bid to do a 2nd bathroom and plan on using them for small kitchen remodel as well.

Their communication, professionalism was good and they were attention to detail. Overall the quality of the work was pretty good.

Wonderful. Michael was wonderful to work with. All of his workers were very professional and prompt. JD and Son General Contracting has a very high standard of service and did work that I am very pleased with. I would feel comfortable asking them to do anything in my home that I needed. It was a very pleasant and rewarding experience.

his crew was fantastic although other than the estimate saw little of Michael. but they were very nice and trustworthy as well.

When we ran into issues with a load barring beam (shoddy work from
previous remodel) M. Donahue was very informative, giving us options to
solve the problem.  Everytime time there has been an issue, such as the
chosen tile for the bathrooms NOT being like the sample, M. Donahue
would go seek out an affordable option to keep us on budget. We are only
40% through the remodel but every aspect has met and exceeded my
expectations.    I will post again at the completion of the project.