jdi.contractors,llc.

Work started at the end of January 2014.  On the day that they were suppose
to prep the space and deliver supplies, the crew only stayed a few hours
to prep.  The next day, the crew was supposedly involved in a car
accident, and Nicole informed me in the late afternoon that the crew
would start work the next day.  On many occasions, I expected Nicole or
the crew to arrive in a certain time frame, and they would be late or
not show up.  For example, I was expecting Pablo to come over on a
Sunday, and Nicole informed me around noon that day that Pablo was sick,
but he and the crew would be there "first thing" on Monday morning.  By
mid-morning on Monday, the crew was still not at my place, nor had I
heard from them.
Most of the work was completed by mid-February over budget at a final cost of $5500.50.  While some of the
cost overrun reflects changes I requested, Nicole admitted that she
probably forgot to include items like the cost of closet doors in her
material estimate.  There were a number of small details that still
needed to be finished.  Most notably, JDI had to special order the
pocket door for our master closet and doors for the linen closet.  We
went back and forth many, many times about the delivery date.  In
mid-March, Nicole said that Home Depot made the mistake of not putting
my order through.  In early April, Nicole texted me to say that the
doors would be delivered on April 16th.  The day passed with no word
from Nicole.  On April 21st, she e-mailed me to say that she had "a
tragedy occur in my family," her assistant dropped the ball in
reordering the doors, and she would be sending us a check to refund the
cost of the doors, as well as the door specs from Home Depot as she was
disassembling the company.
By mid-May, I still had not received a check from Nicole or door specs.  Her phone number was no
longer working, and she had not responded to any e-mails since her
message on April 21st.  My husband drove to the address listed on JDI's
business card where he met Nicole's mom.  He left our contact
information and asked Nicole's mom to have Nicole contact us.  Again, we
did not hear from her.  My husband visited the address again in late
May, where we received a partial refund for the closet doors from
Nicole's mom.  As of early June, we are still waiting for the remainder
of the refund and door specs.  We will need to pay another contractor to
install the doors and trim work, as well as other finishing touches
that JDI did not complete.

Let me start off by saying that I really, really wanted to write a stellar review.  However, with any involved project, there are bound to be issues.  So, rather than just highlight the issues, I figured I would go category by category and try to ? as objectively as possible ? paint a picture of our experience.  I will add that my husband and I are new to renovating and that this was our very first project (Yes, we took on kitchen remodeling first ? can you tell we are new to this?), so if things that we describe are commonplace in the industry, please excuse our knit-picking.  We just wanted this review to be as thorough as possible.

Initial Meeting:  I learned about JDI Contractors through another contractor on Angie?s List that was highly rated.  When I reached out to him about redoing our kitchen, he said he didn?t serve our area but suggested we reach out to JDI Contractors.  JDI Contractors responded quickly to my email, and Pablo, the foreman/owner, came out to my house on time.  The estimate took about 1 hour.  I received a quote a day or so later in email.  Their quote was significantly lower than the other quotes I received from contractors in the area.  I designed the plans on Ikea?s website, and after showing them the images, they explained that the job should take 3-5 days.

Pricing:  We got 3 other quotes, and JDI was far, far lower than everyone else. 

Contract Signing:  After we informed them that we would be using them for our kitchen remodel, the owner, Nicole, came by our house with a contract.  We asked if we could take a few days to look it over, but she pushed us to signing it that day.  I took a few minutes to review it, and then signed it.  The contract detailed every item they would be doing.  [Editorial Note: Read everything that?s listed and anything that?s not listed, and know that anything that is not listed explicitly on the contract will cost extra.  While this may be intuitive, it wasn?t initially to me.  I thought that the contract, when it said ?Install Cabinets,? included the installation of the trim/kicktoe on the cabinets.  It did not, and that needed to be added later. 

Likewise, while my Ikea drawing had a microwave, the installation of the microwave was not included as a list item and needed to be added later on.  Just a word of wisdom to folks like myself that are new to renovating.]

Start Date:  Nicole, after having to move my date at my request due to an unexpected family visit, gave me a Monday start date.  The night before that Monday, I got a request to move the start date to Tuesday because they were running behind on their latest project.  I said that would be fine, and they started on Tuesday instead.

Timeliness/Speediness:  Before their start date, Pablo said they would be at our house no later than 8:30am.  That day, I took off work to be able to help them get started on the work.  They did not arrive until 9:30am.  Although they told us they would start their work every day by 8:30am, I don?t think they ever made it to our house before 9:00am, and some days, they didn?t get there until 11:00am. 

The project was not completed in the time frame originally proposed.  During our estimate process, we were told the project would take 3-5 days.  While there were some surprises along the way (the plumbing and some of the electrical needed to be redone) and Pablo did become ill at one point, the project in total took 15 days (which does not include the additional time it took for them to come back to do the backsplash and fix some additional items ? that was 18 days in total).  This includes one day for an illness, one day for a Federal Holiday, one day because of snow (although, Pablo said in a text that his plans had been changed that day by the owner), and one day because they didn?t have sufficient crew members to come in to do the work.  Even if you count those four days, the project took 9 days, rather than 3-5 days.

Crew Size:  Our kitchen is small, so I didn?t anticipate needing many folks, but more often than not, it was just Pablo doing the work, while sometimes he was joined by one additional person.  On at least two occasions, Pablo explained that he needed to go home or couldn?t continue working that day because he needed an additional crew member.  It seemed most crew members were being used for another project.

Quality of the Work:  I?m glad I took a bit of time to post this review.  At first, their work seemed great, and I was ready to say that this is where JDI Contractors shines.  However, after a month, I started seeing problems with their work.  Nails started coming undone (although they were fixed by them with no issues), and the grout they put on our floor started cracking.  In addition, their workman-style was not always without minor issues (i.e., they kept putting screws to connect our cabinets where the door hinges needed to go, requiring them to remove several screws several times).   They made the hole for the microwave on the wrong side of the cabinet, so that it no longer can be fixed and I am unable to use the bottom of one of my cabinets to accommodate for the cable.

Communication:  I think Nicole, the owner, is really (really) busy, and it?s hard to get a hold of her.  There were many times that I sent emails that went unanswered, or I was told by text that she would call me that evening, and then she never did.  I likely was a tad bit demanding ? and who wouldn?t ignore a person like that ? but still, if communication is your thing, I will warn you that trying to communicate with Nicole was trying at times.  However, after explaining to Pablo my frustrations trying to communicate with Nicole, he became available to me via text and phone, and that made the process go far more smoothly.

Cleanliness:   At first, they kept the worksite impeccable.  Things were lined with plastic and tape, and they would clean up after every night.  I was thrilled.  As the job progressed though, the worksite became a mess.  At one point, I had to just take the day to clean up because there were boxes, materials, and tools everywhere (including over my hardwood floor without any protection).  That being said, after the work was done, they did try to clean up a bit, although my house is still covered with a layer of dust.  They also left some food in my fridge, and little bits of garbage inside the cabinets and on my outside deck. [Editorial Note: I don?t like smoking, and you should know that Pablo smokes.  I never saw him smoke in the house, but I did find some cigarette butts on my wood deck after they left the worksite.]

Damage:  For the most part, they did a great job of keeping everything intact.  However, our wine rack downstairs fell down (and several wine glasses broke), when they drilled through the floor.  I didn?t know they were going to drill through the floor (otherwise, I would have taken them down), but they probably should have checked before drilling.  They did put the wine rack back up.  They also broke a stone transition piece by mistake, and offered to pay for it.

Billing:  They expect 60% up front, and the remaining 40% at the completion of the project.  Their bill itemizes everything, including every single material purchased for the work.  I felt their billing was honest, and it was reasonable.  Almost everything that was added to the final bill (with the exception of electrical work for the microwave, and the demolition of the basement wet bar) was discussed beforehand over email.  [Editorial Note: I did catch that an item that was in the original contract that was also added to the addendum.  After I pointed the mista

Everything went great. Pablo was at my house when he said he would be, looked over what needed doing, quickly necessary materials, and was done within 3 hours.