We sat down with five contractors going through the process. We were very impressed to find out that the person who came to give us our initial consultation was the owner of the company, Jeff. He was prompt and very professional. We had a lot of questions for him and also wanted his opinion on several concepts for our deck and patio. He gave us great, explanative, reasonable answers for all of the answers to our questions.. He came back to our home two more times; once to show us a sample of the under-decking and another to go over the final plans with us one more time. He took a a week longer than other companies to get us an initial estimate, but his estimate was detailed and easy to understand. His estimate included everything we had discussed. We also felt like his estimate was, by far, the fairest of all of our estimates.
Jeff?s prices seemed very reasonable, but his estimate came in way below everyone else. We were so blown back by the difference in his prices compared to our other estimates that we contacted Jeff to confirm. We emailed him directly on a Friday afternoon, and he called us back within 45 minutes. We were very concerned about the low estimate because people always warn you about going with the lowest estimate. We went on Angie?s list and read the reviews of everyone we talked to. We also used another rating service that is local to the area. NorthCraft had, by far, the most reviews, and the majority of the reviews were overwhelmingly favorable of them. NorthCraft?s reputation and professionalism, combined with their very fair estimate, convinced us to go with them.
One thing I should note is that I had a *lot* of questions for Jeff before we even started construction. He always called me or emailed me back within 24 hours and was very patient with me. He treated us well throughout this process.
The thing that impressed us the most with his pricing was that his price for a wood deck was the same as the national chain that has a fairly favorable reputation. Jeff only wanted an additional $1,000 to use composite instead of wood though. Every other company that we received a bid from charged a minimum of $5,000 to upgrade from wood decking to composite decking. We had already shopped around at lumber yards to select the type of composite decking we wanted, andwe also compared the prices of the different materials. When we learned that the entire frame of the deck is regular pressure treated lumber (not composite), and that only the surface boards of the deck are composite, we realized that the increase in cost for the composite over the wood shouldn?t be a huge increase in cost because the deck is still mostly made with lumber. Once we came to that realization , it became clear to us that we were dealing with an honest and fair person. It really increased our confidence in our decision to use him.
Jeff got us the plans for our HoA in about a week, and secured the needed county permits very quickly. The scheduled start date (the last week in July) was three weeks after the signing of the contract, and they started on the day they promised. Before they began, Jeff gave me the phone numbers and email addresses of the project manager (Ronald) and the field supervisor (Aldo). I?ll note that Ronald and Aldo were both perfectly bilingual, which made it easy to communicate clearly and easily with them. They arrived promptly at the time promised, and Aldo explained what was going to be done to make sure our expectations were the same. He went over the project timeline told us what to expect through the process. He answered all of our questions and made sure we were able to contact him whenever we needed.
Ronald worked onsite with one other person, and Aldo managed multiple projects. They both gave us updates throughout the process and discussed any problems or complications with us in a timely manner. Throughout the process I had a lot of questions, and they were both great about answering them. I could get a response from a text message in less than an hour most times.
Ronald and Aldo estimated that it would take two weeks to build the deck, but it took two weeks and three days. I?m very satisfied with the time it took for them to finish because there were some unavoidable delays due to weather Ronald and his coworker worked hard and put in long hours on a few days to make up for that. Some of our composite decking was delivered damaged, and Aldo let us know that it would take a week or so to get new boards for the deck. I told Aldo about a local lumber yard that carried the composite decking that we were using, andhe went out and got the decking from them right away rather than waiting the additional time to use his contact. Because of Aldo?s willingness to do that our project was only delayed a few hours instead of a few days.
NorthCraft estimated that it would take a week to construct the patio. It took their subcontractors all of two days. There were five people working on our patio at once, and they all worked very hard. The patio turned out great. Aldo sat down with us and the subcontractor to make sure we were all on the same page. The subcontractor?s project manager, Joel Jr, was wonderful to work with. Joel Jr was also perfectly bilingual, and we had no problems communicating with him.Our patio has a curved edge, and we were very impressed by how well they were able to construct that feature. We were especially blown away with how quickly they got the patio completed.
After the deck and patio were finished, we had to have the gutter system installed for the under-decking. It took a couple of days to get the subcontractor out to do it, but he did it in less than a day.
Before we had the low-voltage lighting installed by the patio, we wanted to do some landscaping around the patio. Ronald was willing to wait the few weeks we needed to complete our landscaping, and then he only took a half day to complete that for us.
We also elected to have the wooden parts of our deck stained. NorthCraft finished that a few weeks after the project was complete to allow time for the wood to dry out.
The level of craftsmanship that NorthCraft displayed on our deck, as well as their subcontractor?s level of craftsmanship for the patio, was very high. The process went well, and we?re thrilled with the final product. We will use them again if we move to another home that has no deck or patio, and we highly recommend that you use them as well.