Ultimate Iron Works

Richard was hired by a contractor (seller of a house I purchased) on the strength of previous work (front door).  He had his carpenters start extending a bookshelf, and he demolished the bathrooms.  We then decided to remodel the closet, outside the original scope, and Richard quoted $4,000 for the job, with $2,000 deposit.   Of course, I should have checked Angie's list first.   I paid that deposit on 4/17, and after that, he completely disappeared.  No work was ever done on the closet.
Shortly after I paid the $2,000), the trades indicated that he was no longer paying them to work on any part of the job.  The bookshelves were nearly completed, so the general contractor paid the carpenters to finish the job, although ultimately, the workmanship is poor (different wood grain, wrong alignment of grain, and nails can be seen exposed, as well as crossing corners).  
It turns out that from the seller's original deposit, Mr. Wallace did not buy any of the materials (plumbing, tiles, granite) which accounted for the majority of the cost.  We were not aware of this.  As a result we experienced delays of many weeks waiting for materials to come in before the work could be completed piecemeal.  We are still waiting on some tiles to come in to finish the master bath.
Final result: Mr. Wallac, true to the other reports and various complaints on the web (including the BBB), pocketed the money and then ran.  Not only were we out $2,000 for the closet, but the seller was out several thousand for his depoit, and the work was months delayed.  The little work he did have done was poor quality.
It seems that even a crook can do a good job occasionally, evidenced by the recent good review here, and also by the good job he did on the front door of the contractor that hired him for our job.  However, you would be very foolish to hire this man or this company.  Look through the A listed contractors on this list and use one of those instead.

They quoted me $2,200 and I believe their price is reasonable. They were excellent and professional. They have other multiple businesses and we actually did our roof through them. They did a good job with the roof. When I first called him from my phone, he returned my phone call in minutes. We are going to be using them for the job.

They have an "F" rating with the BBB.  They should not be in business.  I had to get help from someone so that I could secure my home because the doors are still not latching.  When I called for the unknown number of times to ask Ultimate Iron Works for their help AGAIN they said that my warranty is null and void because someone else worked on them.  they hung up the phone on me.  They never asked what was done or even the first question because THEY DON"T CARE.  Check out the consumer comments on the web.  I can't get my doors to close, they ignore my calls and now they are out of warranty.  DO NOT USE THESE PEOPLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

Look them up on the internet.  You will see MANY others just like me. 

 I used Ultimate Iron Works through a General Contractor who was doing work on the front of our house. Initially, I was very pleased with the iron door we had installed, but less than 2 years later, the paint on the inside and outside of the doors is chipped and peeling away and one of the window latches is broken.

I tried repeatedly to get the situation handled by myself by calling and emailing the owner. After FINALLY getting a live person on the phone, I was told to send pictures of the doors which I did. I was then told that a guy would be coming out to match the paint. That NEVER happened.

I then tried to address the problem with my General Contractor. After numerous calls on his part, he can't get the owner to repond either. "He's in Mexico." "I thought it was handled." "Sorry it's taking so long." At this point, I just don't care WHY it can't get done. Just get it done and make it right. I will NEVER refer Ultimate Iron Works to anyone. They are a horrible business and should be shut down for swindling many many people out of their money. 

If anyone sees this and has recommendations on who can do repair work on my iron double door, please let me know.

I paid Mr. Wallace a $2500 deposit upfront at time of order.  He assured me it would be installed within 3 weeks but could do it in 2 weeks if I had the need.  He adequately addressed a number of my concerns and assured me that he would personally lead the team when it was installed.  Two hours before the scheduled time of installation, I received an email saying that he had personal problem and couldn't install until the following week.  The morning of the rescheduled time, an employee showed up saying that Mr. Wallace needed to reschedule for another personal problem.  Finally the crew showed up a week later.  Mr. Wallace showed up but left immediately after the original door was removed. The door quality but particularly the installation was one of the worst I've seen.  I've had numerous entry doors installed on both rental properties and our personal homes and this was a disaster. The door is not square in the frame,  There is sunlight streaming in from the door seals.  They ground down a portion of the threshold to get the door to close and also had to cut the vinyl sweep for the door to close.  They drilled new holes for the lockset, but filled the old holes with caulk rather than bondo as is the norm.  This is a $5000 door for goodness sake.  They did not reinstall the interior casings.  They reused the old deteriorated brick moulding when I specificall discussed with him the need to use new PVC (non rot) brick mould.  I also ordered a low E tinted clear glass, however the glass was not tinted and he said just to put a window film on it and he would cover the cost. The installation crew was inept.  I would not use them to work on any of my routine maintenance on rental properties. I am going to get a professional installer to remove and reset the door.  We are considering legal action against Mr. Wallace as he has been unresponsive to our concerns.  Buyer Beware when using this vendor.

We had a terrible experience with Ultime Iron Works and its principal, Richard Wallace. Once he had a signed contract and a 50% deposit, he did not return calls for days, and he often yelled at us when we tried to understand the status of our project. We contracted for IRON ballusters, and he produced cheap-looking steel tubing. It was awful. We would not let him install it in our home. I strongly recommend against contracting with this guy.

We have 2 small kids so I was very concerned about being without railing on the stairs. I decided to go with this company for everything (doors, floor and railing) because I was told they would remove and complete installation of railing in 2 days. This process took 3 weeks from start to finish, work was not done when promised and they would work one day then not show up or call for a few days. So we went for 3 weeks without railing on our stairs. The wood that was installed was 2 1/4 inch and it was promised that they could match the existing wood floors which were 3 inches wide. It is an obvious difference. Not to mention that the stain on the steps and new wood was no where near matching and I was assured that they had so many stains they could mix and do samples till they matched. They just showed up with one stain...no samples and tried it out on the 1st step. So now I have the added expense of sanding down and restaining all the existing wood floors to match the new stair stain color. They ruined the carpet on the ajoining rooms to where they stained. The pain touch-ups and caulking or trim pieces are so bad that we are going to have to redo them ourselves. The trim work and wood work was not the best I have seen and I know they specialize in iron, so if I had it to do over again I would hire a floor store to do the wood. The railing is beautiful, but not the design we had planned. When we signed the contract the owner, Richard told us we could come up with whatever design we wanted and they would build it. Then they just showed up with a prebuilt railing that was nothing like what we had pictured. It is beautiful, but more ornate than we had planned on getting. The doors were suppose to take 2 weeks to build and they actually took 5 weeks.The doors are also beautiful, but again not the doors that we picked out and ordered. The owner decided to make changes for us without our knowlege or approval. Our origional doors had been removed before we saw the doors they were installing had about a 12 inch iron trim piece on the bottom where we had ordered glass. The owner explained that he changed it since he knew we had kids and small pets??? (we don't have any pets and having kids should not actually affect the design of our door) Then we had a pile of trash sitting on our front porch for 4 weeks! They promised to come back to get it but never did, so we finally hauled it off ourselves. So to sum it up, the doors and railing are beautiful...but not what we had ordered. The wood floor, trim, painting and staining were not impressive. They have a beautiful product, but fail on communication, punctuality, service and professionalism. I would have a hard time reccomending them to my neighbors who have asked about them.

Wanted to change out the front door on our 12 year old house to match the style of recent upgrades made to the rest of the house. Called Ultimate Iron Works of Dallas (saw their add in a home improvement magazine) and arranged a meeting with the owner (Richard) at our home. Richard spent a good length of time with us and recommended replacing our single, fiberglass, standard hieght front door with a taller, iron double door with a copper mist faux finish. It look beautiful and would compliment the previous updates to the home. We immediately placed an order on 7-8-2009 for a custom iron door (Model DU-001 with a copper mist faux finish). We were told by Richard that the doors are custom made in Mexico by his plant and it would be six weeks before they could be installed. A 50% payment was required to finalize the order. We were initially impressed with Richard and his attention to detail, quickly growing to trust him. The total order for the requested door and installation was $6,300. We paid him $3,150 up front with a check and the balance was due at installation. As promised, we got a call from Richard to install the doors slightly before the six weeks were up in early August. The Ultimate Iron Works crew arrived at our home by 6:00AM as scheduled and began tearing out the old brick and door. They installed the new door by noon and completed the work within the day. We paid them the balance of $3,150 The design of the door is beautiful, and really sets the front of the house apart. Richard has a great eye on design. It's a beautiful product. It met our expectations from the design perspective. Unfortunately -- workmanship concerns were almost immediate. The install crew had slopply 'caulked" around the new door frame and the brick - and it does not look very clean or taylored -- considing this was a $6,300 custom job. Also the black paint looks splotty from the extra spray paint applied during installation (to cover scratches, inperfections, etc from installation). But the worst thing of all is the door leaks really, really bad. The next day, we got a really heavy rain and a significant amount of water came in the new door onto our newly installed wood floors. We had to use towels to mop up the water and stop the flow of water into the house. I contacted Richard immediately and one of the install crew came right over. He adjusted the door threshold (raised it), tightend the window latches with a hammer and replaced several seals around the windows on both doors. A week later, an another rain shower proved the newly installed doors still leak, athough not as much as before. I called Richard again and left him a message, asking him to call me so we can arrange a repair of the leaky doors. Richard returned my call a day or so later. I politely explained that the door was still leaking and I was not happy with the trim work around the door. He promised to send a worker to repair the leaky door that Friday. We arranged to have someone home that Friday so the repair could be done -- but no one showed up or called from Ultimate Iron Works. Therefore, I called the company at the end of business day -- Friday and left a message asking them to call us back so reschedule the repair work. I have also emailed Richard my complaints about the leaky door and poor trim work on the outside. Unfortunately - we got another rain storm tonight and I'm up at midnight putting towels around the door to stop the water. I love the look of the iron door, but very disappointed with the quality of the installation. I had planned on using this company to install the same type of door in the pool area (although a single iron door rather than a double door), but now reluctant until the front door is weatherproofed and trimmed out properly. I still hope the missed appointment by the vendor was an oversight or misunderstanding and we can come to a satisfactory resolution to the outstanding items. But right now, I'm extremely dissappointed. Regards, Rick Rawlings PS - They came out 9/22/09 and repaired the water leakage issue by replacing the weather stripping.