The first big oops happened when she forgot which way the deck boards were supposed to run and framed the deck (w/ the help of her children no less) w/ the supports running the wrong way. I had my earliest feeling things might only get worse about that time. I wish I'd listened to that inner voice saying how now would be a good time to look for someone else to complete things. As you can guess, it did only get worse. To be fair though, it must have been hard for her too given how little she actually knew about carpentry and her crew who knew even less. Her con was in the smooth talk that would placate my concerns with promises that things would all work out in the next step or, at the very least, in the end. Only she knew she wasn't going to finish it as promised. Handshakes are also meanginless her. Then one evening she disappeared w/ check, some of my possessions and many feet of lumber. Months later I'm still hiring people to fix or complete work that she'd promised would be done before winter set in, 3 months ago. The upside is that I've met a lot of very nice, skilled guys who do know what they're doing and I wouldn't have otherwise. Most importantly, I was able to cover up most of the truly horrible mistakes her crew made since she did little of the work that "shows". Except for the deck where some of the boards are slipping in their moorings already. And Trex had tried to design them work better. Don't ask how she screwed that up too but mainly, don't hire her.
Description of Work: I hired Ms. Danforth to build a one-car carport and a low deck that wrapped around 2 parts of the house. The carport measures 16' x 20' and is supported on 5 piers w/ 6x6 cedar posts. The deck was only one step up so no railings or anything fancy. Simple L-shaped Trex deck fastened w/ the new invisible clips between boards.
Rating Category
Rating out of 5
quality
2.0
value
1.0
professionalism
2.0
responsiveness
3.0
punctuality
3.0
$17,000
Response from Andrea L. Danforth, Building Contractor
I met member when I sold her a sink. In her driveway were 5 cement supports that had been poured for a carport she was going to build. One of the supports had been knocked over and clearly was not deep enough, nor did it have enough rebar to pass code requirements. I have done construction for 26 years and knew to point these things out to her. Member said she was a carpenter and was going to run the project herself with help from an old carpenter friend. She asked if I would help them. That’s how the nightmare of working with this woman began. She said she had the permits already. I repeated to her that the supports wouldn’t pass code, which is why one had fallen over before any lumber arrived on the job. I told her I wouldn’t build on them and she agreed to redo them to code. Her carpenter friend was injured and she said she wanted a deck built while we were waiting. She gave me a rough sketch, which I still have, showing the framing. She wanted to cut costs by building with 1x6’s but I refused to do that and had to have the people at the Trex company tell her that the minimum framing needed for their product was 1x8’s. I built it according to her drawing, but used the correct lumber dimensions. I know decking boards run perpendicular, any idiot does. She’s claiming the deck was built incorrectly, but the deck was built to her drawing. Who’s the idiot and why didn’t she say something while we were in the process of building it? The children came into it because she had a pile of cement stepping-stones where the deck was supposed to go along with old, half rotten lumber. To save her labor costs, since we were working on a time and material basis, my seventeen-year-old son and his nineteen-year-old friend (hardly a kid) cleared the area and moved everything to where she specified. That was the extent of the “children’s” work on the deck. Needless to say, her haphazard preparation, her cheapness to the point of wanting to use rotten wood and old nails, made helping with her project quite challenging. I found out she based her carpenter claim on the fact that she had bought tools from a carpenter who had gone out of business. That, in her mind, qualified her as a carpenter. Since she had no clue about what she was doing the only thing I could be sure of was that the work I did passed code. During the workday, she found excuses to get me alone inside, kept inviting me in for lunch and to stay for dinner. She didn’t want the other female carpenter on the job. I kept her on in spite of member cutting her wage because she was good and I wanted to get finished ASAP. Member thought my male set up/clean up and helper guy was a better carpenter and wanted to pay him more than the accomplished female. Another day member asked me to help her organize files on her computer. As I was helping her, she clicked on a nude photo of herself, painting her hallway. I thought she’d opened it by accident, and told her she should label it so no one would stumble upon it. She closed it, but re-opened it a short time later, at which point I said I had to go. It was a Friday, so she paid me. The next day she called and said not to deposit the check because she hadn’t transferred the money. The next Tuesday, I asked her if the check was good. She said it was, but she wanted to put a cap of $1,000 for the rest of the project. I told her it couldn’t be done for that and went cashed her check for the prior weeks’ work. The next day she accused us of stealing a toolbox containing Forstner bits. That was enough for us. All the time we’d been working we knew she never locked her car, house, or tool sheds. We put her lumber out of the weather underneath her trailer, packed our gear and left. She sent me an email the next morning asking if we could work it out. I didn’t get it until the afternoon, but by then she had sent another rant accusing us of stealing the lumber as well as the toolbox. I again told her where the lumber was and repeated that I’d never seen the toolbox and had never used it. She did find the lumber and sent me an email saying she’d found it with no help from me. So why here does she still claim I stole the lumber? Clearly it’s a case of her being upset that her sexual advances were not welcomed. I later heard that she’d found the box with the Forstner bits as well. She never had the decency to call to let me know she had found them or to apologize for accusing me. For the record, all of my work passed the required building inspections. At the beginning of her “review”, she stated that the work was finished October 1, 2010 and that the work was completed. Even that’s incorrect. We left after the 1st week in December 2010 and did not finish, we did not take anything that was not ours and we did not get paid for our last week of work. As I told her, “You are a nutcase and full of s**t.”
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Service Categories
Garage and Shed Building
FAQ
Andrea L. Danforth, Building Contractor is currently rated 2 overall out of 5.
No, Andrea L. Danforth, Building Contractor does not offer free project estimates.
No, Andrea L. Danforth, Building Contractor does not offer eco-friendly accreditations.
No, Andrea L. Danforth, Building Contractor does not offer a senior discount.
No, Andrea L. Danforth, Building Contractor does not offer emergency services.
No, Andrea L. Danforth, Building Contractor does not offer warranties.
