J & J Construction

J & J Construction are very sincere, genuine and Christian. We trusted him because he is a fellow volunteer firefighter with my husband. What should have taken him two months to complete, it took him about eight months. He took my first check of $14,000.00 and I trusted him to do with it what he was going to do with it, buy the materials and everything, and he spent it on other things and didn't buy us any materials. He tore up our patio cement and tore off the roof. He then came back and said he needed another $4,000.00 to buy supplies. [00:15:53] And then buy the other supplies for us. So, anyway, we had to give him $4,000.00. The time dragged on and dragged on. He sent two young kids to come out and do the hard work, the handy work. In all that time, we must have seen him here personally three times and that was just for an hour and he'd leave. It was just enough time to tell these guys what to do. One of them was his son and his friend. They'd come and they'd spend three hours, max and leave again. We wouldn't see them for a few days. Then they'd come back and spend another three hours. I looked and there they are, just chatting away. I was so frustrated because I had to put up with it. We finally called the Better Business Bureau and filed a complaint. We basically told them, "Leave it the way it is. We'll just use the remainder of the money to pay to get someone to fix it right." They're very distrusting, totally unreliable. They take your money and run with it. They're totally disrespectful as a fellow firefighter and friend. They did cement stamping and the patterns to make the design, they're all overlapping and they did a very messy job. He used warped lumber as supporting beams and such. We had him come out and replace them and they still did a patchy job on it. My husband had to take them out because they were just warped and saggy. For the roof job, they left the steel very sloppy on top and the screws were not hitting the wood. So, he's got little pin holes up there, where water leaks. Where the support is, underneath where it holds the roof at a corner, because it meets from two ends, he just put blocks of wood in there and just kind of stuck pieces of wood. He didn't even put a full support board in there and it was just terrible. My husband's memory of it is we'd sit out there at night and have a nice cool [00:19:32]. He was staring through the roof and he could see the moon through those little pin holes. It's really bad. We felt bad reporting him, but he's supposed to be a Christian guy, and we trusted him with $14,000.00 that he went and spent on other things. Do not trust him.

We received bids from several contractors, but chose this one because we knew him and he seemed willing to work with us to get what we wanted.  He was about $4000 higher than the other contractors, but was willing to reduce that by $3000 to get the job at $21000.
Upon signing the contract, he said he required $14000 for materials before he could start work (even though no materials are required for demolition).  He was paid right away, but didn't show up on the job site for 3 weeks.  He was told several times that we didn't have money for changes that would cost extra which he understood.
He brought his son and 2 laborers, gave them instructions, and left.  They worked a couple of hours them left.  From that point, we only saw the contractor himself for a few minutes at a time - he relied on his son to do the job as his after school project, showing up at 4pm and working until about 6pm.  They only showed up on the jobsite about 3 or 4 times over the first two months, then in the third month they poured the concrete.  In the mean time, both of the roofs had been removed leaving a bay window in the back exposed as well as the master bedroom and front entryway were exposed.  They did not cover anything for the weather.  
Concrete is supposed to be his specialty.  We had him stamp and stain the concrete which has rough, crooked edges, double stamping, concrete stuck to the stamps because it was too wet.  The sides of the slab are between 12 and 16 inches in areas, but were not finished and are exposed - looks real bad.  The closets are built on a raised section of concrete that has wavy edges and are not level.  He rolled the edge of the concrete up to the building to fill in gaps which looks very bad and unprofessional.  When they demo'd the cornet, they damaged the floor and walls in the main part of the house and did not repair them.
When they framed in the closets, they used no barrier or seal between the concrete and the bottom wall plate - since the concrete is wavy and uneven it is a potential for leaks.  They hung the door frames then began siding with new rough cedar but did not install a vapor barrier or sheathing on the walls first.    When they put the roof on the rear patio, they left a 1x2 gap over each rafter between the rafter and the steel that is a direct path into the attic for bugs, birds, bats and reptiles to enter the attic - they never did get this fixed. They used bowed beams and installed them with the bow down so as they age the roof will sag and eventually collapse.  We had him replace the bowed beams, but when he did that, he removed the spreaders and put them back in the wrong places.  He never did install any fascia boards on either the front or rear.  
The roof repair on the front entryway amounted to them putting a 2x2 piece of sheet metal over the hole in the roof, then putting new steel over it.  The front entryway roof and the front porch roof are one int the same, but the two sections are now at different angles.  He had to replace the flashing on the front porch roof 3 times before he got it close to being acceptable.
Overall, the work was very poor quality.  The bay window leaks.  There are long screws projecting through the underside of the patio roof.  There are still holes into the attic.  Less than half of the cedar got a very thin coat of sealant.  He used interior, hollow-core, wood laminate doors on the exterior closets.  The thresholds on the closets were added after the fact because interior doors don't include thresholds - and they are installed incorrectly.  The laundry closet is for a stackable unit, but all of the connections, both plumbing and electrical are less than 3 feet from the floor.  Most of the work time was after 5pm until the last week of the contract when they scrambled for 8 to 10 hours per day to finish - but never did.  The contractor sent a final bill on the following Monday via email with a note instructing us to sign the 6 change orders (for an additional $4500) and to call him to pick up the check.  The work still hasn't been completed.  We had to file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau to get final disposition on the contract.  This contractor claims to be a custom home builder but the quality of his work is below marginal and should be seriously reconsidered before entering into a contract with him.