Commonwealth Restoration Service Inc

By far, this was one of the worse cases of shoddy work and bad craftsmanship that I have ever experienced. The project manager was never consistent in monitoring the work of all the subcontractors that were involved. There were many shortcuts that were taken and things that had to be redone. For example, all 3 bathrooms had to be redone due to uneven walls, cracks in the tub and not assembling the shower surround to the wall. They barely used enough clips to hold the surround to the wall. As a result, we were experiencing additional water damage. I had the representative from Kohler-Sterling to come in and assess the work. She determined that this was poor craftsmanship and that it was going to lead to extensive water damage down the road. Our hardwood floor cost $9000 to have installed; yet they did not install a new subfloor. As a result, we have numerous weakened areas throughout our house, buckling and extensive widened spaces in between planks. They knocked a hole in the foundation that resulted in continuous flooding of our basement. Our crown molding, chair rails and baseboards are loose in various areas of the house. We ordered doors that were white from the manufacturer; however, we paid to have them painted a particular color of white paint. They tried to pretend like the doors and trim were painted when one could visibly see that they were not. In some areas, the painter put a few strokes of paint on the door and none in others. As a result, we hired an attorney to sue the company and reported this to the insurance company that had referred them. The large claims adjuster flew in from out of state to assess the work and agree with us that this was poor craftsmanship. I would never hire this team to build me a popsicle stick birdhouse. It is people like this that give the whole trade a bad name and a sense of distrust. It took this company over 2 1/2 years to rebuild our house; which is more time than it took to demolish and rebuild one of the local schools in our city. There were numerous times contractors did not show up or the project manager did not come to the site.

We were out of town when the storm hit so the insurance company handled a lot of this for us, which we are grateful. Commonwealth did come out the night of the storm or right after the storm and removed the tree that fell from the roof and put plastic over the roof. They neglected to come back and check, so they dried out the house with their big dryers and heaters, only in the next storm to find that they had missed two major holes in the roof so it re-soaked everything and we had to spend another 10 days drying it out. Their subcontractors, we negotiated, we talked, we had the contract written up in detail, I had very specific details. The subcontractors did not show on time, did not come, we would contact them and there would always be an excuse. One of the subcontractors was to replace the whole ceiling and decided that they try to patch it and we came home and they ripped it all out. Then they proceeded to spray paint the walls and not remove any of our light switches covers, any of our pictures hooks and paint drips were running down onto the hardwood floors. A job that should have taken maybe 12 weeks, took six months to complete. Then six months later I kept noticing how my bathroom ceiling paint was cracking and it started popping off and sure enough there was a leak in the brand new roof that they installed, so more water damage came into the attic, the insulation and my bathroom ceiling and the repair job that they did there you can still see the crack. They painted over my cam white fixtures when they were painting the ceiling. It was a constant nightmare, but the worst part I think was that when they gave us three or four different "project managers" they fired some of there subcontractors. They promised to be here, they would have somebody in on Tuesday or whenever, and no one would come and we would give them till Thursday and then we call them and they would say well another emergency came up and we had to pull them and put them on job xyz, but no body would let us know. They sent me another bill and I had already paid my deductible and I am not to receive anymore bills and this was to go to the insurance company. I wrote them a letter telling them what to do with their bill. As far as I am concerned they failed all the way around, their service was terrible, and their contractors were horrible.

We contacted this company on Tuesday, September 3rd of 2013.   We explained to them the problem and we were told a representative named Todd would call us back.

 

On today, September 6th, at 1400, we had still not heard from their representative.  I decided to call and ask what happened.  I told the girl who answered the phone I would like a reason for dismissing us.  She said she didn?t take the message and wouldn't know, so I asked to speak to Todd?s supervisor.  So what does she do? She connects me to Todd.  I told Todd I wanted to speak to his supervisor.

I was then connected to his supervisor I think he said his name was Stan.   I explained to him we had called on Tuesday and it was unacceptable that nobody returned our call.  I asked him why we were not called back. He said there are times they lose phone messages.  He said he could come out himself to look at the problem.  Then he said Todd could come back out, but I said if Todd loses numbers, how can he be dependable at all?   I told him I would put his company on Angie?s List. The supervisor then said ?if that?s the way you feel, fine, but he?s the best in the Valley. Thank you? and then the phone went silent then click.

This is another sad example of how, many businesses in the Roanoke Valley have neither customer service skills nor a desire to compete or keep our business. This sort of arrogant mentality ?you need us? seems to resonate in this area.  He could have apologized and followed through by saying he would talk to Todd, or he would find out why they are ?losing phone messages.?  But rather than try and keep my business, he wanted to boast of his employee who lost our number.  

If you go into their website it states; ?Our philosophy is simple. We strive to deliver quality, cost-effective projects that are on time. Our employees and staff value the importance of our relationships. We respect our employees, clients, vendors, and partners. Our customer base and our reputation is built on our dependability, our experience and our integrity. We take pride in our work. We go above and beyond what is expected and we treat every job we undertake with equal importance.?

Based upon my experience, they do not keep the promise of their philosophy.  ?We respect our clients???.?our reputation is built on our dependability.?  Really, does that include a phone call back or an apology from the supervisor?  It is true that customer service can be determined by how smooth the project went.  However, it is when a problem has occurred that the company has the opportunity to shine in how they handle the problem.  Fixing a problem is where their customer service skills can be put on display. This company went against their own philosophy.