SEAN PALKER CARPENTRY

I do not recommend Sean Palker for carpentry work. I was not completely satisfied with the work that he performed, but when he left my house I was so angry with him that I don?t want him to ever come back. That is not the way any business person should want to finish a project. I would classify him as a capable carpenter, but unprofessional in his business style and unacceptable to work with. Here is my story: Sean scheduled his work to start on July 8th, when he got back from a vacation. I had a house painter scheduled to start when he completed the railing so it was important to stay in communication. I called him on the 5th to confirm that we were still on schedule to start on the 8th ? he never called me back. I called once a day until the 8th, no reply. On the 8th, the day he was supposed to start, I called 2 or 3 times and got no reply. It wasn?t until the 10th that I got a call from him saying that he could start the following week. His unresponsiveness made my life more complicated because I had to keep pushing out the painter with no understanding about a start date. He offered no apology and didn?t really seem to care that he was completely unresponsive to his customer. Conversely, on the day he finally finished the work, he repeated called me so that he could get his check. He called me about 8 times throughout the day. I was in meetings all day and called him as soon as I was able. He said he was finished and wanted his check right then. I couldn?t believe he had the nerve to demand payment immediately, especially when he didn?t even return my calls for days after he was scheduled to start work. I told him I was angry with him for his unresponsiveness and replied that he was angry with me too, for delaying him. [In fairness to Sean, here is that part of the story: His work had to be coordinated with other trades and they kept getting delayed, which in turn delayed Sean?s start date. The difference is that I gave him as much notice as possible regarding delays. There was also a miscommunication with the roofer about the anchoring. Sean came out to the house and removed his work which was an extra unbudgeted trip. Part of that was not Sean's fault, but I also had problems with the strength of the anchor so he would have had to re-do it anyway] Back to the story?when I got home around 7:00 PM, his truck was parked in front of my house?he was camped out waiting for payment! He wanted to be paid immediately because of his cash flow issues. I understand that he needs to pay his workers, but his cash-flow is not my problem. I told him that I had to inspect the work and I needed my wife to be happy with it too before I would pay the last half of the fee. This seemed to really anger him. I asked him for a final invoice and that seemed like a foreign concept to him. I told him I was not going to pay him without some record of the work being completed and payment requested. He hand-wrote the invoice and added in very passive-aggressive notes regarding the extra work that he wasn?t going to charge me for (noted above), and he tagged on an extra $50 for some ?extra? work on the interior. To me the $50 was a just a way for him to take a jab at me, but I was so angry with him at that point that I just accepted the extra cost to get him out of my life. Regarding why I?m not happy with his work: Though he claimed that he built the railing per my drawings, he did not. The railing posts were too high and he used butt joined wood for infill panels instead of a larger panel that would fill the entire space?the vertical line between the panels is completely visible even after the painters sanded, sealed and painted it. I asked him about that and he gave me a line about it being better because of expansion and contraction. Really? I think he did that because he didn?t want to send more money on a different size of material. On a side note, his worker, who was a nice guy and did good work, left the water running on my outside hose in my backyard. I discovered it about an hour after he left?my backyard was flooded. Imagine what would have happened if I didn?t notice it until a day later? I do not recommend Sean Palker.

Very happy with results. Would definitely use again. Fair pricing.