ABRAHAMSE CONSTRUCTION

It was not a positive experience. It started out well. Dale Abrahamse made a very good impression on us, and initially the Abrahamse staff worked quickly and did good work. However, we had been assigned a project manager (PM) who was new to the company, and once it was time to bring in the subcontractors the project went off the rails. The PM was in over his head and there was no one monitoring him. (Dale Abrahamse was first out of the country and then very ill during our project.) Subcontractors failed to show up when scheduled, or showed up and left work uncompleted. There were long delays while almost nothing was accomplished, while we were paying for an on-site supervisor who could not get the PM or the subcontractors on the phone. He sometimes just sat there doing crossword puzzles. Other times, he tried to help by doing some of the work himself, which led to a few problems (e.g., he installed a shower head about 4 inches lower than we'd specified; it took him and a coworker three days to install the vent over the cooktop). During this project, we completely replaced the old kitchen. After Abrahamse installed the induction cooktop, it did not work. We exchanged the cooktop and the second one did not work either. We asked Abrahamse to check the wiring. They sent out the same electricians who had done the wiring, who, not surprisingly, did not find anthing wrong. When the third cooktop failed to work, we insisted that a different electrician come out. He found and fixed the problem in five minutes. This was supposed to be a two-month project and it took more than five to get to "substantial completion." We were supposed to be billed at intervals and we were supposed to be told if costs were running more than 10% over the estimate. Instead, the PM showed up, shame-faced, at the "substantial completion" point and gave us a bill for $107,000--27% more than the estimate. We had to make up the punch list ourselves and it took another three months to get those items finished. It was agonizing. To cap it all off, when we asked Dale Abrahamse to come to the house and discuss the experience, we did not get an apology. He was unhappy that things had gone badly; he said, "This has never happened to us before. This is my worst nightmare." HIS worst nightmare. I would never use this company again, nor would I recommend it to anyone else.